Restoring America One County at a Time
Chapter 3: “County Rights”
3.1 Local government in a free America
The basic premise of localism, of this project to Restore America One County at a Time—and therefore, the basic premise of what I casually call “County Rights”—is that civil government power should be a decentralized as possible. This article is part 1 of the issue of localism: the ideal of freedom and how we once had it in America.
We need to acknowledge that States’ Rights—though much better than all power being centralized in a large national government—is not a good enough answer to national tyranny. “States’ Rights are for sissies,” as a friend of mine says. Give me “County Rights.” That’s decentralized power. But lest my libertarian friends needle me by pointing out that Counties can cajole and extort too, I prefer to argue that civil government power should be as decentralized as possible. If it is possible to get to the level of family and individual sovereignty in terms of civil government, then we should welcome it in society.
As we shall see here, localism and decentralized power is the best expression of freedom in government, and it was the way America was originally founded. This is the way it used to be in America, and it worked. So I would like to discuss, briefly, localism or “County Rights” in both principle and practice.
In principle, limited and localized government is an outgrowth of specifically Christian thinking; particularly the demands that 1) rulers are not divine, but themselves subject to a higher law, 2) private property is to be protected and conferred with its own governmental powers under law, and 3) social relationships are based on legally binding contracts, 4) power tends to allow for corruption and should therefore be limited, checked, and safeguarded. In short, we have a society based on religious faith, property rights, honoring of contracts, and individual responsibility—all fundamental things derived directly from the Ten Commandments. And of course, with all of these things is assumed the right to life and the protection of life.
To understand these things properly, we need a little background. What is a “county”? Where did such a name come from? The answer to that question is found in the medieval feudal system of government (“feudalism” is not a bad word, despite many modern liberal scholars). A “county” was the area of land governed by that member of the hierarchy of nobility called a “Count.” A “count” owned and governed a “county,” just as a “duke” did a “duchy.” This was the French name for the rank. In England, the equivalent division of land was a “shire”—a name coming from the Latin word scire, meaning “to cut” or “to divide” (we get our words “scissors,” “shears,” “schism” and others from this same word, including our word “share,” as in “shareholder”). It was a division of land apportioned to a particular property owner (usually as granted by the King or other higher property owner). After the Norman invasion of 1066, the English usage of “shire” gradually fell out and was replaced by “county.” Later, in the American colonies, there were only six divisions ever called “shires” and this was in Virginia in 1634. A couple years later these were renamed as “counties” and that name stuck throughout America ever since. Regardless of the name, however, the point stands that our most basic units of government are derived from the original basic units of property ownership. The basic premise is of government is one of private property, and that each owner of property is the governor of what he owns. And of course, under the Christian society, this owner’s government was not according to his own law, but to God’s.
In such a society, ideally, there would be no need for higher governors. But of course, this is neither possible nor practical yet. We live in a world still marred by sin, and crime exists and needs to be deterred and punished. But, crime exists on all levels of life, including those in higher ranks. This means that sinful men fill positions of power as well (perhaps especially), and thus we should seek to have the powers of punishment and force radically distributed throughout society so that no individual or group ever has too much power or power over too great an area. If there’s going to be a tyrant or corruption in civil government, it’s better to have administrative units as small as possible and as separated and independent as possible, so that 1) the tyranny is limited to that area, 2) the tyrant has limited resources with which to work, and thus can’t easily spread, 3) people in that limited area can easily escape to better places, and 4) that tyrant will be facing a whole host of surrounding jurisdictions and forces ready to intervene for at the very least the sake of peace. When there’s another layer of government above the local (which is usually the case), the local units can appeal to the higher powers; disputes between locals can be settled by private arbitration between them, or by appeal to the higher courts if necessary. If the higher powers try to exert tyranny, the local governments must resist, and if necessary band together to resist as a group.
Click to Buy
This is exactly the nature of what happened in Anglo-American history, during the construction of that famed document the Magna Carta. In 1215, in the midst of feudal society, the Kings had for several generations gradually moved closer to absolute power; the land barons had enough. It was really the wane of the old feudal system, and because of the King’s grasping at more and more power, absolutism was gaining early strength. It was the representatives of the local land owners who gathered together to oppose King John’s extensive attempts at solidifying absolute power and raising taxes on them: it was these protectors of private property who drafted the Magna Carta. In doing so, they fell back on the old feudal ideas of fixed contractual obligations on the part of each side—the land owners paying a predictable and tolerable tax, and the King being subject to the powers of law upheld by a representative assembly of the barons (as well as protection and proper courts, etc.). The document is often perceived as some advance in political theory because it looks a little like modern representative government being advanced against monarchy, but in reality it was a conservative document, aiming at securing ancient rights of property owners, the rule of law, and the upholding of contracts—things that had been established in England for years.
As I said, this society is based deeply in Christian thinking and biblical law. In the right to life we see the commandment against murder. In the sanctity of private property, we see the commandments against theft. In the upholding contracts, we see the commandment and against false witness. We could also easily explore the centrality of the family and inheritance, expressed in the fifth and seventh commandments. We could also explore the guarding of property and inheritance against the jealousies of others found in the tenth commandment.
One modern political philosopher noted the derivation: “The limited state is a creation of Christian thinking, particularly of Augustine. It arose from the fundamental experience of the Incarnation, the appearance of God in human form at a definite place and time of human history. Christian thinking about politics was based on a new discovery about the destiny of man: man lived in order to attain fellowship with God.” (Gerhart Niemeyer, “Two Socialisms,” Modern Age: The First Twenty-Five Years, a Selection, ed. George A. Panichas (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1988), 587.) In other words, beyond the mere popular idea of Christianity, the idea of limited government is based in Christian theology: it is a political development based upon the previous theological development of the historic Church councils, particularly Nicaea (AD 325) and Chalcedon (AD 451). Because only Jesus Christ is the perfect man, and the only God-man, this means He alone has the final word of human jurisdiction. He is prophet, priest, and king. No human government, therefore, has the right to wield supreme or final power on earth, whether in family, church, or state. All people and all rulers must bow the knee to King Jesus, obey his commandments, and love one another as equals before God. (See my book Manifested in the Flesh, 2006, chapters 8–9.)
All of these biblical and theological ideas are visible in and fundamental to the old feudal system, despite the flaws that also existed in that system.
Why I cover this, and why it is relevant to the United States history we are about to see, is that the idea of federalism is related directly—both in principle and in name—to feudalism. “Federal” is related to “feudal” and refers to governmental relationships based on contractual agreements, or covenants, between various levels of government. The contract established a bond between the parties—for example, a King and a Colony, or a Colonial Government and its counties—which established obligations for each party, and protected each party in regard to those obligations being performed. If those obligations were not met, then sanctions could be enforced, or the bond could be declared null and void.
It was this very type of covenantal relationship which the American colonists in 1776 argued had been violated in regard to them by King George III. The colonies had each been established with charters which themselves established feudal land grants and recognized the ancient feudal rights of free Englishmen. But things had gradually changed—especially in England—over the decades. In 1688, Parliament overreached its bounds by usurping the absolutism to which the King once aspired. It began a series of attempts to extract taxes from the colonies. King George did nothing, and the colonies regarded this as a failure on his part—they in fact considered him complicit in the act of aggression and tyranny. The Declaration of Independence was federal document, announcing that the King had failed in his end of the contract, and thus it had become necessary “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”
The Declaration—aside from the famous language of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which is all we normally recall—goes on to list two long trains of abuses. The first list includes abuses on the part of the King himself, and the second, those in which he has “combined with others”—a.k.a. Parliament—“to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.” The colonists considered Parliament a foreign party to their colonial charters and governments, and thus King George’s failure to protect the colonies against Parliament’s encroachments and taxes was a breach of the governmental contract on his part. For this failure, and in order to retain the freedoms they expected under the original agreement, the colonists united with the willingness to fight and die if necessary.
Thus it is instructive to look at the nature of colonial government during that time—especially the time before the Constitution—in order to see what a decentralized, truly free and federal society look like, especially as derived from the old system of genuine federalism. Thus, second, we shall examine the practice of limited government:
Click to Buy
The fundamental unit of government was the county. The so-called anti-federalists during the Constitutional ratification period argued for local sovereignty on the part of their States, as opposed to the nationalists (improperly named “federalists”) who wanted a strong central national government with direct jurisdiction, taxation, and military power upon the people (bypassing the State and local governments as convenient). Men such as Patrick Henry rightly argued that a truly federal system would only allow a national government to interact with the States, not the counties, townships, towns, or people. In a truly federal system, only counties dealt with people, States only dealt with counties, and the Constitution should only deal with States. They were obviously fighting for States’ rights in a particular context; but the principle for which they stood goes much deeper—all the way to the county and smaller. And long prior to the Constitution, this is mainly the way American was founded: county sovereignty.
The Massachusetts General Court in 1635 made an Act that delegated most governmental authority to the local level. It read:
Whereas particular towns have many things which concern only themselves, it is therefore ordered that the freemen of every town, or the major part of them, shall have only power to dispose of their own lands and woods, with all privileges and appurtenances of the said towns to grant lots and make such orders as may concern the well-ordering of their own townes . . . to levy and distrain, . . . also to choose their own particular officers, as constables, surveyors of highways and the like.[1]
Wertenbaker explains, “Under this act the town became to the State what the congregation was to the Church. Localism in religion, which had become so vital a feature of Puritanism, was to be matched in New England by localism in government.” (Wertenbaker, 45). Note two things: 1) that the government was a direct mirror of their form of church government, and therefore, 2) their civil government was radically decentralized. This system was derived directly from old England feudal arrangements. The New England Congregationalists delegated even greater powers to the local level than did other groups (New Jersey Presbyterians, for example), but the system was generally true throughout the colonies.
And this lasted for two centuries. Remnants of this decentralized system of government lasted into the 19th century. When the French observer Alexis De Tocqueville toured the country in the 1830s, he could still leave with the impression that “every village forms a sort of republic, accustomed to govern itself.” (Democracy in America (London: Everyman’s Library, 1994), 406.)
And at the local level, a deciding influence for all forms of local government and culture was—as a federal society would have it—a Christian covenant. Some of these were simple; for example, the early Pilgrims used this formula as the basis for their society: “We covenant with the Lord and with one another and do bind ourselves in the presence of God to walk together in all His ways, according as He is pleased to reveal Himself unto us in His blessed word of truth.”[2] Others were much more detailed. The Northampton covenant read,
Disclaiming all confidence of, or any worthiness in, ourselves either to be in covenant with God or to partake of the least of His mercies, and also all strength of our own to help covenant with Him . . . by relying upon His tender mercy and gracious assistance of the Lord through Jesus Christ, we do promise and covenant in the presence of the Lord, the searcher of all hearts, and before the holy angels and this company, first and chiefly to cleave forever unto God with our whole hearts as our chief, best, yea and only good, and unto Jesus Christ as our only Savior, husband and Lord and only high priest, prophet and king. . . . We promise and engage to observe and maintain . . . all the holy institutions and ordinances which he has appointed for His Church. . . . And as for this particular company and society of saints, we promise . . . that we will cleave unto one another in brotherly love and seek the best spiritual good each of other, by frequent exhortation, seasonable admonition and constant watchfulness according to the rules of the Gospel.[3]
And the benefits of such a decentralized society were many. For starters, taxation is specifically and only local. No state or federal agencies have any direct access to your property or income. Now I don’t support a property tax in general—I think it’s a violation of the biblical doctrine of private property: he who must pay a recurring tax on what he owns, or otherwise face forfeiture or distrainment, does not really own it. But historically the property tax allows us to see where the fundamental unit of government in America really was—and it is one aspect that persists today. This is the county—the only agency that has the authority to tax you on your property.
But since this system is entirely local, all the aspects of it are tied to a local vote: the level of taxation, the type of taxation, and the agents of taxation. The tax assessor in most counties is an elected official. These can be voted out, impeached, removed, overridden, defunded, or moved away from if necessary.
Secondly, in a decentralized society, law is generally local law. There is no issue of having nationalized healthcare, welfare, taxation, military draft, or anything else forced upon you by distant, disaffected, self-interested legislators. There is no issue if your local county or town votes almost unanimously to display the ten commandments in its court, or even to require a Christian test oath to hold a public office. The neighboring counties may not approve of it, but that’s the beauty of decentralization—you can move two miles and be in a jurisdiction you like better. Or, if you like your chances, you can stay and work for political change at home. It will sure be easier to achieve change locally than as it is today nationally. Life is so much better when you have three dozen choices available than when a one-size-fits-all government “solution” is crammed down your throat.
Localism means both civil law and criminal law are local law. When criminal law is local, the main law enforcement in society is the county sheriff. The old John Birch society had a similar vision with its “support your local police” campaign, but it appears to me to take this to the point of a fault. More on that later. When criminal law is local, the legislation itself, as well as the agents of enforcement and of justice, is elected. This is seen in our county legacy: sheriffs are elected, and judges and magistrates are elected, as well as county commissioners and other local legislators and directors.
Remember the old Robin Hood scenario? Remember Robin Hood’s great enemy? He was the Sheriff of Nottingham. Our word “sheriff” comes from the Old English “shire”—which we’ve already discussed—and “reeve,” who was a representative of the king. The “Shire-reeve” was the King’s agent who came to the local shire to collect taxes. He was an agent of the central government. But not in America! He was a local elected official, accountable to his local shire (county), and susceptible to being removed at the next election. And in times of moral lassitude, when the local population began to accept corruption and not vote it out, again, it would not be far to move, if you saw it necessary, and if it came to that. In short, when the sheriff is the agent of the central government, you have tyranny; but when the sheriff is a local elected representative, you are closer to freedom.
Click to Buy
Likewise, civil law was county law mostly. I can assure you, gay marriage would not be acceptable in my county. There would be no deliberation about it, and the first judge who peeped in favor of it would be voted out in a heartbeat if not impeached on the spot. Let that liberal joker move to one of those really blue counties on the west coast, not in my back yard. Instead of having to win a washed-out general election stacked against all forces of politics and media and big money across the whole country, our grass roots would be the ultimate voice in law and leadership. Your society would reflect your values, instead of being weaseled by special interests and spineless politicians and activist judges.
This is a taste of localism: a world in which government is as small as possible, people are generally free, their societies mirror their own values, government is accountable and generally unable to spread tyranny. It is based on the Christian concepts of protecting life, protecting family, property, and contracts, and holding public officials accountable to the law before God. This is the only way to have a free society. And having such an emphatic local focus is the only way we will ever be able to restore freedom in America. The focus on Washington and the Supreme Court will do nothing but rearrange the forces of top-down, centralized tyrannical “solutions.” States’ rights will not even do it, though it is important. We need localism. We need county rights.
We have seen also that this vision of local government was the original American way. It existed, and it worked. The next question, of course, is, if society was so decentralized and free, how was it lost? And how was it so far lost that we’ve never really even heard about it until now? While it would be fun to skip to the “how to get freedom back” part, understanding how the freedom was lost is vital to knowing what exactly to undo, and preventing it from happening again. So in my next discussion, we will talk about how America has grown from the radically decentralized, voluntarily settled, free society of 1776 to the massive government bureaucracy, empire, and centralized near-police state that it is today.
Endnotes:- Quoted in Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy: The Founding of American Civilization (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1947), 44–5. It is important to note that the phrase “the freemen . . . shall have only power” in the language of that era really means to indicate that “the freemen only” shall have the powers described, as the context makes clear. [↩]
- Quoted in Wertenbarker, 58. [↩]
- Quoted in Wertenbaker, 58. [↩]
Joel McDurmon, M.Div., Reformed Episcopal Theological Seminary, is the Director of Research for American Vision. He has authored four books and also serves as a lecturer and regular contributor to the American Vision website. He joined American Vision's staff in the June of 2008. Joel and his wife and four sons live in Dallas, Georgia.
Joel, what you propose here has already been proposed hundreds of times and tried several times in history, and it has consistently failed every single time.
Here are my points against your article:
1. You assume that the only forms of government that are possible, are unitary governments (such as that of Great Britain) and a government system based on localism. In other words, government power is either given to the highest level of government or to one of the lower levels, but it’s never divided. Government power is always centralized into one level and the rest of the levels are just its minions. Any conservative should recognize this as dangerous.
2. Because of your assumption about all governments being either unitary or localist, you assume that the United States must then have a unitary system of government, because it certainly doesn’t look like a localist one. This is completely contrary to what the Founding Fathers made the United States into. They had been under both systems (under a unitary one before the Revolution, and under a localist one during and slightly after the Revolution), and they understood the dangers and faults of both. Thus, they chose to equally divide the powers between the levels of government, so that neither one would become too powerful.
3. What makes you believe that when all government power becomes vested into the local governments, they will be better stewards of that power than a central government would be in a unitary system? What makes local governments any different from federal or central governments (other than the fact that they are localized)? Most states’ rights and localism advocates whose articles I’ve read (correct me if I am wrong to assume you share this view with them), state that local governments should have most of governmental power, because they are more easily controlled than upper levels of government due to being “closer” to the people. This is a myth. Lower levels of government are just as abusive of their power as higher levels. The reason you don’t hear too much about local government abuse of power is because of the statist media that only pays attention to national and international issues and because of ardent states’ rightist propaganda. One example is the recent resolution passed in Cedar Falls, Iowa requiring all public building owners to attach a box with keys for their buildings next to each door, so that authorities such as police officers and firefighters can enter in case of an emergency. (More on it here) What makes the people in Cedar Falls be more able to fight such blatantly anti-constitutional measures than the people of the state of Iowa, supposing the state government had passed the resolution? The only four options that the people in Cedar Falls have are, (1) resort to their guns and stick a revolution in their city, (2) stage a referendum to nullify the resolution or remove the city council from office, (3) vote the city council out of office in the next elections, or (4) since this is a constitutional issue, file a case in federal court. Though #1 is a little bit impractical and #2 too leaning toward democracy, the people in the state of Iowa would have exactly the same choices supposing the government of Iowa passed a similar resolution. So how exactly are local government more “controllable” than higher levels of government?
4. In this article you say that the counties should ally together in what you call federalism (but what is more more properly called a confederation), creating higher levels of government which will settle disputes between them. There are two problems with this proposed system. First, it opens up the way for so-called international governments such as the European Union and the United Nations. If counties can ally together and form a nation, what’s to stop nations from allying together and forming an international government (more like an empire)? Second, since this proposed system is not to be a nation in the truest sense of the word, but a confederation, it’s only binding document (if there is one) can be a compact, a sort of alliance. Since it is only a compact, or an agreement, it does not have the binding force of law, nor . Thus, since it does not have the force of law, there is no rule of law on a national and state scale. Then, on what basis are the higher levels of government to decide law suits between the counties? The higher levels of government basically become international courts, whose rulings only have force if both counties in the suit agree with the decision of the court. This makes higher levels practically practically useless. So why keep them? Just get rid of the higher levels of government and let the counties go on on their own. The counties then become their own little nations. No problem with that (if one takes your view).
5. If decentralization (I mean it in your definition; true decentralization of power is when power is evenly divided between all levels of government) of government is really so good, that the more we have of it the better, then why not go further down the line? Decentralize power to the cities, towns, neighborhoods, streets, and so on. No, go even further. Decentralize government power to the families, and even further down to the individual. How about it? The problem, I hope you realize, is that the further you go down the closer and closer you get to pure democracy, until you get to the individual. Then it turns into anarchy. Exactly this same thing happened in the French Revolution. The people of France, instead replacing the current rulers, with other, better ones, chose instead to grab political power for themselves. That is when the anarchy of the revolution exploded.
6. Lastly, the view that you hold is a piece of the puzzle that holds together the Two-Kingdom Theology. I will save that for a later post, as this one is already too long.
Boehner Do not cave in to those Communist, Thugs, Marxist, Socialist, Liberal government Officials in Washington!
Stop Spending the Country Broke!
Hey Mitch; We the people say not just NO! BUT; HELL NO!
Obumba needs to GO! – IMPEACH!
NO MORE dept Increase!
In America we have electoral Officials NOT dictators!
There is no reason to default!
It is called prioritize!
Pay the Necessary Bill!
Quit Borrowing!
Quit Spending!
No MORE vacations!
Take Government Employee Pay CUTS by Minimum of 20% starting with the highest paying positions 1st.
Since Obama has so much money himself and lives for free off the Taxpayers Dollar. He should be the first to take a Pay cut – (NO paycheck for Obama) No Pay at all!
I am a small business Owner the first to get cut is ME! So the same needs to go for the President!
No more Gulfing Trips, No more shopping trips, no more parties, No more high dollar meals and alcoholic beverages, No more traveling, No more vacations, park the vehicles, Park the plans – jets and helicopters, CUT the credit CARDS!
FIRE THOSE CZARS – Without Pay!!!!!!!!!!
Obama wants to spend this Country BROKE!
Stop! Spending us BROKE!
NO MORE ICREASES FOR THE DEBT-LIMIT!
NO more FAKE Stimulus’s
Quit sending OUR MONEY Overseas!
Stop OBAMA’S Deficit Increases!
Stop Obama’s Tax Increases!
Cut the deficit!
NOW!
CUT several Trillions! – AND Not only 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 or 10 or 12. NO that’s not enough!
MUCH MUCH MORE make CUTS, Quit printing, Quit Spending!!
…NOW!
Not over decades!
Immediately!
OPEN your EARS and Listen!
Immediately!
No more Taxes!
Reduce the Tax Rates!
Quit Spending!
Reduce the size of Government!
OPEN your EARS and Listen!
Immediately!
Reduce! STOP! Reduce! STOP!
Stop! Stop! Stop!
Stop destroying AMERICA!
NO more Deficit Increases!
No more Taxes!
Quit SPENDING us BROKE!
Joel, as usual, this is excellent. However, I would like to challenge you to consider an area that, if we truly, intend to return to Biblical government, must also eventually be jettisoned. In fact, it perhaps epitomizes more than anything else we are trying to overcome – that is, man’s sovereignty versus Yahweh’s. I’m talking about elections of any kind. Consider voting from a strictly Biblical paradigm. Voting is totally unbiblical. Voting empowers (“sovereigns”) the people rather than recognizing Yahweh’s sovereignty. I added the following to “Article 4: Republic vs. Theocracy” (of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution”) just yesterday:
“Constitutionalists insist the United States government is a republic, not a democracy, but they never stop to consider that the two are virtually the same:
‘democracy … a government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.’ (Websters College Dictionary)
‘republic … a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly them.’ (Webster’s College Dictionary)
“Christian Constitutionalists insist republics are Biblical. However, because democracies and republics both rely upon the majority vote of the people for the selection of their leaders, rather than upon Yahweh’s choice (as per Deuteronomy 17:15), neither form of government is Biblical. Both democracies and republics culminate in a government of, by, and for the people rather than a government of, by, and for Yahweh. The same is true with other issues voted upon by the people: ultimately the majority’s will is exalted over the Yahweh’s will.”
Much more regarding the non-Biblical nature of elections can be found in “Article 2: Executive Usurpation” at http://www.missiontoisrael.org/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt5.php
“Thus it is instructive to look at the nature of colonial government during that time—especially the time before the Constitution—in order to see what a decentralized, ”
—
Why not call this period what it was, the Articles of Confederation not to mention the many downsides that came from it, in the interest of Liberty? Washington and Hamilton, the Federalist, sided away from it at the Constitutional convention and in the Federalist papers because of their experience fighting the Revolutionary war under it. Rick Brookshire has some excellent work which covers some of these things.
Well, I am happy to call the period of the Articles by that name, but it covers only 1781 to 1788. I am talking about the entire colonial period before 1781 as well—a much longer period than that of the Articles proper. In fact, most of the war for Independence was fought with no national “constitution” at all. Hamilton, et al, shied away from the Articles for reasons I will discuss friday. In short, they were new tyrants—all lawyers, generals, and financiers after more power to do things their way.
No, because they were “Tyrants” is not at all why they moderated away from it. See Revolutionary War history.
also, the larger period you suggest wasn’t true self-government. They had something that since 1776 we’ve had to start doing ourselves, they were under the Security and financial system of the British. It was subsidized to them, similar to how we still help protect Europe post WW2. The colonist didn’t have to worry much at all about any of those things such as being a world leader, it was given to them during that time frame by their parents the British.
“My idea is that we should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs, and separate ones in what is merely domestic”
- Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Be sure to throw him under the bus along with Hamilton and Washington as the ‘new tyrants’.
Excellent article. Joel, I am very much enjoying this whole series of yours. One point I’d like to emphasize, however:
We should make it clear to what extent localism is our ideal, and to what extent it is merely pragmatic. There are those who speak of localism or states’ rights, against centralized tyranny, but in actuality, these people merely want a more localized tyranny. They do not oppose tyranny per se, but merely wish to have more decentralized tyranny. They do not have a principled advocacy of liberty per se. For example, Luther Martin opposed the Federalists and spoke of states’ rights, but one of the things he wanted his state of Maryland to be able to continue to do was to print paper money, and he saw the new Constitution’s prohibition of this as tyrannical. In other words, Luther Martin opposed the Constitution because it would prevent tyranny, and he wanted the sovereign locality to be allowed to continue to perpetrate tyranny.
So we have to make it clear whether we want localism per se, just because, as an end unto itself, or whether we want liberty per se, with localism merely a convenient means to that end. Joel, I think you fall into the latter category, with your saying, “If it is possible to get to the level of family and individual sovereignty in terms of civil government, then we should welcome it in society.”, but I still think the point could be emphasized more.
John C. Calhoun had a famous concept of “concurrent majority”, meaning that separate units each count independently for the purposes of determining whether a majority existed, to enact some policy. That is, it was not enough for the federal government to have a majority in Congress, but rather, each state counted too, and each individual state also counted, and each state needed to have a majority in itself in favor of that policy. This was an extension of the concept of interposition and nullification (cf. John Calvin, Institutes, 4.20.31 and Madison’s and Jefferson’s Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions), but given a new rationale. Previously, the rationale had been an axiomatic, understood one that local authorities had the duty to interpose and protect their subjects from superior authorities, and Johannes Althusius’s Politica articulated this with a coherent philosophy, by saying that individuals covenanted to form towns, and towns covenanted to form provinces, and provinces covenanted to form commonwealths, and commonwealths covenanted with other commonwealths to form international relations, and Althusius said that each layer of government interacted only with the ones above and below it; for example, towns would interpose on behalf of their residents against the province, and provinces would interpose on behalf of their towns against the commonwealth, etc., each layer of government acting on behalf of its subsidiary unit, interposing to protect them against the higher layer of government, which had been formed by covenant (the towns had covenanted with each other to form provinces, for example). As Joel said, “Men such as Patrick Henry rightly argued that a truly federal system would only allow a national government to interact with the States, not the counties, townships, towns, or people. In a truly federal system, only counties dealt with people, States only dealt with counties, and the Constitution should only deal with States. They were obviously fighting for States’ rights in a particular context; but the principle for which they stood goes much deeper—all the way to the county and smaller.” But back to Calhoun: Calhoun gave a different explanation for interposition and nullification, namely concurrent majority, that each individual unit has a right to count for its own independent sake, with a majority needed not only in the superior body, but also in each inferior body, unto itself. But Murray Rothbard notes, in “The Anatomy of the State”, that if so, then a majority should be needed not only in each state, but also in each county, in each town, and even in each individual. I.e., why should states only count for “concurrent majority”? Why shouldn’t individuals too? After all, says Rothbard, the whole point of the government is to protect individuals, so why shouldn’t individuals be entitled to represent themselves, individually? So, says Rothbard, Calhoun’s concept was true, but he should have taken it farther, to the level of the individual, and allowed each individual to nullify a law or secede from the government, each individual being sovereign in himself and a majority of each individual unto himself being required for a law to be authoritative.
I think this problem of misunderstanding localism, and confusing localism for the sake of liberty, with localism for its own sake. Localism is made into a god, and a cargo-cult results. I think this is seen in Kenneth A. Lockridge, A New England Town : The First Hundred Years : Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1736. Lockridge shows how the original Puritan covenants were truly based on consensus, with “covenant” being understood to require unanimous consensus. A town’s covenant had to be signed by everyone, and disagreements (usually about how to utilize and apportion and regulate public land) were solved not by the fiat of a majority, but rather, by forming a consensus by arbitration. Nothing happened until everyone agreed. Lockridge notes that this was because of the Puritan conception of loving your neighbor, which caused them to abhor using any sort of coercive force or hierarchical authority to enforce anything. The problem, says Lockridge, is that after a generation or two, this consensus broke down, as the descendants were not always the pious Puritans themselves. It was no longer possible to achieve unanimous consensus. However, instead of concluding that this necessitated a decrease in the power of government, and a shift to a more laissez-faire regime (i.e., if you cannot achieve a consensus on what the government ought to do, then have the government do nothing, and privatize what had previously been public), instead, he says, the Puritans broke the towns into smaller towns, with each town maintaining the same magnitude of political power, merely within a smaller territory. That is, the people didn’t get the message, that the lack of consensus and inability to secure a unanimous decision indicated a problem in their very concept of government. Instead, they tried to maintain the status quo of the magnitude and form of government, merely relocating it to smaller territories whose form of government was conceptually the same as before in the larger territories. For example, if not everyone in the town could agree on which minister ought be supported from public funds, which different people supporting a different minister, then they split the town up, and each new town had its own minister paid from public funds. But it would have been better to realize that the very concept of a public minister was problematic, in and of itself, and the disagreements about whom to appoint, ought to have revealed this theoretical flaw, and led people to the conclusion that churches ought to be laissez-faire and independent, with no coercive power to extract the minister’s wages by force. (In fact, Lockridge shows that the use of taxation to pay for the ministers was a relatively late development. Previously, they were paid for by voluntary donations. So the second and third generation Puritans were becoming progressively more statist and less libertarian than their ancestors.)
What I mean is, I think that often a certain form of government seems decent and fine – meaning not tyrannical – only as long as a certain unanimity prevails, but that once people’s opinions change, the flaws in the government are revealed. In the Talmud, there is discussed the history of public education, and by a certain point in history (namely the Mishnaic era, in the early centuries CE), it was accepted that there ought to be a public provision of education. (This system was pioneered by Yehoshua ben Gamla, the high priest, around 64 CE, according to the Talmud, Baba Batra 21a.) Today, there are Orthodox Jews I know who insist, based on this, that we must continue to have the civil government oversee education. What these people do not understand, I believe, is that there is an enormous different between a unanimous consensus in Talmudic times about what education ought to be (everyone was a Pharisee; the Sadducees were the party of the pro-Roman Hellenizing elites, while the Pharisees were the popular party of the laity), versus today, when there are numerous sects. It is one thing for the Talmudic Rabbis to provide public education when everyone universally agreed on what the curriculum and who the teachers ought to be, versus today, when every sect (and I mean merely sects within Orthodox Jews, nevermind non-Orthodox Jews and gentiles) has a different conception of what Judaism is. What an honest person ought to do, I believe, is recognize that the proliferation of disagreements reveals a previously unrecognized flaw in the system. Centralized public education should never be seen as legitimate, but back when there was a consensus on the curriculum, no one recognized the inherent potential of tyranny. The potential for despots to usurp the system and use it to indoctrinate and propagandize, and use taxation to subsidize philosophies contrary to the consciences of the taxed, is not recognized when there are no disagreements. It is not recognized as potentially tyrannical when there happen to be no dissidents. Only when dissidents arise, is the potential tyranny made apparent, and an honest person ought to recognize that the theoretical underpinnings of the system were flawed all along.
Back to Lockridge and the Puritans, then, I would say that after a generation or two, when the descendants of the original Puritans were not so Puritanistic anymore, what ought to have happened was, that people should have recognized that their town governments had too much power, and that matters needed to be made more laissez-faire. Again, if you cannot secure a unanimous consensus on what the government ought to do, then it ought to do nothing. The whole point of classical-liberal social contract (think Locke, as opposed to the Rousseau-ian form), which originated from Reformed Christian federalism (covenantalism), was that the government was a delegated body with power of attorney to perform certain functions. It is always assumed that in the state of nature, a group of men unanimously consented to appoint certain individuals to perform a certain task. In their conception, government resembled a private security agency, with its customers being only those who chose to consent to membership. It was closer to anarcho-capitalism than to democracy (democracy is a form of socialism). Althusius’s Politica opens with a discussion of private business contracts (the collegium), meaning that for him too, government is to resemble a private agency, with liberty of association. When there is no longer a consensus, and someone wishes to secede from the association, he ought to have that ability. Too often, however, we take the tack that Lockridge shows the second and third generation Puritans did, namely to attempt to maintain, coercively, the nature of the government, and merely tinker with the territorial borders. Whereas the original Puritans required unanimous consent to the covenant, the later Puritans moved in the direction of democracy, allowing a majority to rule over a minority, and trying to reduce the friction by breaking the town into multiple, smaller towns, but still believing that the majority could rule over the minority, in whatever territory may be. They forgot that localism was a means to liberty, and began to worship localism per se as its own god, thus abandoning covenantalism and moving instead to democracy, to the famous New England town hall style. The original Puritans were relatively socialistic, but it was unanimous socialism, a sort of anarcho-socialism. Their descendants dispensed with the requirement of unanimity, and moved to democratic, statist socialism.
My point is this: given some level of permitted governmental power, beyond which any additional governmental power is by definition tyrannical, this level of permitted government power is legitimate regardless of the size of the territory. If the government may execute murderers, then it doesn’t really matter how territorially large or small the government. If the government may not censor speech, then again, it doesn’t matter how territorially large or small it. There are things the government may do, and other things it may not do. Now, all things being equal, a more local government will be safer, it being easier to control and keep from sliding into despotism when the leaders abuse their power. But this is a merely practical, pragmatic matter. Theoretically, whatever the government may or may not do, is independent of the territorial size of that government. The degree of localization or centralization is merely a means to help ensure that the government maintains its rightful scope of authority, with smaller governments being easier to control, but the theoretical scope of authority per se, is not truly affected by size. If executing murderers is the duty of the government, then theoretically, it matters not whether it is the county sheriff or the king of the entire planet earth who does so. If we realize this, that localism is merely a means to an end of maintaining the government within its rightful sphere, then we will not make the mistake of deifying localism in and of itself, and believe that the local county government may do whatever it wants as long as 51% of the people vote for it; we will not err in believing that democracy (socialism) is tyrannical for the central government but legitimate for the local government. Luther Martin, for example, made this error when he believed a national ban on paper money was tyrannical because he wanted his own state to be allowed to continue to print paper money.
Again, excellent article, and thank you.
Let me clarify one thing I said above, what I mean when I said that Reformed federalism and classical-liberal social-contract theory were akin to anarcho-capitalism, with government resembling private agencies with liberty of membership and delegation of power of attorney:
I don’t mean that the government could do only what it was delegated to do (by consent), and that it could do only what it was delegated to do (by consent). For example, I do not mean that the government can execute murderers only if the murderers consent to their own executions, or that the government can commit genocide on unpopular minorities if only the government’s customers delegate it to do so. That is absurd. That is closer to Rousseau than to Locke. Such a conception is still statist. Rousseau said that whatever 51% of the people want, the government can ipso fact do, and tyrannical rule over the 49%. I argued that the Reformed federal and classical-liberal social-contract theories prevent this, by requiring unanimity, and making government a private association of only those who agree to consent to membership, but this would still be legal positivist tyranny, if the government’s own private membership could consent for it to do anything, for example, if the government’s private membership unanimously delegated the government the authority to commit genocide.
So to the requirement for unanimity must be added another requirement: transcendental, higher law. Whether you call it Biblical theonomy, or natural law, the point is, the government must have unanimity and it must be obeying the higher law. For example, if the government wishes to execute murders, this desire meets natural law, but there must also be a unanimous consent of the people to pay the taxes and appoint the specific police officers and court judges. The people can secede and appoint a new police force and court system. Murderers will still be executed either way, and the murderers cannot say that they do not consent. Their lack of consent is irrelevant. What consent is needed for, is for the taxpayers to consent to pay the specific, appointed officials, and agree to abide by the specific form of government as it is established.
So the way I see it, what Reformed federalism and classical-liberal social-contract are about it, is this: the unanimous delegation by people, by consent, to making a specific set of officials, and a specific form of government, and a specific financing system, their appointed means to carrying-out natural law. Natural law (by which I mean God’s law) must be carried out in any case. You cannot consent to the government’s executing something other than natural law; you cannot appoint someone else to sin on your behalf. So you can appoint someone to carry out God’s law, but no one else’s law. But, you still have a right to choose who your appointed representative is, to carry out God’s law on your behalf. Just as you can choose which house of worship to frequent and which minister to pay, you ought to be able to choose who will execute murderers on your behalf, and if you believe he is executing the wrong people, or is taxing you more than is necessary to fund his delegated activities, then you ought to be able to secede and appoint a new representative. So whereas Rousseau said that 51% can choose, in a majoritarian fashion, to execute their own human-authored, legal-positivist law, I submit that Reformed federalism and classical-liberal social-contract require both unanimity and obedience to God: a given group of men have a right to appoint, by majority, a given second group of men as their delegates to execute God’s laws on their behalves. But no one’s law other than God’s may be executed, nor may any individual be coerced into belonging to the group if we wishes to secede, withdraw his consent, and appoint someone else instead as his delegate to execute God’s laws on his behalf. No one should be coerced into paying taxes for something opposed to his conscience. This was already said about churches, and thus, the state-established churches were disestablished, because it was tyrannical to be forced to pay taxes to pay for a church you oppose, but I see no reason this should not be applied to police and courts and justice too. The First Amendment is about anarchy in the area of religion, and I don’t see why we cannot have anarchy in the area of justice and security too.
The problem, says Lockridge, is that after a generation or two, this consensus broke down, as the descendants were not always the pious Puritans themselves.
This seems to be a constant. Why? And why is it more pronounced in societies that allow people to think for themselves? So if I am allowed to think for myself and I reject the concensus of the previous generation are we moving forward or backward, however clumsily. Some will say it depends on how close the previous generation followed God. Okay, so if the previous generations ideals were more in tune with God than mine,which is always the case according to many, I have to ask why did that happen? It seems like this constant, next generations thinking differently than previous ones, is at odds with God. Some will say the next generation, as a whole, has been led away by forces at odds with God or the next generation IS a force at odds with God. So if the latter is true, then can those people be said to have been made in the image of God? Not possible right? All are made in the image of God. So if the former is true then can it be said it’s all thier fault?
This was a great comment, thank you. If true, it solidifies my belief that all life is an absolute WONDERFUL mess.We must continue to think freely, live and mostly love. I believe a consensus would be horrible. But, there may come a generation that proves me wrong.
Another great article Joel! Mary : We’ll get it back again after the great uncle sugar daddy goes broke and then it’ll be every county/ town for itself. When there’s no more federal money coming in because the gov’t destroyed it, then localities will have to make do with what they have without the great uncle santa clause doling out the free gifts. This is how God wants it. He doesn’t want us worshipping the god of gov’t that takes care of us from cradle to grave like we have now. Only God can do that. Civil gov’t is only here to enforce God’s laws and His Church is supposed to enforce us and keep the civil gov’t beholden to God. When we get back to God, He will take care of our every need. Somewthing no gov’t in world history has ever done without oppressing and stealing from its people. Keep ‘em coming Joel! I can’t wait until you address the right of self protection from not only bad guys, but the civil gov’t as well!
Dear Mr. McDurmon:
I can hardly express how thrilled I am at this marvelous case you have made for local government, and surely, it is as close to the ultimate solution to our problem of oppressive, massive and centralized government that we can ever hope for. At least, it seems so to me.
The sad part is that we had it, and yet, we lost it !
What can be done ? The monster of the central government is now so immense that there seems no
way we can reverse it. Note that I did say “seems” because I do believe we CAN strive for a return for local government and that we must ! But how ? And how long will it take ? And can we retain it if in fact we do reclaim it ?
Thanks for your work – it gladdens my heart and encourages me to read what you have written on
this subject.
It also raises the question – was the concept, devising and ratification of our Constitution, which I have always revered and upheld, a good idea and did it accomplish it’s intent of ensuring liberty to Americans. Apparently it did not – given our present situation. Some say it was a mistake from the beginning ! I have read that no less a man than Patrick Henry opposed it !
Of course, it may have been superb and a great idea but it has been violate by oath-breaking scoundrels; not the document’s fault.
I hope you will continue to write on this subject and that you will share ideas as to how to move toward the restoration of the County concept.
Mary Rutkowski
Post Falls, Idaho
This is good!