In Pursuit of Happiness; W. Williams

The Pursuit of Happiness • History The Civil War's Tragic Legacy T he Civil War produced at least two impor tant outcomes. First, although it was not President Lincoln's intent, it freed slaves in the Confederate States. Second, it settled the question of whether states could secede from the Union. The causes of and the issues sur rounding America's most costly war in terms of battlefield casualties are still controversial. Even its name-the Civil War-is in dispute, and plausibly so. A civil war is a struggle between two or more factions for control of the central gov ernment. Modern examples are the conflicts in Lebanon, Liberia, and Angola. In 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confed erate States, no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington wanted to take over London in 1776. The Confederate States were fighting for indepen dence from the Union. Whatever one's senti ments, the conflict is more accurately charac terized as a war for Southern independence; in the South, you frequently hear it called the War of Northern Aggression.

Unrestrained Government History books most often say the war was fought to free the slaves. But that idea is brought into serious question by Abraham Lincoln's repeated disclaimer: "I have no purWalter Williams is the John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and chairman of the eco nomics department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. 63 by Walter E. Williams pose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The real causes had more to do with problems similar to those the nation faces today-a fed eral government that has escaped the limits of the Constitution. John C. Calhoun expressed that concern in his famous Fort Hill Address of July 26, 1831, when he was Andrew Jackson's vice presi dent. Calhoun, who later became a senator from South Carolina, said, "Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail."

Calhoun, like Jefferson, feared Washing ton, D.C.'s usurpation of powers constitution ally held by the people and the states ("con solidation"). For example, of the tariffs enact ed to protect Northern manufacturers, Calhoun said that "an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its pro ceeds appropriated to the North." Import duties extracted far more from the South than from the North, and Southerners complained of having to pay either high prices for northern-made goods or high tar iffs on foreign-made goods. They also com plained about federal laws not dissimilar 64 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JANUARY 1999 to the Navigation Acts that helped bring on the War for Independence. The Nullification Doctrine A precursor to the War Between the States came in 1832 when South Carolina called a convention to nullify the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832. Branded "the tariff of abomina tions," the duties were multiples of previous duties. The convention declared them uncon stitutional and authorized the governor to resist federal efforts to collect them. After reaching the brink of armed conflict with Washington, a settlement to reduce the tariffs in steps-the Great Compromise of 1833 was reached.

South Carolinians believed there was precedence for the nullification of unconstitu tional federal laws. Both Jefferson and James Madison suggested the doctrine in 1798. It was used to nullify federal laws in Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and the New Eng land states. The reasoning was that the feder al government was created by, and hence was the agent of, the states. When Congress threatened to raise tariffs to unprecedented levels and the Republican Lincoln was elected president, a special South Carolina convention unanimously adopted an Ordinance of Secession and a "Declaration of Causes" stating that "We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused for years past to fulfill their constitutional obliga tions .... Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States; and the conse quence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation .... " Continuing, the Dec laration, asserted, "We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates in Con vention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America is dis solved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate .and independent state, with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which inde pendent States may of right do." The next year war started when South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter, an island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

The principal-agent relationship between the states and federal government was not an idea invented by South Carolina in 1860; it was taken for granted. At Virginia's conven tion to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the dele gates said, "We delegates of the people ofVir ginia ... do in the name and on the behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them, and at their will." The clear and key message was: the people of Virginia, through their delegates, entered a contractual agreement with the several other sovereign states and created the federal gov ernment as their agent. When the federal gov ernment violates their grant of power, the peo ple of Virginia have the right to take back the power and fire their agent.

In light of the outcome of the War Between the States, the federal government can do any thing it wishes and the states have little or no recourse. A derelict U.S. Supreme Court refuses to do its duty of interpreting both the letter and spirit of the Constitution. That has translated into the 70,000 federal regulations and mandates that controls the lives of our cit izens. It also translates into interpretation of the "commerce" and "welfare" clauses of our Con'stitution in ways the framers could not have possibly envisioned. Today, it is difficult to think of one elected official with the states man's foresight of a Jefferson, Madison, or Calhoun who can articulate the dangers to lib erty presented by a run-amok government. The prospects for liberty thus appear dim. The supreme tragedy is that if liberty dies in America, it is destined to die everywhere. D February 1999 Ideas On Liberty' Vol. 49, No.2 6· 10 14 18 122 27 29 32 34 40 42 47 The Government Spiral by Eric Nolte On Airports and Individual Rights by Tibor R. Machan There's No Philadelphia in Europe by Norman Barry Come to America, John Paul by David Boaz Unhappy Returns by Harry Dolan Distrust and Verify by Dwight R. Lee and Jeff R. Clark Sen or Sense by Barun S. Mitra Abolish Legal Tender by D. Alexander Moseley Small Is Awesome by Max More A Program the Borg Would Love by Karen Selick Wisconsin's Choice by Jon Sanders The Life of a Grand Old Liberal by Wendy McElroy Center 12 20 138 145 52 63 NOTES from FEE-Countless Wonders by Donald J. Boudreaux IDEAS and CONSEQUENCES-Privatize the Airports! by Lawrence W. Reed POTOMAC PRINCIPLES-Alliances: What's Friendship Got to Do With It? by Doug Bandow PERIPATETICS-Captain Consumer by Sheldon Richman ECONOMIC NOTIONS-The Market for Honesty by Dwight R. Lee ECONOMICS on TRIAL-A One-Armed Economist, Please by Mark Skousen THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS-The ILO's Strange Use of Words by Charles W. Baird 2 4 54 Perspective-Monster by Sheldon Richman We Need a Global Fed? It Just Ain't So! by George Selgin Book Reviews -New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education, edited by Diane Ravitch and Joseph Viteritti, reviewed by George C. Leef; Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: Tax Revolts that Built America by Charles Adams, reviewed by James A. Woehlke and Nikolaus P. Woehlke; Enterprising Southerners: Black Economic Success in North Carolina, 1865-1915by Robert C.