KB: One of the unresolved tensions in teaching US history that comes up over and over for me is the conflicting mythos argument articulated by Jefferson and Hamilton, that asks: Is violence by the mob justified because it seeks to restrain the tyrannical state or is state violence justified because it seeks to restrain the revolutionary anarchist mob? In so many ways, and especially while studying lynching or vigilante groups, it seems to me that we collectively never resolved this question at all.
I’m wondering how much you think there are tensions like that, tensions that exist in one of these stories or crossover between several of these stories?
RS: You can examine the question if you contrast the two halves of the founding myth, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is about the right of revolution. It’s a moral statement that people always have the right of revolution. The Constitution, on the other hand, doesn’t acknowledge a right of revolution. That’s really the core, because that’s the fundamental question about government. At some point, government may become tyrannical, and a revolution may be needed to overthrow it. In a practical sense, the point of contradiction that seems to me most meaningful is the Civil War version. I talk about this when I talk about Lincoln and Lincoln’s response to Southern secession.
The Southern states used their militia to resist what they say was a tyrannical government. In response, Lincoln says, okay, you have the right of revolution. Any people, any civil community has the right of revolution. But there are two questions, morally: Why are you rebelling? Are you rebelling to establish freedom or slavery? And Lincoln thinks the answer to that is clear, which is the latter. The South disagrees. But Lincoln’s other question is, okay, you have the right of revolution. Does the government have the right to suppress you? And if so, on what moral basis? Clearly, Lincoln argues, the government has a legal basis to suppress the South’s rebellion. The Constitution says you can suppress an insurrection. The moral basis of this right, Lincoln argues, is free elections—if you have a free election, that’s the essence of the Republican state. If you overthrow a free election, if you substitute bullets for ballots, that’s the end of the republic. It’s the end of Republicanism. And therefore, to defend the principle of free government, it’s necessary to repress the Southern Revolution. That’s the way the reasoning actually works out. That’s the story that justifies saying no to this revolution.
KB: Because it is a revolution that is fundamentally antifreedom.
RS: Yes. It’s proslavery and antifree elections. Lincoln doesn’t deny the right of revolution. But he says not now, not for these reasons.