Secession and the Consent of the Governed

P.S. Huff
Saturday, January 21, 2012

According to Brad DeLong, Ron Paul "at some deep level" does not think blacks are people. His evidence? Paul had the audacity to invoke the "consent of the governed" in the course of defending Southern secession.

That would indeed be a strange argument to make, if the South had seceded in response to a federal edict abolishing slavery. But as DeLong surely knows, that is not what happened. The South seceded "over slavery," to be sure; but there was no imminent threat of abolition.

2 comments:

brad writes:

You don't think southern Blacks wanted to stay in the Union in 1861?

How very odd of you...

Brad DeLong

January 21, 2012 4:15 PM

P.S.H. writes:

How so? Remember, we're talking about the very beginning of the crisis. At that point, all staying in the union meant for the average slave was that his slave-master could invoke the Fugitive Slave Act against him if he escaped to the North.

I'm not suggesting, to be clear, that Southern blacks were enthusiasts for secession. That would obviously be ridiculous. But do you know of evidence that they were Unionists?

January 21, 2012 6:23 PM

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