States’ Rights and Self Governance

In a previous work,^[1] I spent about 90 pages on what caused the Southern states to leave the Union. I argue the central theme, the underlying issue to all the other disagreements, was the Southern commitment to “states’ rights.” But what are states’ rights, and how does it contrast with the opposite, what Lincoln wanted, centralization?

States’ rights are our American version of decentralization or self-government. Decentralization, or localism, is based first on the extended family or household; when grouped with other clans, this became a locality, creating laws organically for the benefit of all. On the other hand, centralization occurs when forces far from these self-governing localities use their power and influence to impose their ways on smaller localities. In such a situation, the former free individuals lose their self-governance and the option to choose from diverse ways of life, becoming tools used to benefit those in power in distant lands under an increasingly conformist policy.

People conceived of governments to benefit them and reflect eternal law, but eventually, they become so powerful and efficient they begin to manipulate the people for their own benefit. Democratic states tend to end up centralizing political power in a few oligarchs. The central authority begins to creep in and take over every opposing competing institution able to impede its progress. They subject local governance, churches, family or tribal ties, local laws, and customs to the majority’s will, imposed by a small minority of powerful government officials. Further, only the largest majority is sovereign. The largest majority at the federal level overrules numerous smaller and more diverse majorities in smaller localities. Centralization inevitably leads to One Majority to Rule Them All.

Once power becomes centralized in the majority at the federal level they make super PACs with powerful interest groups. Money and power are transferred between these groups as they increasingly stack the deck in their favor and advertise to the voters they are vital to maintain. Through regulations, the oligarchs impede competition from the individual, local authorities, the local shop owner, the farmer, and on down the line. At the same time, they subsidize the more prominent corporations, bankers, politicians, and their allies. Eventually, they manipulate society to fit them to how they can serve the central authority best. Human nature, the mind, and even the soul are all adapted as needed.

If I brought my car to be repaired by the Amish, and they decided to swap out my car for a buggy, it is improbable I would ever return to them for repairs. Yet, no matter how poorly the government’s services perform, we are forced to keep returning to the same system; the modern state is the destroyer of diversity.

Decentralization allows for diversity in politics. It allows each area to maintain its laws unhindered by distant majorities. During the Middle Ages, towns and small villages were often wholly autonomous. Peasants could travel to like-minded groups and live peacefully without politics, elections, fighting, etc. People willingly separated based on ethnicity, religion, politics, economics, and much else. It was the opposite of modern coercion and government force. It allowed people to live as they wished because that was the priority, not those in power.

Medieval Decentralization

Readers of Defending Dixie’s Land will notice chapter 11 is entirely of similarities between Old Dixie and Medieval Europe. The Old South was a Protestant version of Christendom that existed between 700-1300 A.D. Culture, politics, religion, etc., were extremely uniform with the Middle Ages. As I show in my recently released book, Missing Monarchy: What Americans Get Wrong About Monarchy, Democracy, Feudalism, And Liberty, the South did not invent the idea of self-governance or decentralization; they were carrying on a political system that predated the Declaration of Independence.

When obedience is required, such as under the modern state or ancient Rome, the people suffer. The opposite occurs in a free society. Historically the more tribal, the more close-knit the families, the more self-governing and resistant to outside governmental authority. Centralized governments pull these bonds apart, preferring obedience to the state.

Even though someone might be a king of a vast realm during the Middle Ages, he may not have influenced the entire area he was “king” of. For example, Northern Italy consisted of several autonomous cities and duchies; their “king” ruled a minimal area around the Po valley. Likewise, the well-known and mighty Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa controlled only within his family lands in Swabia. The rest of the empire was governed as autonomous realms. Professor Philip Daileader described the Holy Roman Empire in 1273 as a “loose confederation of hundreds of very tiny units, principalities, city-states, and bishoprics.” Historian Will Durant described the same when he wrote, “No German nation existed yet; there were only Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians, Franks… no one system of laws governed the realm… each region kept its own customs and Code.”

Even under Charlemagne, the most prominent early medieval example of a pre-Renaissance monarch, power was limited, and historians Tierney and Painter wrote, “all the different people of the empire continued to live according to their own native laws. Charlemagne had no intention of abolishing this diversity,” and there was “virtually no public taxation, and Charlemagne depended for revenue on the proceeds of his own land.”^[2] A contemporary of Charlemagne was Einhard, who wrote a biography of the emperor. In it, he describes the power of the later Merovingian kings of the Franks:

“The Merovingian family…had long since been devoid of vital strength, and conspicuous only from bearing the empty epithet Royal…There was nothing left the King to do but to be content with his name of King…He had nothing that he could call his own beyond this vain title of King…except a single country seat, that brought him but a very small income. There was a dwelling house upon this, and a small number of servants attached to it, sufficient to perform the necessary offices. When he had to go abroad, he used to ride in a cart, drawn by a yoke of oxen driven, peasant-fashion, by a Ploughman.”

Towns, manors, monasteries, isolated villages, and great dukedoms across feudal Europe were typically autonomous. In 800 A.D., Ireland was made up of perhaps 150 separate kingdoms. At the same date, sparsely populated Norway was divided into 31 principalities. By 1200 A.D., there were 200 autonomous city-states in Northern Italy. In the 14th century, Germany was made up of 600 autonomous realms. According to Will Durant, Spain was broken down into tiny realms of petty kings, but “even within each little kingdom unity was an interlude; the nobles almost ignored the kings except in war.” Monasteries were close-knit autonomous communities lovingly dedicated to man and God. Many areas became autonomous or nearly autonomous by gift giving. Nobles would give large sections of land free or nearly free of obligations to family and friends.

Lords controlled within their own spheres, as did dukes, princes, barons etc., and held autonomy. Each realm had its own laws and courts, and the local village conducted affairs with no control from the King’s capital or a higher lord’s influence. Historian Régine Pernoud wrote decentralization provided “variety between one town and another and gave a charming and attractive aspect to the country…each town possessed to a degree which is to-day almost unimaginable, its own personality.” Historian Chris Wickham described the medieval situation as the “radical decentralization of political power in the west.” With decentralized lordship, each local residency maintained its customs and law with no outside force imposing its will. In the thirteenth century, Beaumanoir remarked “each Baron is sovereign in his own Barony.” The people might recognize the king and even honor him, but outside of his family’s inheritance, he could not control anything in those areas. A decentralized kingship should be understood as an aristocracy of sovereign lords rather than a monarchy.  Both ancient Roman and modern governmental systems have destroyed such political diversity.

There was incredible diversity in this age. Even in this anarcho-monarchist world, communists might find the monasteries to their liking. The monks elected the abbots, and everyone, whether noble or serf, was treated with perfect equality because “we are all one in Christ…God is no respecter of persons.” They held no possessions but shared everything as a community.

Diversity of laws existed within a single realm, dukedom, or town. The 9th-century bishop Agobard of Lyons said, “It often happened that five men were presented sitting together, and not one of them had the same law as another.” Unless, of course, they desired to change the law they were under, which at times made things complicated for judges. As Professor Thomas Madden said, “As people came before courts or before judges they would have to declare which they were and what law they lived under.” Powerful guilds were often self-governing societies within these towns as well.

At various times and places in England, both the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons lived together in peace. They co-existed, but they never considered forcing their customs on the other. Frederic Seebohm writes, “The amalgamation of the two people into one did not occur. Danes continued to live under their laws and the English under theirs.” At various times, and out of their own free will, even Danes accepted English lords. Law was personal and based on choice. It was individualistic, not nationalistic—not our modern sense of top-down subjugation where “citizens” of a geographical area are forced to accept a ruler’s arbitrary authority; they brought their law with them.^[3]

Contrary to popular opinion, the Jewish quarters of medieval towns were not an early form of segregation. Rather it derived from various kings and lords advertising to Jews they allotted them an area where they could enjoy self-government under their own religion and customs. Jews migrated to those areas to achieve it. What was an example of tolerance and friendship—the allowing of a minority group to live as they would like to—has somehow turned into a discriminatory, racist activity. (I would love to see Democrats and Republicans show this sort of tolerance to minorities like libertarians- monarchists- or even each other).

Likewise, in the Crusader states, Italian merchants were given a section of the city to live by their own customs. The Anglo-Saxons had their own section in Rome for the many visitors from England. Even in the crusader states, Muslims swore oaths on the Koran, Jews on the Torah, and Christians on the Bible. After capturing Antioch, Crusader lord Bohemund allowed local Muslims who wished to convert to follow a newly baptized Emir, while the others stayed under the laws of the “Saracens.” Scholar Jonathan Riley-Smith wrote, “Far from being forced to convert, the Muslim villagers were run by a council of elders who in turn appointed a “rayse” to represent the community to the Christian lord, while all spiritual and social matters were regulated by the imams in the community in accordance with Sharia law! The Christian rulers might believe Islam is wrong, endangering their eternal salvation, yet still believed Muslims had the right to be judged by their own customs.

These principles generally did not change during wartime, as even the cost of losing a war was very mild politically. It could be the extraction of an oath or a single payment, the loss of a town, or the ability to collect a toll from the lord who lost. But the population generally carried on life and obligations as they did before the conflict. Even when a lord conquered a new territory and its defeated people, Morrall writes they “generally made no attempt to impose a uniform legal code on their new territories. The maxim that every man must be judged by the law of his own people was strictly observed; what was more, he carried with him, wherever he went, the right to live under his own law.”

In my town (population around 500), there was a debate over whether to build a shed to store salt for the truck crews. This issue stirred up strong emotions and opinions on both sides. One side argued, multiple times, if the town did not build a new shed, it might be punished by the state for violating regulations. While the residents debated what they viewed as the vital issue—whether to build the shed—I could not help but see a far more critical matter. Can the town not build a shed paid for by their own taxpayers without being intimidated by politicians not close to the decision? We have lost our self-governance to more powerful distant individuals who never step foot in our town. If we were to abolish the political oppression of centralization; if we were to emancipate ourselves from tyranny; we could have thousands of tiny self-governing communities as our forebears enjoyed. If we abolished centralized governance, so much anger and hatred towards each other would disappear. People could live with like-minded people governed as they desire. All of “we the people” would benefit. The ones who would suffer would be bureaucrats and our overlords in D.C. If we were a Christian society loving others as we love ourselves, we would not make them suffer under a political system they did not ask for and do not desire.

-By Jeb Smith

Jeb Smith is the author of Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War (written under the name Isaac. C. Bishop)and Missing Monarchy: What Americans Get Wrong About Monarchy, Democracy, Feudalism, And Liberty. You can contact him at jackson18611096@gmail.com.

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^[1] Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War

^[2] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 139)(Peters 1989, 34)

^[3] (Wolfe 2022, 146-147)(Monte 2014, 81)(Holmes 1988, 213)