Would Libertarians have supported the North or South during the Civil War?

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I'm what many people would call a "full blown" Libertarian.  I believe in limited government, free markets, the Gold Standard, and non-intervention in foreign affairs.  So what would I have done in the Civil War?

Well, it's impossible to know for sure, but in the case that I'm around 20 years old in 1861 and live in Louisville, these are the two most likely scenarios:

I join the Union army.  I want to defend my state against the Confederate invaders and end the institution of slavery.  And what better way is there to do that than join the army?

I remain a civilian.  My hatred of war wins out and I don't join the army.  I wouldn't shed a tear over the CSA's defeat, however.

Under no circumstances could I picture myself serving under the Stars and Bars.

[ElectionsGuy]

Literally every libertarian I have ever met has argued that the Confederacy wasn't so bad and that the Union was evil/tyrannical (even after I point out that the state's right argument is crap), so I assume they'd support the South. Ron Paul certainly would have.

So, have you not met me, or do I not count as a libertarian?

Same with me.  I suppose there's a big difference between a full blown libertarian and your standard social liberal fiscal conservative

This. There's no way I would've supported the south during the war. Call me a "LINO" or whatever, but despite the brutality of the 600K lives that were lost (which is absolutely insane when you think about the population at that time), it was worth the end of slavery. Millions of African Americans had been completely stripped of their constitutional rights for over 70 years, which is abominable in every sense.

[Zioneer]

He's already made up in his mind what a libertarian is, a lot of people do.  It doesn't matter what actual libertarians think and believe.

I'll amend my statement to not include libertarians on the Atlas Forum. But every libertarian I've met in real life (there are a surprising amount of them in Utah), many leading libertarian thinkers, and many libertarians on the Internet do think that the Confederacy was morally better than the Union. Not all, but of the type of libertarian I've generally encountered, they've been pro-Confederate. Happy now?

[dead0man]

I didn't even know that was a thing, but after Googling, I see that it is.  There are no numbers ('cause why would there be), but I'm guessing it's a rather fringe thought.  Clearly any (and I hate to start walking towards No True Scotsman land) true libertarian could not support a secession that was done to keep a group of people enslaved.  It doesn't matter if they think secession should be allowed or not.  It's a stupid argument to say the US civil war was not about slavery when the leaders of the south repeatedly said that that is what they were fighting for.  As was mentioned, the CSA was in no way libertarian.  I'm not going to say it's 100% true or even a conscious thought that they have, but I'm guessing a lot of it is based in racism.  Shocking!  You've really got to twist and pick and choose which libertarian values to follow to come to the conclusion to support the CSA over the USA.

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[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

[AggregateDemand]

Libertarians support the notion of secession, but no one can support a slave nation, especially not now that hindsight has proven that slavery still lingers within the paternalistic socialism embraced by a major American political party.

[dead0man]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

^^^^

[Dazey]

He's already made up in his mind what a libertarian is, a lot of people do.  It doesn't matter what actual libertarians think and believe.

Libertarians can be summed up as:
"I got mine, f--k you."
"Let's repeal every piece of legislation passed since 1901."
"T.R. was the worst President in history."
"Corporations first, middle class last."
"CLOSE EVERY SINGLE MILITARY BASE IN THE WORLD!"
"Conspiracies!"
"LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!"

[ElectionsGuy]

He's already made up in his mind what a libertarian is, a lot of people do.  It doesn't matter what actual libertarians think and believe.

Libertarians can be summed up as:
"I got mine, f--k you."
"Let's repeal every piece of legislation passed since 1901."
"T.R. was the worst President in history."
"Corporations first, middle class last."
"CLOSE EVERY SINGLE MILITARY BASE IN THE WORLD!"
"Conspiracies!"
"LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!"

Mhm. Yep. Uh huh.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

He's already made up in his mind what a libertarian is, a lot of people do.  It doesn't matter what actual libertarians think and believe.

Libertarians can be summed up as:
"I got mine, f--k you."
"Let's repeal every piece of legislation passed since 1901."
"T.R. was the worst President in history."
"Corporations first, middle class last."
"CLOSE EVERY SINGLE MILITARY BASE IN THE WORLD!"
"Conspiracies!"
"LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!"

Mhm. Yep. Uh huh.

tbh im starting to change my opinion of libertarianism due to daisies insites guys.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

CelticEmpire makes some great points and I'd lean in his general direction of what I'd do. Sadly folks are also forgetting that there were tax issues also in play. The North was making the South bear an uneven brunt of the tax responsibility and the South was in the right on that and on states rights.

As my family was part of a "Peace Church" in those days, I would've been a chaplain preaching to all soldiers who would listen Union or Confederate. Not all Confederates were pro-slavery.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Libetarianism is generally about maximizing the freedom of white men at the expense of everyone else, so the South.

Naw, libertarian politics screw a lot of white men, too. Their wanting to abolish the EPA hurts everyone. With the EPA, 200,000 Americans die every year because of air pollution.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

Yes, I said morally twisted. I'm not alleging that all (or even most) libertarians are racist, but I can easily conjure up a right-libertararian who would be appalled at slaveowmers forced to give up their 'rightful property' because of a government regulation. To a racist who believes other races are 'below' them, an abolitionist coming to power would be the equivalent of a PETA goon coming to power and ordering farmers to release their cattle, chicken and pigs.

[TDAS04]

Depends on what's more important to them; states' rights or individual rights?

I refuse to buy into the notion that the concept of state's rights caused the civil war. It was about slavery, not federalism. Otherwise, Jefferson Davis wouldn't have repeatedly trampled over states rights as President of the Confederacy.

Yeah, but as wrong as they were, people thought it was about states' rights, even if it was the horrific right to own slaves.  Of course, any libertarian who remotely understands that liberty is about human rights would not have supported the South.

[Zioneer]

CelticEmpire makes some great points and I'd lean in his general direction of what I'd do. Sadly folks are also forgetting that there were tax issues also in play. The North was making the South bear an uneven brunt of the tax responsibility and the South was in the right on that and on states rights.

As my family was part of a "Peace Church" in those days, I would've been a chaplain preaching to all soldiers who would listen Union or Confederate. Not all Confederates were pro-slavery.

Literally the only states rights the Southern leadership (who pushed for and got the war) cared about was slavery. The ordinary Joe Schmoe really didn't matter in that regard, so even if he genuinely thought he was fighting for independence and states rights, it was the Southern leadership that mattered. And to a man, they generally supported slavery.

Additionally, things like the Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott (and the gag rule for that matter) prove that the Confederate ideology was "states rights for me, not for you".

[Mechaman]

It also needs to be noted here that the South attacked first.  I imagine someone with a really strict view of non-interventionist foreign policy would easily conclude the Union was clearly in the right.

[AggregateDemand]

It also needs to be noted here that the South attacked first.  I imagine someone with a really strict view of non-interventionist foreign policy would easily conclude the Union was clearly in the right.

Good point. The non-aggression libertarian tenets would preclude supporting the South after Sumter.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

Yes, I said morally twisted. I'm not alleging that all (or even most) libertarians are racist, but I can easily conjure up a right-libertararian who would be appalled at slaveowmers forced to give up their 'rightful property' because of a government regulation. To a racist who believes other races are 'below' them, an abolitionist coming to power would be the equivalent of a PETA goon coming to power and ordering farmers to release their cattle, chicken and pigs.

I mean, the vast majority of abolitionists believed Blacks to be an inferior race, of course,  too...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

Yes, I said morally twisted. I'm not alleging that all (or even most) libertarians are racist, but I can easily conjure up a right-libertararian who would be appalled at slaveowmers forced to give up their 'rightful property' because of a government regulation. To a racist who believes other races are 'below' them, an abolitionist coming to power would be the equivalent of a PETA goon coming to power and ordering farmers to release their cattle, chicken and pigs.

I mean, the vast majority of abolitionists believed Blacks to be an inferior race, of course,  too...

Yes, I know that. If anything it's strengthens my argument. Abolitionists, to some degree, were motivated by pity and paternalism. A right-libertarian would have suggested that property rights trump these feelings.

[sparkey]

Yes, I know that. If anything it's strengthens my argument. Abolitionists, to some degree, were motivated by pity and paternalism. A right-libertarian would have suggested that property rights trump these feelings.

Do you have any historical examples of a right-libertarian contemporary to the Civil War who was not anti-slavery? Proto-libertarian thought, like individualist anarchism and libertarian-style classical liberalism, was not common at all in the South at the time, and I'm having trouble thinking of anyone who might fit your description.

It's pretty easy to think of historical examples of anti-slavery, pro-Northern classical liberals, though. Herbert Spencer was as much of a classical liberal as it gets, and he was pro-North (although his enthusiasm cooled through the war, believing that the North mistrusted Britain too much). There's a good argument to be made that Frederick Douglass was a classical liberal, and he was, of course, pro-North. John Stuart Mill, although a much poorer approximation of a libertarian than Spencer or even Douglass, was nonetheless a classical liberal who was very anti-slavery and pro-North.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

well, my libertarian was entirely hypothetical. I was intentially ignoring any contemporaneous Porto-libertarians.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

Yes, I said morally twisted. I'm not alleging that all (or even most) libertarians are racist, but I can easily conjure up a right-libertararian who would be appalled at slaveowmers forced to give up their 'rightful property' because of a government regulation. To a racist who believes other races are 'below' them, an abolitionist coming to power would be the equivalent of a PETA goon coming to power and ordering farmers to release their cattle, chicken and pigs.

I mean, the vast majority of abolitionists believed Blacks to be an inferior race, of course,  too...

If we are speaking of that group people who were called "abolitionist" at the time, I don't believe that's accurate. To the extent that they did, they attributed it to the effects of oppression and subservience rather than a natural inequality, and not applicable to those blacks who were free and educated.

[Mechaman]

Right-libertarians' most cherished belief is the sanctity of property rights. It's pretty easy to make a logical (if morally twisted) right-libertarian argument against abolitionism.

Not if that property is people.  Slavery is the antithesis of libertarianism.

Yes, I said morally twisted. I'm not alleging that all (or even most) libertarians are racist, but I can easily conjure up a right-libertararian who would be appalled at slaveowmers forced to give up their 'rightful property' because of a government regulation. To a racist who believes other races are 'below' them, an abolitionist coming to power would be the equivalent of a PETA goon coming to power and ordering farmers to release their cattle, chicken and pigs.

I mean, the vast majority of abolitionists believed Blacks to be an inferior race, of course,  too...

If we are speaking of that group people who were called "abolitionist" at the time, I don't believe that's accurate. To the extent that they did, they attributed it to the effects of oppression and subservience rather than a natural inequality, and not applicable to those blacks who were free and educated.

Yeah, media at the time did a really good job of differentiating between people who were just merely "anti-slavery" and those who were "abolitionists".  What is often missed in this debate is the impact the protestant work ethic had on the mid 19th century anti-slavery movement.  Many "abolitionists" of the time believed that slavery is what made blacks lazy and immoral and not really any natural trait towards laziness.  The people who did own the slaves oft claimed they did so because otherwise the people who were slaves would be unable to take care of themselves.  The existence of wage slavery at the time was a very convenient excuse for people who practiced chattel slavery, as one source (can't recall who at the moment) in the 1830s stated "as you judge us by our colored slaves, we will judge you by your white slaves."

The common "abolitionist" selling point at the time was that "Free Labor" was more productive because it had more incentive to work harder due to the economic opportunities open to them that were not open to enslaved blacks.  This was a point that appealed to both believers in the protestant work ethic and the classical liberals of the John Stuart Mills variety.  Many classical liberals at the time did recognize that a state of wage slavery did indeed exist, but as noted in the 1860 Republican Convention, they believed it was temporary and a state that most workingmen go through on their way to the middle class.  Needless to say, as the course of events in the Gilded Age culminating in the Pullman Strike made all of that feel goody "bootstraps" mentality look wrong and more and more people began to line up behind populist liberal or progressive ideas of the time to address the concerns of working class (and in the case of progressives, reach a compromise with business interests).

Not to say that I agree with Aggregate Demand that there is a clear link between the outright advocacy of chattel slavery by 19th century Democrats, but it is understandable about how someone with his economic views could come to that conclusion.  I would imagine that if today's libertarians lived in the past the majority of them would be pro-union largely for the reasons I just expanded on.  I do agree with CrabCake that a few of the Rockwelltarians who have an almost open racism against blacks, latinos, and other non-whites would likely support the Confederacy, but many of the libs at the time would be able to see that the Confederate South was far from their vision of an ideal society.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Depends on where they would have lived. Southerners would have been very pro-Confederate, while Northerners would have been more divided but generally supportive of the Union.