Brexit allows us to celebrate the spirit of governed consent
July 4th, Independence Day, presents an opportunity to reflect upon the principles immortalized in the Declaration—principles that, if taken seriously, hold the seeds of sweeping political transformation. The declaration is not only radically libertarian, but radically decentralist.
Independence movements are necessarily decentralist in character, premised on ideas of self-determination, autonomy, and healthy skepticism toward foreign rule. And libertarians are necessarily decentralists to the extent that the principle of individual liberty is served by the practice of decentralism, in which both separate governments and branches within them counter each other, preventing any one force from amassing overweening power.
Secession and federalism are two distinct but related expressions of the decentralist idea, both of which are an important part of the history of the United States. Our country was born through an act of secession, the Declaration disaffiliating the colonies from the yoke of the crown. That document formally set forth the reasons why the American people—British subjects all—chose to “dissolve the political bands which [had] connected them” to the motherland of their forebears.
As a concept in political theory, secession has unfortunately been tarnished by the historical particularities of its association with the Civil War, with the abominable fact of slavery in the Confederacy. But this need not be the case. The right to secede is, in fact, an important natural right and an essential protection against tyrannical government.
Libertarians believe that the individual, too, ought to have the right to secede: that relationships between individuals should be voluntary—like contracts, based on reciprocal promises and obligations. Political power is different: there is no mutual assent as in a true contract.
The relationship between the individual and the state is predicated on a denial of the Declaration’s affirmation “that all men are created equal.” That’s because governments, unique among all human institutions, claim a prerogative that no individual can rightfully possess and no group can create for itself: the right to control another person, to dominate his will through the use of force. No one is or could be obligated to remain in this kind of association. When one finds himself in such an abusive, non-consensual relationship, the Declaration tells us, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,” departing for greener pastures.
