The Volokh Conspiracy
[Randy Barnett, May 23, 2006 at 9:07am] Trackbacks
"Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day II:
Who wrote the following:
Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves—in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.

Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation. . . . Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. . . . If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.
(A) Andrew Jackson
(B) Lysander Spooner
(C) Herbert Spencer
(D) Bernard Siegan
(E) Richard Epstein

(civil comments only please) For answer click "show"


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  3. "Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day V:
  4. "Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day IV:
  5. "Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day III:
  6. "Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day II:
  7. "Libertarian" Constitutional Quote of the Day:
digoweli:
I don't believe that real artist and educational libertarians like Sir Herbert Read or A.S. Neill would appreciate being classed with the President that sent thousands of civilized Indian people on a death march that far outweighed the losses in 9/11. Relatively they lost 1/4 to 1/3 of their total population. 9/11 wasn't even near that in the population of the buildings themselves. As the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokees, Jackson refused to follow the law of the land and slew 1/3 of the seed of a ten thousand year old people one by one, men, women and children, as Americans stood by and stole the refugees blind.

That is not my kind of libertarian as an artist but then I don't know the nouveau libertarians here in America. The originals in Europe were Artists and revolutionaries.

digoweli
5.23.2006 12:14pm
Bpbatista (mail):
Of course, Jackson's veto was an economic catastrophe for the country and retarded our economic growth -- and subjected the country to repeated boom and bust cycles -- for the next 75 years until the creation of the Federal Reserve System. As the quoted passage demonstrates, Jackson's veto was based primarily on his hatred of banks and the so-called "privileged." His Constitutional scruples were nothing more than a thin veneer for his anti-bank political position.
5.23.2006 12:37pm
djd (mail):
Jackson's friend and successor, Martin van Buren, was the most libertarian president this country ever had; in that respect he was a true Jacksonian.
5.23.2006 2:25pm
I.I (www):
Yes, and the Federal Reserve has done such a great job of stabilizing the money supply that $20 of constitutional money can now only be purchased with over $700 in Federal Reserve notes.

Jackson's error was not in vetoing the recharter; it was in failing to outlaw the inflationary policies of the state banks at the same time.
5.23.2006 3:05pm
Bpbatista (mail):
I didn't say the Fed was perfect. Just much better than the monetary/banking/economic chaos created by Jackson.

Anyway, what is "constitutional money"?
5.23.2006 3:34pm
digoweli:
And Van Buren was the one who carried out the genocide that Jackson started and then lied about it.

digoweli
5.23.2006 4:09pm
Christopher Davis (mail):
Actually, recent research suggests that Jackson had very little to do with writing the veto message. It was more likely written by Amos Kendall, the effective leader of his Kitchen Cabinet and imminent Postmaster General. Kendall, a prominent newspaper man and later founder of Gallaudet University, was essentially the Karl Rove of Jackson's administration.
5.23.2006 9:23pm
Tito:
Jackson's error was not in vetoing the recharter; it was in failing to outlaw the inflationary policies of the state banks at the same time.

That doesn't sound like restrained federal power to me.
5.23.2006 9:40pm
SenatorX (mail):
Good ol Indian killer Jackson. What a swine!
5.24.2006 12:11am
Lev:
But which leads to the question: Does a president have a power to interpret and apply the Constitution that is separate and distinct from the Legislative and Judicial branchs and that is part of the checks and balances of the separation of powers, such he may act constitutionally by refusing to implement a law passed over his veto and declared constitutional by the Supreme Court?
5.24.2006 12:26am
Bpbatista (mail):
There is nothing in the constitution that gives the courts or any other branch final say in what is consitutional or not. If the the Executive refuses to enforce a law, then the other branches have recourse through impeachment.
5.24.2006 10:55am
Clayton E. Cramer (mail) (www):
digoweli writes:


I don't believe that real artist and educational libertarians like Sir Herbert Read or A.S. Neill would appreciate being classed with the President that sent thousands of civilized Indian people on a death march that far outweighed the losses in 9/11.
Not to worry; Professor Barnett is cherry-picking quotes (as he does with his third example) to create an imaginary libertarian American history. As others have pointed out here, Jackson wasn't a libertarian. The various Georgia removal acts used governmental power to confiscate private property from one group to give it to another, and Jackson had no problem with that. Sure, he was prepared to use rather libertarian language to justify vetoing the renewal of the Bank of the United States charter, but that no more makes Jackson a libertarian than the refusal of the South to create public schools made them libertarian.

There is a tendency in some ideological circles to go looking for their ancestors in the past, as a form of legitimizing. Liberals used to fancy Thomas Jefferson as one of them, because of his statements about disestablishment of religion--while ignoring Jefferson's ownership of slaves, and his support for states' rights. Homosexuals have been trying to turn Lincoln into our first gay (although closeted) President based on some hysterically funny misreadings of the fact that he shared a bed with another man for a while. (Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all shared a bed in DC when accommodations were scarce--not uncommon at the time.) Libertarians and conservatives cherry-pick quotes from the Framers about economics to imagine that there was some general agreement in favor of laissez-faire--when there was not, at either state or federal levels.
5.24.2006 2:34pm

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