From Spooner:

"It is true that the theory of our Constitution is, that all taxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily entered into by the people with each other; that that each man makes a free and purely voluntary contract with all others who are parties to the Constitution, to pay so much money for so much protection, the same as he does with any other insurance company; and that he is just as free not to be protected, and not to pay tax, as he is to pay a tax, and be protected.

But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life." And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol [*13] to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves "the government," are directly the opposite of these of the single highwayman."

It's a great post that begins with Socrates and ends with John Hancock, although it's a shame he had to kill that cowboy feller.

I believe T.J. Madison has a point in regards to taxation: the bunch that signed the DOI were the "old guard" by the time of the Constitution, and the new bunch wanted federalism to have taxation authority (Probably the mess of the country's finances had something to do with that -- how little has changed!) Taxation proved to be crack to democracies: as long as people could get elected to take money from one group to pay off another (for good or bad causes), there was momentum towards total taxation. We're already over 50% -- that is, over half of what you make goes to somebody else against your will.

On another thread somebody laughed at the idea of cutting taxes, as if it were some kind of silly political stunt. People are regularly asking to be taxed more. I think they are going to get what they are asking for.

Ah, but there was no direct taxation of individuals by the federal government until 1913. In fact, the original Constitution actually forbade it, which is why an amendment had to be passed to do it.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

"sic semper tyrannus" shouted the man at Ford's Theatre.

Grim, you seem to be working from a conclusion, seeking the reasons afterwards.

I fail to see how there is any natural right to rebel, barring death or threat of death. It cannot be said that is is rational or moral to take one's life or place oneself in a position where one's life would be forfeit, or subject oneself to the threat of destruction. Accordingly, there is a natural law argument that a government which is conducting itself in a way that poses a significant risk of death may justify rebellion, but the risk must be significant enough to outweigh the risk of death as a result of rebellion.

Instead, the Revolutionary War signifies the British Crown's failure to maintain sovereignty over distant colonies. Maintaining sovereignty required either the consent of the governed or the sword. It largely relied upon consent; when consent became qualified, the Crown declined to fully use the sword. Sovereignty qualified is sovereignty lost. Its no less true when the rebels are Taliban or minutemen.

I believe the contribution of the Enlightenment to this subject is in reciprocity and reason. The political theorists of this time saw the relationship of government and governed as one having mutual benefits. Good citizens make a good state and a good state makes good citizens. Once that relationship becomes central, then reason may be employed to argue that the state may have powers best not employed.

John Hancock was a smuggler.

Thus the IVth Amendment.

We have lost respect for the smuggler and the IVth.

"Grim, you seem to be working from a conclusion, seeking the reasons afterwards."

Indeed, that's right. America is the conclusion with which I begin, and it is her reasons I seek after. The United States is based on a system of thought that is alien to the classical tradition of the West.

That being the case, it's necessary to sort out what must be true instead. If Jefferson was right to assert what he did -- the conclusion with which I gladly begin -- then what are the underlying ethics? What does it say about the relationship between man and state?

Anyone is free to conclude -- as Sam -- that Socrates was right and Jefferson was wrong. What interests me is the question of what it means if Jefferson is right. I think he was, and so the answers to that question are important to me.

An excellent post, but I think towards the end it seems to justify rebellion based solely on its likelihood of success. While a rebellion which cannot succeed can never justify its violence (it may be able though to justify its disobedience to some degree), a rebellion which can succeed through violence is still not justified by the fact that it wins the wager alone. Rather, it must all be that the evil which persists is greater than the evil which would be caused by the revolt. In other words, the rebellion must have a just cause.

The Confederacy's rebellion is not justified precisely because the cause for which it was undertaken - namely, at its root, slavery - did not justify the destruction of the community of which it was a part. While there were many causes to the civil war, there is little reason to believe that without slavery the South would have ever considered itself forced 'to the point'. The Confederacy believed in 'freely entered, freely parted', but the better analogy would have been to a divorse, 'freely entered, but leavable only at great cost'.

Revolt and rebellion against the society is, as Socrates says, a terrible thing. But it is not the most terrible of things. Revolt is never to be lightly undertaken, but at some point the evils of a tyrant become greater than the evils of revolt. Again, stretching the analogy, we would never (or I should say 'ought never') council a person to leave a marriage simply because their in some sort of malaise, but on the other hand there is some level of abuse past which we would never (or 'ought never') council someone to remain that relationship 'for the good of the family' or some other communal justification.

If you look at Socrates thinking, colored as it was by the fractous Greek tribal society, with its many betrayals both small and great, Socrates makes the claim that there is no degree of tyranny - no ammount of abuse the 'parent' can heap on a 'child' - which justifies the child defending himself or separating himself from the relationship. While we cannot easily measure what ammount of tyranny justifies revolt, nor can we make any hard and fast rules because the degree of evils brought about by a rebellion vary from situation to situation, nonetheless I think that it is safe to say that we can recognize unsufferable abuse when we see it and we can generally recognize justifiable revolt when it happens.

Frankly, I consider the ultra-libertarians who believe that community has no right to impose regulation, rules, and even taxation on a person to be quite as silly as those that believe that the person is wholly owned by and subject to the whim of the state. Both are unreasonable extremes. There is great good in (and great need of) both society and the individual. One cannot wholly trump the other.

To be short, the problem with Socrates argument is that virtue is not always the grace of the state (or the superior), and vice not always the condition of the slave (or the inferior). When society finds itself thus upside down, the 'slave' is justified in overturning it for the good of himself and of the society.

However, and this is the big catch, before the act is justifiable, the 'slaves' assessment must be correct.

I gather you don't have a complaint with the concept that the 'probability of success' is a valid test to the righteousness of a rebellion. Indeed, that's a fundamental part of Just War theory (and, like much of what we are discussing today, solidified in Catholic moral thinking).

What you're arguing is that probability of success is a necessary condition for justifying a rebellion, but not a sufficient one.

I don't think I disagree with that, and I don't think I meant to imply otherwise. A successful rebellion on, say, totalitarian fascist principles would surely not create a morally acceptable new state.

As to the specific example of the Confederacy, I am here thinking of A Nation of Our Own by X. This is an account of the early days of the Confederate States, including especially their own Constitutional convention in Alabama. It focuses on the similarity between the modes used by Washington and Jefferson (both slave owners, of course) and Confederate leaders, who saw themselves as proud inheritors of the traditions of both men. And surely, indeed, they were that -- not only the same forms but the same principles that justified the Revolutionary War were brought forth to justify this second rebellion.

The complaint you field is that slavery would have been the basis of the Confederacy in a way that it wasn't the basis for the early Republic. That may be true. However, it should also be noted that the Revolution really did justify itself on the same principles, and really did make the same exception from those principles for the institution of slavery. What we are talking about is a difference of degree, not kind.

Is that difference of degree sufficient to make the early Revolution moral and justified, and the Confederate one unjustified and illegal? I'm honestly not sure how to draw that line. If the Confederate States had succeeded as a project -- which it almost did at several points in the war -- would it have been a worse tyranny than the slaveholding parts of the early Republic, or the parts that profited by the slave trade? That would seem to be the necessary question to answer, and I don't know how to answer it. It probably cannot be answered with certainty.

By the same token, it's easy to think of several rebellions against US Federal authority that were justified even though they failed (but might have succeeded) -- say, Chief Joseph's. I think we can safely say that, although he failed, Joseph was not acting immorally.

Oops. :) I was writing from memory, and meant to look up the precise title and author of the cited work before hitting "post." The proper citation is: A Government of Our Own by Willaim C. Davis.

Grim,
I'm going to ignore the "classical" part because my exposure to that was well over forty years ago in required for graduation philosophy and humanities courses.
Enlightenment thinking?
As there were three "enlightenments", British, American and French, I'll have to choose French for the one you're referencing. The anti-Catholic (with some justification) thought that led to 18th Century Europe's version of Cambodia's killing fields.
The American Revolution/Rebellion was a consequence of the English Crown and Parliament
refusing to give the North American colonials the same rights as those confered on Englishman in England. If these rights had been extended prior to 1776 there would have been no Declaration and no Revolution.
Speaking of 1776, you use the term "rebellion is a human right", when it's obvious the right was that of a society, not an individual human.
Jefferson, remember, believed that the new Nation was one which should be ruled by a paternal intellectual meritocracy overseeing a basically agrarian society. He also accepted and believed in the French Enlightenment's belief that the only morality was that of Reason.
This belief, parroted by the likes of Darwin, Freud, Marx and Hitler has led to untold human suffering.
Regarding the War of Seccession, I can see no "just war" theory therein supporting the Confederacy's aggresion. Maybe there are a number of Constitutional law experts who can logically and rationally disagree with Lincoln's belief that "A house divided against itself cannot stand". After all, the slave issue was not part of the 'official' war justification prior to 1864.
You know, bottom line, I'm probably just too obtuse to understand where this post was going and what actions it wanted to justify.
Mike

This was not intended to justify anything, Mike. It's an exercise in pure philosophy. Sam asked what I thought was an interesting question about whether the proper relation of man to state was that of slave to owner. It's a question that has been explored since Socrates, but one whose classical answer isn't compatible with the kind of society we've built. So, it seemed worth looking at what an answer from the American perspective would look like. I thought some of the Winds readers might enjoy contributing.

As for the likening of Jeffersonian thinking to Hitler... well, I'd have to say it was an interesting reading of the facts. I enjoy an interesting idea myself, from time to time.

#9 from Grim: "I gather you don't have a complaint with the concept that the 'probability of success' is a valid test to the righteousness of a rebellion. Indeed, that's a fundamental part of Just War theory (and, like much of what we are discussing today, solidified in Catholic moral thinking)."

Right.

#9 from Grim: "What you're arguing is that probability of success is a necessary condition for justifying a rebellion, but not a sufficient one.

I don't think I disagree with that, and I don't think I meant to imply otherwise."

I do disagree with that. I would approve, for example, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

As a nit, Donald (#3) said there was no taxation of individuals until 1913. I believe that might be more correctly stated "taxation of personal income" as old George did put down the Whisky Rebellion -- folks were paying taxes, just not on income. I'm not a tax history expert, so I hope I got that right.

As to the question of rebellion, first as a southerner I am required to say that The War of Northen Agression was unjustified, whatever the facts. (wink)

The sad new thing I note in the world is that the rich countries, good or bad, have enough technology nowadays that things are not going to change, as we saw in China in the Tiananmen Square episode. Maybe I'll be proven wrong.

Jefferson's reasons for rebellion were basically that the king broke the deal. That, in that case, power returned to the natural leglislature of the people, which were going to be represented by Congress. This idea that there is a deal, a social contract, that can be voided seems to me to be noteworthy -- and the bar was set by Jefferson to be very high.

As far as the American Civil War, everybody thought that states could secede, else the New England states wouldn't have threatened it in the early 1800s. Lincoln, who seems a bit overrated to me, used force to change the nature of "the deal". In a lot of ways we're still coming to terms with that today. When you wonder why the federal government is controlling the way your toliet operates, why your kids are required to take certain tests in school, or why you have those little tags on your mattresses -- it's because the contract has changed. It continues to change. One wonders how it is possible for any population to complain, as we did, that the contract is no longer valid? (assuming that elections are unable to change key structural shortcomings -- a big assumption, I know) Will we wake up in 500 years in a world where the natural leglislature is so foreign to us that we have culturally lost our ability to really self-govern? It's an important question. Jefferson, echoing an earlier philosopher, used to say that moral questions can be solved just as well by asking a politician or a ploughman. A large part of our current society doesn't believe that anymore -- and as Martha Stewart might say, that's not so good.

You think, then, that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising had no chance at all of success?

Surely success has to be defined in context. I think there was at least a chance that an uprising in Warsaw could have cost the government enough to force some concession out of it -- even if that concession was simply leaving it alone to starve on its own, or being able to assert less-than-real-control over it. Given the context, even that would have been a success.

In the context of the Holocaust, surely rebellion is justified even if the cost is going to be more-or-less the same: even if we know (which in a real war, we never really do) that the Nazis are going to crush every place of resistance. Yet it raises the cost, which may slow the Holocaust's progress (which could lower its cost, given the wider war), or at least make future such acts less likely (by setting a useful example for future governments that might wish to eliminate their Jews).

An extreme context, I think, yields extreme examples -- but there is a success to be had even here. Against the purest tyranny, resistance may be said to succeed even if all it does is reduce the ability of the existing tyranny to act.

In borderline cases, where you have a government that some like pretty well but others find tyrannical, surely you have to demonstrate that you are capable of a better kind of success. Otherwise, you can't justify the pain of war.

Fine: put "success" in context so that if a revolt is justified, it can always be deemed to be a "success". That does to the "success test" for whether a revolt is justified exactly what I want done.

Grim: "In the context of the Holocaust, surely rebellion is justified even if the cost is going to be more-or-less the same -"

Yes.

Grim: "An extreme context, I think, yields extreme examples -- but there is a success to be had even here. Against the purest tyranny, resistance may be said to succeed even if all it does is reduce the ability of the existing tyranny to act."

Yes. Or even I would suggest if the strength of the tyrannical power is not impaired in any meaningful way, if it's simply a decision to die fighting rather than to take it quietly.

1)I just want to point out that the difference between socrates et al and our founding fathers was that socrates was building an entirely theoretical society, and the founding fathers we're building a real goverment. those differences are important.

I remember that socrates ideas were intereasting, but they often assumed the best intentions of men, and the idea that the best 'of men' could be braught into a single society. Of couse, that's impossible. Even the idea that you can only involve the 'best' brings rise to the worst: jealousy, jigonism, facism and elitism.

My understanding of how our goverment works is that it's built on a system of checks and balances. No system can hold too much power (and will fight to hold onto their realm of power) so that power will be spread evenly and controllable in local elections. what we see now is the parties working between groups to extend their power into all three branches... in addition removing local, independent political thought. This all extends from the formation of pollitical parties which the founding fathers hated (HATED) because they "would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good."

I guess that's egg on on their face!

2)I am not at all a tax historian, but I'm curious. How did we raise funds for armies before taxes? How could build the worlds largest/highest-tech army now without taxes? Taxes seem important to me because it's possible for a community to collect funds to purchase something (say schooling/water purification/energy grid) that an individual may not be able to do.

But then again, it's all i've ever known.

If Jefferson was right to assert what he did -- the conclusion with which I gladly begin -- then what are the underlying ethics?

I agree with Mike Daley that the underlying ethics are the French enlightenment and specifically Rousseau's Social Contract, which held the view that the people had the right to rescind the contract with the state if the state acts against the "general will." He was proclaiming that the general will of these colonies was that they were unhappy. Therefore, from a Jeffersonian perspective any unhappy person is justified to revolt against their government so long as they can claim popular support.

I believe Shay's rebellion provides information about what the Founders thought of succesive revolutions. In particluar, I believe Samuel Adams rejected the notion that leniency should be given the rebels, as opposed to death. Leniency he reasoned was the province of monarchs, not republican forms of government founded on the popular will.

OTOH, in response to Shay's rebellion, Jefferson famously wrote:

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

I believe Jefferson's views are unsound and the source of great suffering. Still, the emphasized part is often ignored. Shay's rebellion helped create the Constitution which eroded state's rights and created a standing army.

#17: "I just want to point out that the difference between socrates et al and our founding fathers was that socrates was building an entirely theoretical society, and the founding fathers we're building a real goverment. those differences are important."

I think that's right. That's why I referred to the wager of battle as an explanation for why the system wasn't perfectly harmonious as a philosophy. It's a real-world system, and that means it has to deal with externalities. What you end up with is a practical system, rather than a pure one.

18:

As I said, anyone can prefer Socrates to Jefferson -- surely that's the sort of point on which good men can honorably disagree.

I think Jefferson is correct, myself. A certain amount of rebellion is very healthy in a republican form of government. The occasional tax revolt keeps things on an even keel. Early American unions fought literal battles with the US Army, because the army was deployed by Gilded Age politicians in the interest of rich political contributors. I mentioned Chief Joseph earlier.

I don't think these people should have been hanged from the yardarm. These minor rebellions, some successful and some not but all with the prospect of success, have been good for us.

What's interesting to me is why Socrates would do and believe what he did. Its alien to me that one would kill oneself at the command of an unjust state.

By the time of the Enlightenment, Hobbes assumed the opposite to be true, that self-preservation is the most fundamental of natural laws:

A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.

Accordingly, one cannot consent to one's execution, although I believe Hobbes might recognize that consent might be obtained by fear of a more painful death. And I similarly believe Hobbes only recognized a right to revolt where this natural law was implicated. If the State jeopardizes your life, then you can be expected to revolt even if the chance of success is small.

From Hobbes standpoint then, Socrates is acting irrationally, driven either by unnamed fears, foolish passions or madness.

#20 -- Socrates would argue that Hobbes was reducing the argument to the street -- of course the unwashed barbarian would act so, but that is hardly the rule. That is simply the rule for unwashed barbarians. Sounds smart, but trite and hollow, like so much so-called knowledge of the elite.

I admire Socrates in that his life made sense with his philosophy. Of all the great blessings I could wish on a person, this one is the highest. I hope I never hear that in actual truth he tossed the broth and ran like a scared dog.