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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
SERIES EDITORS: DAVID F. HARDWICK · LESLIE MARSH
Reclaiming Liberalism
Edited by
David F. Hardwick · Leslie Marsh
Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
Series Editors
David F. Hardwick
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Leslie Marsh
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
This series offers a forum to writers concerned that the central presup-
positions of the liberal tradition have been severely corroded, neglected,
or misappropriated by overly rationalistic and constructivist approaches.
The hardest-won achievement of the liberal tradition has been the
wrestling of epistemic independence from overwhelming concentrations
of power, monopolies and capricious zealotries. The very precondition of
knowledge is the exploitation of the epistemic virtues accorded by soci-
ety’s situated and distributed manifold of spontaneous orders, the DNA
of the modern civil condition.
With the confluence of interest in situated and distributed liberalism
emanating from the Scottish tradition, Austrian and behavioral econom-
ics, non-Cartesian philosophy and moral psychology, the editors are
soliciting proposals that speak to this multidisciplinary constituency. Sole
or joint authorship submissions are welcome as are edited collections,
broadly theoretical or topical in nature.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15722
David F. Hardwick • Leslie Marsh
Editors
Reclaiming
Liberalism
Editors
David F. Hardwick Leslie Marsh
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Department of Pathology and Laboratory
Medicine Medicine
The University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada Vancouver, BC, Canada
ISSN 2662-6470 ISSN 2662-6489 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
ISBN 978-3-030-28759-7 ISBN 978-3-030-28760-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28760-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Francisco Goya: Plate 43 from ‘Los Caprichos’: The sleep of reason produces mon-
sters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), 1799
Made available by the Metropolitan Museum of Art under Creative

Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
To Virginia Baldwin: in appreciation of decades of interest
and support (DH)
In memory of my grandparents, Sara and Samuel Fine, whose families the
Bolsheviks wanted to banish and the Nazis wanted to snuff out (LM)
Preface
Each passing decade of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been
accompanied by proclamations of liberalism’s decline. Despite this, it is
not at all clear whether the Owl of Minerva can be said to have taken
flight. The “reclaiming” of the title of this collection is perhaps more a
timely re-excavation of classical liberalism from the accumulated concep-
tual hubris and downright illiteracy that has come to obscure its central
presupposition, which is, the wresting of epistemic independence from
overwhelming concentrations of power, monopolies, and capricious zeal-
otries, whether they be of a state, religious, or corporate in character.
Unfortunately, much of what goes by the label of “liberal” is overly ratio-
nalistic and constructivist and, as such, stirs an authoritarian impulse in
its implementation.
This collection offers a variety of disciplinary perspectives on liberal-
ism, from a contemporary focus and some with a distinctly historical
hue. Collectively these chapters will, in all probability, be deemed con-
tentious. Classical liberals are a fractious lot, and though there will be
internecine squabbles, no one viewpoint seeks to inhibit another’s
perspective.
Hayek’s profound and paradoxical insight that knowledge becomes
less incomplete only if it becomes more dispersed has informed our insti-
tutional design and operational management within the International
Academy of Pathology and The University of British Columbia
ix
x Preface
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Since we subscribe

to Hayek’s adage that “exclusive concentration on a specialty has a pecu-
liarly baneful effect: it will not merely prevent us from being attractive
company or good citizens but may impair our competence in our proper
field”, we make no apology for not staying within our academic silos.
Epistemic humility and open inquiry are central virtues for the classi-
cal liberal and this has proved the most successful way to approach the
truth for the greater good. We thus thought that Aldous Huxley’s com-
ment1 on Goya’s caption “El sueño de la razon produce monstrous”, as
per the frontispiece, resonates deeply with the spirit of this project:
It is a caption that admits of more than one interpretation. When reason

sleeps, the absurd and loathsome creatures of superstition wake and are
active, goading their victim to an ignoble frenzy. But this is not all. Reason
may also dream without sleeping, may intoxicate itself, as it did during the
French Revolution, with the daydreams of inevitable progress, of liberty,
equality, and fraternity imposed by violence, of human self-sufficiency and
the ending of sorrow … by political rearrangements and a better technology.
Vancouver, BC, Canada David F. Hardwick

Leslie Marsh
Note
1. Aldous Huxley, “Variations on Goya,” On Art and Artists, Morris
Philipson, ed. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1960), pp. 218–19.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the following for their community service: Corey Abel,
Peter Barnes, Eugene Callahan, Gilles Campagnolo, Nicholas Capaldi,
Lars Feld, Steven Gerencser, Ignacio Herrera-Anchustegui, Stefan Kolev,
Peter Lewin, Drew Maciag, Terry Nardin, Noel O’Sullivan, and
Viktor Vanberg.
We’d also like to thank the Palgrave team for their diligent and friendly
support: Ruth Noble, Clara Heathcock, and last, but by no means least,
Laura Pacey, who so carefully and enthusiastically gestated this
series. Project Manager, Sarulatha Krishnamurthy’s patient technical sup-
port, is also much appreciated.
Nothing we do could be done without the unwavering support of
Charles Ramey and Shannon Selin.
xi
Contents
Reclaiming Democratic Classical Liberalism 1

David P. Ellerman
Democracy, Liberalism, and Discretion: The Political Puzzle of

the Administrative State 41
Stephen Turner
Ordoliberalism as the Operationalisation of Liberal Politics 63

Mikayla Novak
Liberalism, Through a Glass Darkly 91

David F. Hardwick and Leslie Marsh
Liberalism and the Modern Quest for Freedom125

David D. Corey
Liberalism for the Twenty-First Century: From Markets to

Civil Society, from Economics to Human Beings163
Gus diZerega
xiii
xiv Contents
Origins of the Rule of Law179

Andrew David Irvine
Burke’s Liberalism: Prejudice, Habit, Affections, and the

Remaking of the Social Contract219
Lauren K. Hall
Democratic Peace Theory, Montesquieu, and Public Choice247

Sarah M. Burns and Chad Van Schoelandt
“China’s Hayek” and the Horrors of Totalitarianism: The

Liberal Lessons in Gu Zhun’s Thought281
Chor-yung Cheung
Author Index313
Subject Index317
Notes on Contributors
Sarah M. Burns is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rochester

Institute of Technology. Her research examines the intersection of politi-
cal liberalization and American constitutional development, with an eye
toward policy implications for democratization across the globe. She has
written on war powers, American foreign policy, elections, and constitu-
tionalism. Her latest book project examines the theoretical and historical
development of war powers. She demonstrates how the constitutional
system creates an invitation to struggle that the political branches increas-
ingly ignore.
Chor-yung Cheung teaches politics in the Department of Public Policy

of the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests are in the
fields of Western political theory, modern Chinese political thought, and
Hong Kong politics. His published books include《弗雷德里希‧海耶
克》(Friedich Hayek), 台北:聯經出版公司, 2018; The Poetic Character
of Human Activity: Collected Essays on the Thought of Michael Oakeshott,
co-authored with Wendell John Coats, Jr., 2012; and The Quest for Civil
Order: Politics, Rules and Individuality, 2007.
David D. Corey is Professor of Political Science in the Honors College

at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, USA. He is the author of The Sophists
xv
xvi Notes on Contributors
in Plato’s Dialogues and (with J. Daryl Charles) The Just War Tradition. He
is working on a book about the history and philosophy of liberalism.
Gus diZerega is a retired American political scientist, now working as

an independent scholar. He has written extensively on liberalism, demo-
cratic theory, comparative politics, environmental theory, and F. A.
Hayek in The Review of Politics, The Western Political Quarterly,
Cosmos + Taxis, The Independent Review, Studies in Emergent Order,
Critical Review, Social Theory and Practice, Environmental Ethics, PEGS
(Political Economy and the Good Society), Ideazione, Elites, Telos, The
Trumpeter, the Journal of Ecosophy, Wirtschafts-Politische Blatter, and
many chapters in books. His own book on democracy is Persuasion, Power
and Polity: A Theory of Democratic Self-Organization.
David P. Ellerman is a retired economist, mathematician, and philoso-

pher affiliated as a visiting scholar at the University of California
Riverside, visiting researcher at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and
fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. He taught eco-
nomics for 20 years in the Boston area, founded several non-profit and
for-profit consulting firms in the US and Eastern Europe focusing on
worker ownership, and worked for ten years at the World Bank, includ-
ing as senior advisor and speechwriter for Joseph Stiglitz. He has written
five books and numerous articles in academic journals. Website: www.
ellerman.org.
Lauren K. Hall is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rochester

Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Medicalization of Birth
and Death, 2019, and Family and the Politics of Moderation, 2014, and
the co-editor of a volume on the political philosophy of French political
thinker Chantal Delsol. She has written extensively on the classical liberal
tradition, including articles on Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, and
Montesquieu. She serves on the executive board of the interdisciplinary
journal Cosmos + Taxis. Her current research deals with the politics of
women and the family in classical liberalism as well as issues in bioethics
and healthcare regulation.
Notes on Contributors xvii
David F. Hardwick is Professor Emeritus of Pathology and Paediatrics

and is Special Advisor on Planning at the Faculty of Medicine at
The University of British Columbia. He has also been Secretary of the
International Academy of Pathology, the world’s oldest and largest pathol-
ogy organization. He is a founding co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in
Classical Liberalism and is a prime mover behind the open-access journal
Cosmos + Taxis. He also co-edited Propriety and Prosperity: New Studies on
the Philosophy of Adam Smith, 2014.
Andrew David Irvine is Professor of Philosophy and Professor of

Mathematics at The University of British Columbia (UBC), Okanagan.
He is a past head of the Department of Economics, Philosophy and
Political Science; a past senior advisor to the UBC president; and a past
vice-chair of The University of British Columbia Board of Governors. He
is also a past president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
and a member of the board of directors of the Society for Academic
Freedom and Scholarship. An advocate of traditional democratic civil
liberties, he has written about the importance of the rule of law for both
modern and ancient democracies. He has held visiting positions at several
Canadian and American universities.
Leslie Marsh is a senior researcher in Department of Pathology and

Laboratory Medicine at The University of British Columbia. He is a
prime mover behind the journals EPISTEME and Cosmos + Taxis and
the Michael Oakeshott Association. He is a founding co-editor of the
Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism and has written on social com-
plexity, social epistemology, philosophical psychology, and the philoso-
phy of literature—specializing in Michael Oakeshott, Friedrich Hayek,
Adam Smith, Herbert Simon, Walker Percy, and John Kennedy Toole.
Mikayla Novak is in the School of Sociology at The Australian National

University. Her research interests include political economy, inequality
and living standards, economics of gender and race, economic and fiscal
sociology, public choice, and constitutional political economy. Novak is
the author of Inequality: An Entangled Political Economy Perspective
(Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism series).
xviii Notes on Contributors
Stephen Turner is a Distinguished University Professor at the

Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida. His books
include Liberal Democracy 3.0: Civil Society in an Age of Experts, 2003,
and essays collected in The Politics of Expertise, 2013. He has also written
extensively on Max Weber, especially on politics, in Max Weber and the
Dispute Over Reason and Value: A Study in Philosophy, Ethics, and Politics,
1984, and Max Weber: The Lawyer as Social Thinker.
Chad Van Schoelandt is an Assistant Professor in Tulane University’s

Department of Philosophy and also affiliated with Tulane’s City, Culture,
and Community PhD program; Tulane’s Program in Medical Ethics and
Human Values; and George Mason University’s F. A. Hayek Program for
Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He works on
social and political philosophy, particularly in the public reason and
social contract traditions, and his articles appear in journals including
Ethics, Social Philosophy & Policy, and Philosophical Studies.
List of Figures
Reclaiming Democratic Classical Liberalism

Fig. 1 The conventional framing of coercion versus consent 3
Fig. 2 Reframing that separates non-democratic and democratic
classical liberalism 24
xix
Reclaiming Democratic Classical
Liberalism
David P. Ellerman
elping Others Versus Self-Help: Implications

H
of Classical Liberalism
Classical liberalism expresses a skepticism about governmental organiza-
tions being able to “do good” for people. Instead an important role of
government is to set up and maintain the conditions for people to be
empowered and enabled to do good for themselves, for example, in estab-
lishing and enforcing the private property prerequisites for the function-
ing of a market economy as emphasized in the economic way of thinking
(e.g., Heyne et al. 2006, pp. 36–38).
The reasons for the general ineffectiveness of the government to directly
do good for people are not unique to government; the reasons apply as
well to other external organizations that are also tasked to “do good” such
D. P. Ellerman (*)
University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
e-mail: david@ellerman.org
© The Author(s) 2020 1

D. F. Hardwick, L. Marsh (eds.), Reclaiming Liberalism, Palgrave Studies in Classical
Liberalism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28760-3_1
2 D. P. Ellerman
as philanthropic, development aid, or other helping organizations in gen-

eral.1 As John Dewey (1859–1952) put it:
The best kind of help to others, whenever possible, is indirect, and consists
in such modifications of the conditions of life, of the general level of sub-
sistence, as enables them independently to help themselves (Dewey and
Tufts 1908, p. 390).
The aim of a helping organization (including government) should not

be to “do good” in any direct sense. The goal should be to increase peo-
ple’s autonomy, organizational efficacy, and effective social agency so they
can do good for themselves—individually or, more likely, jointly in their
own organizations. That is how the virtues of individual self-regarding
activity in the marketplace generalize to the virtues of collective activity
by people in their own organizations.
The classical liberal normative framework that emphasizes this auton-
omy and self-efficacy is perhaps best stated by James M. Buchanan
(1919–2013):
The justificatory foundation for a liberal social order lies, in my under-

standing, in the normative premise that individuals are the ultimate sover-
eigns in matters of social organization, that individuals are the beings who
are entitled to choose the organizational-institutional structures under
which they will live. In accordance with this premise, the legitimacy of
social-organizational structures is to be judged against the voluntary agree-
ment of those who are to live or are living under the arrangements that are
judged. The central premise of individuals as sovereigns does allow for del-
egation of decision-making authority to agents, so long as it remains
understood that individuals remain as principals. The premise denies legiti-
macy to all social-organizational arrangements that negate the role of indi-
viduals as either sovereigns or as principals (Buchanan 1999, p. 288).
It should be particularly noted that Buchanan goes beyond the common

image of the sovereign individual acting in the marketplace to the individual
acting in an organization which allows “for delegation of decision-making
authority.” Then the legitimacy of the “social-organizational arrangements”
depends on the individuals being principals in their organizations.
hat Is Denied Legitimacy in the Classical

W
Liberal Social Order?
Coercive Institutions
The first broad category of institutions ruled out in the liberal social order
are those that are involuntarily imposed without “the voluntary agree-
ment of those who are to live” under the arrangements. The examples are
standard fare in liberal thought such as (involuntary) slavery or (involun-
tary) non-democratic government (Fig. 1).
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of co-ordinating the economic

activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coer-
cion—the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The
other is voluntary co-operation of individuals—the technique of the mar-
ket place (Friedman 1962, p. 13).
But Buchanan’s strictures go beyond these war-horse examples to rule

out the legitimacy of voluntary arrangements where the individuals do
not remain principals. Since that institutional territory is little explored,
if not little known, I will explore the intellectual history of such arrange-
ments in some detail. The voluntary contractual arrangements where
individuals do not remain principals are those that alienate (rather than
Fig. 1 The conventional framing of coercion versus consent

4 D. P. Ellerman
delegate) decision-making authority. The contractually established

decision-making ruler or ruling body rules in its own name and is not
empowered only as a delegate or representative of the individuals under
its authority. These alienation contracts can be divided into the individ-
ual and the collective cases.
Individual Alienation Contracts: The Voluntary Slavery

Contract
Today “slavery” is usually discussed as if it were intrinsically involuntary

so that “‘[v]oluntary slavery’ is impossible, much as a spherical cube or a
living corpse is impossible” (Palmer 2009, p. 457). But in fact from
Antiquity onward, the sophisticated defense of slavery have always been
based on implicit or explicit voluntary contracts. For western jurispru-
dence, the story starts with Roman law as codified in the Institutes of
Justinian:
Slaves either are born or become so. They are born so when their mother is
a slave; they become so either by the law of nations, that is, by captivity, or
by the civil law, as when a free person, above the age of twenty, suffers
himself to be sold, that he may share the price given for him (Institutes Lib.
I, Tit. III, sec. 4).
In addition to the third means of outright contractual slavery, the

other two means were also seen as having aspects of contract. A person
born of a slave mother and raised using the master’s food, clothing, and
shelter was considered as being in a perpetual servitude contract to trade
a lifetime of labor for these and future provisions. In the alienable natural
rights tradition, Samuel Pufendorf (1632–94) gave that contractual
interpretation:
Whereas, therefore, the Master afforded such Infant Nourishment, long

before his Service could be of any Use to him; and whereas all the following
Services of his Life could not much exceed the Value of his Maintenance,
he is not to leave his Master’s Service without his Consent. But ‘tis mani-
fest, That since these Bondmen came into a State of Servitude not by any
Fault of their own, there can be no Pretence that they should be otherwise
dealt withal, than as if they were in the Condition of perpetual hired
Servants. (Pufendorf 2003 (1673), pp. 186–87).
Manumission was an early repayment or cancellation of that debt. And

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), for example, clearly saw a “covenant” in
the ancient practice of enslaving prisoners of war:
And this dominion is then acquired to the victor when the vanquished, to
avoid the present stroke of death, covenants either in express words or by
other sufficient signs of the will that, so long as his life and the liberty of his
body is allowed him, the victor shall have the use thereof at his pleasure. …
It is not, therefore, the victory that gives the right of dominion over the
vanquished but his own covenant (Hobbes 1958 (1651), Bk. II, chapter 20).
Thus all of the three legal means of becoming a slave in Roman law had
explicit or implicit contractual interpretations.
John Locke’s (1632–1704) Two Treatises of Government (1690) is one
of the classics of liberal thought. Locke would not condone a contract
which gave the master the power of life or death over the slave:
For a Man, not having the Power of his own Life, cannot, by Compact or
his own Consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the
Absolute, Arbitrary Power of another, to take away his Life, when he pleases
(Second Treatise, §23).
This is the fount and source of what is sometimes taken as a “liberal doc-
trine of inalienable rights” (Tomasi 2012, p. 51). But after taking this
edifying stand, Locke pirouettes in the next section and accepts a slavery
contract that has some rights on both sides. Locke is only ruling out a
voluntary version of the old Roman slavery where the master could take
the life of the slave with impunity. But once the contract was put on a
more civilized footing, Locke accepted the contract and renamed it
“drudgery”:
For, if once Compact enter between them, and make an agreement for a
limited Power on the one side, and Obedience on the other, the State of
6 D. P. Ellerman
War and Slavery ceases, as long as the Compact endures…. I confess, we

find among the Jews, as well as other Nations, that Men did sell themselves;
but, ‘tis plain, this was only to Drudgery, not to Slavery. For, it is evident,
the Person sold was not under an Absolute, Arbitrary, Despotical Power
(Second Treatise, §24).
Locke is here setting an intellectual pattern, repeated many times later, of

taking a high moral stand against an extreme form of contractual slavery,
but then turning around and accepting a civilized form on contractual
slavery (e.g., rights on both sides at least in the law books) usually with
some more palatable linguistic designation such as drudgery, perpetual
servitude, or perpetual hired servant.
Moreover, Locke agreed with Hobbes on the practice of enslaving the
war captives as a quid pro quo plea-bargained exchange of slavery instead
of death and based on the ongoing consent of the captive:
Indeed having, by his fault, forfeited his own Life, by some Act that
deserves Death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in
his Power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own Service, and he
does him no injury by it. For, whenever he finds the hardship of his Slavery
out-weigh the value of his Life, ‘tis in his Power, by resisting the Will of his
Master, to draw on himself the Death he desires (Second Treatise, §23).
In Locke’s constitution for the Carolinas, he seemed to have justified

slavery by interpreting the slaves purchased by the slave traders on the
African coast as the captives in internal wars who had accepted the plea
bargain of a lifetime of slavery instead of death.2 Thereafter, the title was
transferred by commercial contracts. If the slave later decides to renege
on the plea-bargain contract and to take the other option, then “by resist-
ing the Will of his Master, (he may) draw on himself the Death he desires.”
Another basis for liberal jurisprudence is English common law. William
Blackstone (1723–1780), in his codification of English common law,
stuck to Locke’s choreography. Blackstone rules out a slavery where “an
absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and
fortune of the slave.” Such a slave would be free “the instant he lands in
England.” After such an edifying stand on high moral ground, Blackstone

pirouettes and adds:
Yet, with regard to any right which the master may have lawfully acquired
to the perpetual service of John or Thomas, this will remain exactly in the
same state as before: for this is no more than the same state of subjection
for life, which every apprentice submits to for the space of seven years, or
sometimes for a longer term (Blackstone 1959, section on “Master and
Servant”).
Another source of liberal thought is Montesquieu (1689–1755). On

the question of voluntary slavery, he employed the same Lockean chore-
ography in his treatment of inalienability and that treatment was para-
phrased in modern times by the dean of high liberalism, John Rawls
(1921–2002). Montesquieu begins with the usual repudiation of the self-
sale contract in an extreme form:
To sell one’s freedom is so repugnant to all reason as can scarcely be sup-

posed in any man. If liberty may be rated with respect to the buyer, it is
beyond all price to the seller (Montesquieu 1912 (1748), Vol. I, Bk. XV,
Chap. II).
Rawls paraphrases this argument from Montesquieu to argue that in the

original position, the
grounds upon which the parties are moved to guarantee these liberties,
together with the constraints of the reasonable, explain why the basic liber-
ties are, so to speak, beyond all price to persons so conceived. (Rawls
1996, p. 366)
After the “beyond all price” passage paraphrased by Rawls, Montesquieu

goes on to note: “I mean slavery in a strict sense, as it formerly existed
among the Romans, and exists at present in our colonies” (Montesquieu
1912 (1748), Vol. I, Bk. XV, Chap. II). Then Montesquieu performs his
volte-face by noting that this would not exclude a civilized or “mild” form
of the contract.
8 D. P. Ellerman
This is the true and rational origin of that mild law of slavery which obtains
in some countries; and mild it ought to be, as founded on the free choice a
man makes of a master, for his own benefit; which forms a mutual conven-
tion between two parties (Montesquieu 1912 (1748), Vol. I, Bk. XV,
Chap. V).
And then Rawls goes on to follow the same choreography in his treat-
ment of inalienability:
This explanation of why the basic liberties are inalienable does not exclude
the possibility that even in a well-ordered society some citizens may want
to circumscribe or alienate one or more of their basic liberties. …
Unless these possibilities affect the agreement of the parties in the origi-
nal position (and I hold that they do not), they are irrelevant to the inalien-
ability of the basic liberties (Rawls 1996, pp. 366–67 and fn. 82).
Of course, no one thinks that John Rawls would personally endorse a

voluntary slavery contract, but the question is his theories, not his per-
sonal views. And in his treatment of inalienability, he repeated the pat-
tern and even some of the language (“beyond all price”) of a “liberal
doctrine of inalienable rights” descending from Locke, Blackstone, and
Montesquieu that did explicitly endorse a civilized form of voluntary
contractual slavery, drudgery, or perpetual servitude.3 Below we will out-
line the genuine theory of inalienable rights that descends from the
Reformation inalienability of conscience through the Scottish and
German Enlightenments and English Dissenters, and that was trans-
ferred “from a religious on to a juridical plane” (Lincoln 1971, p. 2) by
the abolitionist and democratic movements.4
Rawls’ Harvard colleague, Robert Nozick (1938–2002), was notori-
ously explicit in accepting the (re)validation of the voluntary slavery con-
tract.5 He accepted that a free society should allow people to jointly
alienate their political sovereignty to a “dominant protective association”
(Nozick 1974, p. 15):
The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will

allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would (Nozick
1974, p. 331).
Nozick is reported to have had second thoughts in his later life precisely
on the question of inalienability, but Nozick never developed a theory of
inalienability that would overturn his earlier position.6
The contractual defense of slavery was also used in the debate over
slavery in ante-bellum America. The proslavery position is usually pre-
sented as being based on illiberal racist or paternalistic arguments.
Considerable attention is lavished on illiberal paternalistic writers such as
George Fitzhugh,7 while consent-based contractarian defenders of slavery
are passed over in silence. For example, Rev. Samuel Seabury (1801–1872)
gave a sophisticated liberal-contractarian defense of ante-bellum slavery
in the tradition of alienable natural rights theory:
From all which it appears that, wherever slavery exists as a settled condition
or institution of society, the bond which unites master and servant is of a
moral nature; founded in right, not in might; …. Let the origin of the rela-
tion have been what it may, yet when once it can plead such prescription of
time as to have received a fixed and determinate character, it must be
assumed to be founded in the consent of the parties, and to be, to all intents
and purposes, a compact or covenant, of the same kind with that which lies
at the foundation of all human society (Seabury 1969 (1861), p. 144).
“Contract!” methinks I hear them exclaim; “look at the poor fugitive from
his master’s service! He bound by contract! A good joke, truly.” But ask
these same men what binds them to society? Are they slaves to their rulers?
O no! They are bound together by the COMPACT on which society is
founded. Very good; but did you ever sign this compact? Did your fathers
every sign it? “No; it is a tacit and implied contract.” (Seabury 1969
(1861), p. 153).
Yet this voluntary contractual defense of slavery has largely gone down
the memory hole in the liberal intellectual history of the slavery debates.
For instance, McKitrick (1963) collects essays of fifteen proslavery writ-
ers, Faust (1981) collects seven proslavery essays, and Finkelman (2003)
collects seventeen proslavery writers, but none of them include a single
writer who argues to allow slavery on a contractual basis such as Seabury—
not to mention Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Blackstone, Molina,
Suarez, Montesquieu, and a host of others.8
10 D. P. Ellerman
The intellectual history of civilized voluntary slavery contracts con-

cludes with modern economic theory. Often the discussion of slavery is
colored with excesses and attributes that were unnecessary to slavery as an
economic institution. The economic essence of the contract is the life-
time ownership of labor services by the master, not the ownership of
persons or souls or the like. Even the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus noted
that “a slave should be treated as a ‘laborer hired for life’” (Sabine 1958,
p. 150). James Mill explained:
The only difference is, in the mode of purchasing. The owner of the slave
purchases, at once, the whole of the labour, which the man can ever perform:
he, who pays wages, purchases only so much of a man’s labour as he can per-
form in a day, or any other stipulated time (Mill 1826, Chapter I, section II).
And ante-bellum slavery apologists made a similar point:
Our property in man is a right and title to human labor. And where is it
that this right and title does not exist on the part of those who have money
to buy it? The only difference in any two cases is the tenure (Bryan 1858,
p. 10; quoted in Philmore 1982, p. 43).
One of the most elementary points in the solely economic way of

thinking is that the prohibition of a voluntary exchange between a will-
ing buyer and willing seller (in the absence of externalities) precludes
allocative efficiency. For instance, efficiency requires full futures markets
in all goods and services including human labor. Any attempt to truncate
future labor contracts at, say, T years could violate market efficiency since
there might today be willing buyers and sellers of labor to be performed
T + 1 years in the future. Hence market efficiency requires full future
markets in labor—which allows the perpetual servitude contract. One
will not find this point in the textbooks on the economic way of think-
ing, but the Johns Hopkins University economist Carl Christ made the
point quite explicit in no less a forum than Congressional testimony:
Now it is time to state the conditions under which private property and
free contract will lead to an optimal allocation of resources …. The institu-
tion of private property and free contract as we know it is modified to
permit individuals to sell or mortgage their persons in return for present

and/or future benefits (Christ 1975, p. 334).
In spite of the efficiency losses, the voluntary contract to capitalize all of

one’s labor is now abolished:
Since slavery was abolished, human earning power is forbidden by law to

be capitalized. A man is not even free to sell himself; he must rent himself
at a wage (Samuelson 1976, p. 52). 9
Individual Alienation Contracts: The Coverture

Marriage Contract
Another historical example of a personal alienation contract is the cover-

ture marriage contract that “identified” the legal personality of the wife
with that of the husband:
By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very
being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or
at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under
whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything; and is there-
fore called in our law-French, a feme covert, and is said to be under the
protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condi-
tion during her marriage is called her coverture (Blackstone 1959 (1765),
section on husband and wife).
The baron–femme relationship established by the coverture marriage

contract exemplified the identity fiction in past domestic law. A female
was to pass from the cover of her father to the cover of her husband (the
origin of today’s vestiges where the bride’s father “gives away” the bride to
the groom and the bride takes the groom’s family name)—always a
“femme covert” instead of the anomalous “femme sole.” The identity fic-
tion for the baron–femme relation was that “the husband and wife are
one person in law” with the implicit or explicit rider, “and that one per-
son is the husband.” A wife could own property and make contracts, but
only in the name of her husband. Obedience counted as “fulfilling” the
12 D. P. Ellerman
contract to have the wife’s legal personality subsumed under and identi-
fied with that of the husband.
ollective Alienation Contracts: The Hobbesian Pactum

C
Subjectionis
Democracy is not merely “government based on the consent of the gov-

erned,” since that consent might be to a pact of subjection or pactum
subjectionis, wherein people alienate (not delegate) their decision-making
sovereignty to a ruler. The political constitution of subjection (which
turns a citizen into a subject) finds its classic expression in Hobbes, but
the idea of an implicit or explicit non-democratic constitution again goes
back to Antiquity.
Again we may begin the intellectual history with Roman law. The sov-
ereignty of the Roman emperor was usually seen as being founded on a
contract of rulership enacted by the Roman people. The Roman jurist
Ulpian gave the classic and oft-quoted statement of this view in the
Institutes of Justinian (1948):
Whatever has pleased the prince has the force of law, since the Roman
people by the lex regia enacted concerning his imperium, have yielded up to
him all their power and authority.10
The American constitutional scholar Edward S. Corwin noted the ques-

tions that arose in the Middle Ages about the nature of this pact:
During the Middle Ages the question was much debated whether the lex
regia effected an absolute alienation (translatio) of the legislative power to
the Emperor, or was a revocable delegation (cessio). The champions of pop-
ular sovereignty at the end of this period, like Marsiglio of Padua in his
Defensor Pacis, took the latter view (Corwin 1955, p. 4, fn. 8).
It is precisely this question of translatio or concessio—alienation or del-

egation of the right of government in the contract—that is the key ques-
tion, not consent versus coercion. Consent is on both sides of that
alienation (translatio) versus delegation (concessio) framing of the ques-
tion—and thus the later Buchanan moved beyond the calculus of con-
sent (1962) to the additional requirement that people remain the
principals who only delegate their decision-making authority. The alien-
ation version of the contract became a sophisticated tacit contract defense
of non-democratic government wherever the latter existed as a settled
condition. And the delegation version of the contract became the foun-
dation for democratic theory.
The German legal thinker Otto von Gierke (1841–1921) was quite
clear about the alienation-versus-delegation question:
This dispute also reaches far back into the Middle Ages. It first took a
strictly juristic form in the dispute … as to the legal nature of the ancient
“translatio imperii” from the Roman people to the Princeps. One school
explained this as a definitive and irrevocable alienation of power, the
other as a mere concession of its use and exercise. … On the one hand
from the people’s abdication the most absolute sovereignty of the prince
might be deduced, …. On the other hand the assumption of a mere
“concessio imperii” led to the doctrine of popular sovereignty (Gierke
1966, pp. 93–94).
A state of government which had been settled for many years was seen
as being legitimated by the tacit consent of the people. Thomas Aquinas
(1225–74) expressed the canonical medieval view:
Aquinas had laid it down in his Summary of Theology that, although the
consent of the people is essential in order to establish a legitimate political
society, the act of instituting a ruler always involves the citizens in
alienating—rather than merely delegating—their original sovereign

authority (Skinner 1978, Vol. I, p. 62).
In about 1310, according to Gierke, “Engelbert of Volkersdorf is the

first to declare in a general way that all regna et principatus originated in a
pactum subjectionis which satisfied a natural want and instinct” (1958,
p. 146). Indeed, at least by the late Middle Ages,
there was developed a doctrine which taught that the State had a rightful
beginning in a Contract of Subjection to which the People was party ….
14 D. P. Ellerman
Indeed that the legal title to all Rulership lies in the voluntary and contrac-
tual submission of the Ruled could therefore be propounded as a philo-
sophic axiom (Gierke 1958, pp. 38–40).
That idea passed over into the alienable natural law tradition. After
noting that an individual could sell himself into slavery under Hebrew
and Roman law, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) extends the possibility to
the political level:
Now if an individual may do so, why may not a whole people, for the ben-
efit of better government and more certain protection, completely transfer
their sovereign rights to one or more persons, without reserving any por-
tion to themselves? (Grotius 1901 (1625), p. 63).
Thomas Hobbes made the best-known attempt to found non-

democratic government on the consent of the governed. Without an
overarching power to hold people in awe, life would be a constant war of
all against all. To prevent this state of chaos and strife, men should join
together and voluntarily alienate and transfer the right of self-government
to a person or body of persons as the sovereign. This pactum subjectionis
would be a
covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man
should say to every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing
myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that you
give up your right to him and authorize all his actions in like manner
(Hobbes 1958 (1651), p. 142).
The consent-based contractarian tradition is brought fully up to date

in Robert Nozick’s contemporary libertarian defense of the contract to
alienate one’s right of self-determination to a “dominant protective
association.”
In view of this history of apologetics for autocracy based on consent, the
conventional distinction between coercion and government based on the
“consent of the governed” was not the key to democratic theory. The real
debate was within the sphere of consent and was between the alienation
(translatio) and delegation (concessio) versions of the basic social or political
constitution. Late medieval thinkers such as Marsilius of Padua (1275–1342)

and Bartolus of Saxoferrato (1314–57) laid some of the foundations for
democratic theory in the distinction between consent that establishes a
relation of delegation versus consent to an alienation of authority:
The theory of popular sovereignty developed by Marsiglio (Marsilius) and

Bartolus was destined to play a major role in shaping the most radical ver-
sion of early modern constitutionalism. Already they are prepared to argue
that sovereignty lies with the people, that they only delegate and never
alienate it, and thus that no legitimate ruler can ever enjoy a higher status
than that of an official appointed by, and capable of being dismissed by, his
own subjects (Skinner 1978, Vol. I, p. 65).
As Marsilius put it:
The aforesaid whole body of citizens or the weightier part thereof is the
legislator regardless of whether it makes the law directly by itself or entrusts
the making of it to some person or persons, who are not and cannot be the
legislator in the absolute sense, but only in a relative sense and for a par-
ticular time and in accordance with the authority of the primary legislator
(Marsilius 1980 (1324), p. 45).
According to Bartolus, the citizens “constitute their own princeps,” so any

authority held by their rulers and magistrates “is only delegated to them
(concessum est) by the sovereign body of the people” (Skinner 1978, Vol.
I, p. 62).
Quentin Skinner, writing in the civic republican tradition, continually
emphasized the alienation-versus-delegation theme in his two volumes,
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978). Yet other modern
intellectual historians, such as Jonathan Israel (e.g., 2010) writing in
more the conventional liberal tradition, have covered the same history of
democratic thought and yet ignore the alienation-versus-delegation
theme11 in favor of the emphasis on the consent of the governed as if that
were sufficient to entail democratic government.12 This is in spite of
Gierke pointing out that at least by the late Middle Ages, it was “pro-
pounded as a philosophic axiom” that “the legal title to all Rulership lies
in the voluntary and contractual submission of the Ruled.”
16 D. P. Ellerman
This highlights the importance of James Buchanan, in his mature

work, of seeing classical liberalism as requiring social-organizational
arrangements that are not only voluntary but have people remaining as
sovereigns or as principals only delegating their decision-making author-
ity. That establishes a theoretical bond between classical liberalism and
democracy:
To Plato there are natural slaves and natural masters, with the consequences
that follow for social organization, be it economic or political. To Adam
Smith, by contrast, who is in this as in other aspects the archetype classical
liberal, the philosopher and the porter are natural equals with observed
differences readily explainable by culture and choice (Buchanan
2005, p. 67).
This natural equality means the sovereigns-or-principals principle would

apply to all and thus would rule out governance arrangements based on a
voluntary contract of alienation of governance rights:
The postulate of natural equality carries with it the requirement that genu-
ine classical liberals adhere to democratic principles of governance; politi-
cal equality as a necessary norm makes us all small ‘d’ democrats (Buchanan
2005, p. 69).
This implication of Buchanan’s version of democratic classical liberal-

ism exposes a fault line that runs through today’s classical liberal and
libertarian thinkers. For instance, it would rule out the non-democratic
governance contract to be agreed to “for the benefit of better government
and more certain protection” by voluntarily moving to a charter city, a
startup city, a shareholder state, or a seastead city—all of which are widely
supported by free-market thinkers along classical liberal, libertarian, or
Austrian lines:
(I)f one starts a private town, on land whose acquisition did not and does
not violate the Lockean proviso (of non-aggression), persons who chose to
move there or later remain there would have no right to a say in how the
town was run, unless it was granted to them by the decision procedures for
the town which the owner had established (Nozick 1974, p. 270).
The libertarian bottom line is that government must be based on con-

sent which includes the possibility of exit when consent is withdrawn.
Libertarianism is, of course, not against democratic government; the
point is that democracy is only one choice among other consent-based
rule-of-law governments. The point is that there should be a “democratiz-
ing choice of law, governance, and regulation”13 which includes well-
regulated non-democratic enclaves like old Hong Kong and new Dubai.
Libertarian models of consent-based non-democratic municipal or state
governments include the notion of “free cities” or “startup cities,” propri-
etary cities, Patri Friedman’s floating seastead cities, Paul Romer’s charter
cities, or “shareholder states” (Tyler Cowen’s phrase) all of which see the
resident-subjects as having agreed to a pactum subjectionis as evidenced by
their voluntary decision to move to and remain in the city or state (assum-
ing free exit).
The philosophical defense of charter/startup cities (e.g., Freiman 2013)
also applies the solely economic way of thinking to the piecemeal volun-
tary alienation of decision-making in the selling of votes:
Under normal conditions voluntary economic exchange is ex ante mutually

beneficial. A trade is not consummated unless both parties expect to ben-
efit. I will exchange a quarter for an apple only if I value the apple more
than the quarter and an apple seller will exchange an apple for my quarter
only if she values the quarter more than the apple. The same analysis applies
to votes. I’ll sell my vote for n dollars only if I value n dollars more than my
vote and the buyer will buy my vote for n dollars only if she values my vote
more than n dollars. All things equal, vote markets leave both buyers and
sellers better off (Freiman 2014, p. 3).14
Inalienable Rights: Minimum Constraints

on the Economic Way of Thinking
The Self-Sale Contract and the Pactum Subjectionis
We have seen that the debate about slavery and non-democratic govern-
ment was not a simple consent-versus-coercion debate. From Antiquity
down to the present, there were consent-based arguments for slavery and
18 D. P. Ellerman
autocracy as being founded on certain explicit or implicit contracts. The

abolitionist and democratic movements needed to answer not just the
worst but the “best” arguments based on explicit or implicit voluntary
contracts.
In contrast to the faux “liberal doctrine of inalienable rights” devel-
oped by Locke, Blackstone, and Montesquieu, the abolitionist and dem-
ocratic movements developed arguments that there was something
inherently invalid in the voluntary alienation contracts—even there
might be mutual benefits, and thus that the rights which these contracts
pretended to alienate were in fact inalienable. The theory of inalienable
rights gives minimum constraints on the economic-way-of-thinking
arguments applied to personal alienation contracts such as the voluntary
self-sale contract and the collective pact of subjection (and, one might
add, the coverture marriage contract) which are already abolished.
The key is that in consenting to such an alienation contract, a person is
agreeing to, in effect, take on the legal role of a non-adult, indeed, a non-
person or thing. Yet all the consent in the world would not in fact turn an
adult into a minor or person of diminished capacity, not to mention, turn
a person into a thing. The most the person could do was obey the master,
sovereign, or employer—and the authorities would “count” that as fulfill-
ing the contract. Then all the legal rights and obligations would be assigned
according to the “contract” (as if the person in fact had diminished or no
capacity). But since the person remained a de facto fully capacitated adult
person with only the legal-contractual role of a non-person, the contract
was impossible and invalid. A system of positive law that accepted such
contracts was only a legalized fraud on an institutional scale.
Applying this argument requires prior analysis to tell when a contract
puts a person in the legal role of a non-person. Having the role of a non-
person is not necessarily explicit in the contract and it has nothing to do
with the payment in the contract, the incompleteness of the contract, or
the like. Persons and things can be distinguished on the basis of decision-
making and responsibility. For instance, a genuine thing such as a tool
like a shovel can be alienated or transferred from person A to B. Person
A, the owner of the tool, can indeed give up making decisions about the
use of the tool and person B can take over making those decisions. Person
A does not have the responsibility for the consequences of the employ-
ment of the tool by person B. Person B makes the decisions about using
the tool and has the de facto responsibility for the results of that use. Thus
a contract to sell or rent a tool such as a shovel from A to B can actually
be fulfilled. The decision-making and responsibility for employing the
tool can in fact be transferred or alienated from A to B.
But now replace the tool by person A himself or herself. Suppose that
the contract was for person A to sell or rent himself or herself to person
B—as if a person was a transferable or alienable instrument that could be
“employed” by another person like a shovel might be employed by others.
The pactum subjectionis is a collective version of such a contract but it is
easier to understand the individualistic version. The contract could be
perfectly voluntary. For whatever reason and compensation, person A is
willing to take on the legal role of a talking instrument (to use Aristotle’s
phrase). But the person A cannot in fact transfer decision-making or
responsibility over his or her own actions to B. The point is not that a
person should not or ought not do it or that the person is not paid
enough; the point is that a person cannot in fact make such a voluntary
transfer. At most, person A can agree to cooperate with B by doing what
B says—even if B’s instructions are quite complete. But that is no alien-
ation or transference of decision-making or responsibility. Person A is still
inexorably involved in ratifying B’s decisions and person A inextricably
shares the de facto responsibility for the results of A’s and B’s joint activ-
ity—as everyone recognizes in the case of a hired criminal.
Yet a legal system could “validate” such a (non-criminous) contract
and could “count” obedience to the master or sovereign as “fulfilling” the
contract and then rights are structured as if it were actually fulfilled, that
is, as if the person were actually of diminished or no capacity. But such an
institutionalized fraud always has one revealing moment when anyone
can see the legal fiction behind the system. That is when the legalized
“thing” would commit a crime. Then the “thing” would be suddenly
metamorphosed—in the eyes of the law—back into being a person to be
held legally responsible for the crime. For instance, an ante-bellum
Alabama court asserted that slaves
are rational beings, they are capable of committing crimes; and in reference
to acts which are crimes, are regarded as persons. Because they are slaves,
they are … incapable of performing civil acts, and, in reference to all such,
they are things, not persons (Catterall 1926, p. 247).
20 D. P. Ellerman
Since there was no legal theory that slaves physically became things in
their “civil acts,” the fiction involved in treating the slaves as “things” was
clear. And this is a question of the facts about human nature, facts that
are unchanged by consent or contract. If the slave had acquired that legal
role in a voluntary contract, it would not change the fact that the con-
tractual slave remained a de facto person with the law only “counting” the
contractual slave’s non-criminous obedience as “fulfilling” the contract to
play the legal role of a non-responsible entity, a non-person or thing.
The Self-Rental Contract
The surprising and controversial result is that the inalienability argument

applies as well to the self-rental contract—that is, today’s employment
contract—as to the self-sale contract or pact of subjection.15 I can certainly
voluntarily agree to a contract to be “employed” by an “employer” on a
long- or short-term basis, but I cannot in fact “transfer” my own actions
for the long or short term. The factual inalienability of responsible human
action and decision-making is independent of the duration of the con-
tract. That factual inalienability is also independent of the compensation
paid in the contract—which is why this inalienability analysis has nothing
to do with exploitation theories of either the Marxian variety (extracting
more labor time than is embodied in the wages) or neoclassical variety
(paying wages less than the value of the marginal productivity of labor).
Where the legal system “validates” such contracts, it must fictitiously
“count” one’s inextricably co-responsible cooperation with the “employer”
as fulfilling the employment contract—unless, of course, the employer
and employee commit a crime together. The servant in work then morphs
into the co-responsible partner in crime:
All who participate in a crime with a guilty intent are liable to punishment.
A master and servant who so participate in a crime are liable criminally, not
because they are master and servant, but because they jointly carried out a
criminal venture and are both criminous (Batt 1967, p. 612).
When the “venture” being “jointly carried out” by the employer and
employee is not criminous, then the facts about human responsibility are
unchanged. But then the fiction takes over. The joint venture or partner-
ship is transformed into the employer’s sole venture. The employee is

legally transformed from being a co-responsible partner to being only an
input supplier sharing no legal responsibility for either the input liabili-
ties or the produced outputs of the employer’s business.
Some Intellectual History of Inalienable Rights

Where has this key insight—that a person cannot voluntarily fit the legal
role of a non-person (e.g., the de facto inalienability of responsible agency)—
erupted in the history of thought? The Ancients did not see this matter
clearly. For Aristotle, slavery was based on “fact”; some adults were seen as
being inherently of diminished capacity if not as “talking instruments”
marked for slavery “from the hour of their birth.” Treating them as slaves was
no more inappropriate for Aristotle than treating a donkey as a non-person.
The Stoics held the radically different view that no one was a slave by
their nature; slavery was an external condition juxtaposed to the internal
freedom of the soul. After being essentially lost during the Middle Ages,
the Stoic doctrine that the “inner part cannot be delivered into bondage”
(Davis 1966, p. 77) re-emerged in the Reformation doctrine of liberty of
conscience. Secular authorities who try to compel belief can only secure
external conformity:
Besides, the blind, wretched folk do not see how utterly hopeless and
impossible a thing they are attempting. For no matter how much they fret
and fume, they cannot do more than make people obey them by word or
deed; the heart they cannot constrain, though they wear themselves out
trying. For the proverb is true, “Thoughts are free.” Why then would they
constrain people to believe from the heart, when they see that it is impos-
sible? (Luther 1942 (1523), p. 316).
Martin Luther was explicit about the de facto element; it was “impossi-
ble” to “constrain people to believe from the heart.”:
Furthermore, every man is responsible for his own faith, and he must see it
for himself that he believes rightly. As little as another can go to hell or
heaven for me, so little can he believe or disbelieve for me; and as little as
he can open or shut heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to faith
22 D. P. Ellerman
or unbelief. Since, then, belief or unbelief is a matter of every one’s con-

science, and since this is no lessening of the secular power, the latter should
be content and attend to its own affairs and permit men to believe one
thing or another, as they are able and willing, and constrain no one by
force (ibid.).
Although an atheist and a Jew, it was perhaps Benedict de Spinoza

(1632–1677) who first translated the Protestant doctrine of the inalien-
ability of conscience into the political notion of a right that could not be
ceded “even with consent.” In Spinoza’s 1670 Theologico-Political Treatise,
he spelled out the essentials of the inalienable rights argument:
However, we have shown already (Chapter XVII) that no man’s mind can
possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly
transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so
to do. For this reason government which attempts to control minds is
accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a
usurpation of the rights of subjects, to seek to prescribe what shall be
accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men
in their worship of God. All these questions fall within a man’s natural
right, which he cannot abdicate even with consent (Spinoza 1951, p. 257).
But it was Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), the predecessor of Adam

Smith in the chair in moral philosophy in Glasgow and one of the lead-
ing moral philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, who (indepen-
dently?) arrived at the same idea in the form that was to later enter the
political lexicon through the American Declaration of Independence.
Although intimated in earlier works (1725), the inalienability argument
is best developed in Hutcheson’s influential A System of Moral Philosophy:
Our rights are either alienable, or unalienable. The former are known by
these two characters jointly, that the translation of them to others can be
made effectually, and that some interest of society, or individuals consis-
tently with it, may frequently require such translations. Thus our right to
our goods and labours is naturally alienable. But where either the transla-
tion cannot be made with any effect, or where no good in human life
requires it, the right is unalienable, and cannot be justly claimed by any
other but the person originally possessing it (Hutcheson 1755, p. 261).
Hutcheson appeals to the inalienability argument in addition to utility.

He contrasts de facto alienable goods where “the translation of them to
others can be made effectually” (like the aforementioned shovel) with fac-
tually inalienable faculties where “the translation cannot be made with any
effect.” This was not just some outpouring of moral emotions that one
should not alienate this or that basic right. Hutcheson actually set forth a
theory which could have legs of its own far beyond Hutcheson’s (not to
mention Luther’s) intent. He based the theory on what in fact could or
could not be transferred or alienated from one person to another. Hutcheson
goes on to show how the “right of private judgment” is inalienable:
Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward
affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make
him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is
therefore unalienable (Hutcheson 1755, pp. 261–62).
Democratic theory carried over this theory from the inalienability of

conscience to a critique of the Hobbesian pactum subjectionis, the con-
tract to alienate and transfer the right of self-determination as if it were a
property right that could be transferred from a people to a sovereign:
There is, at least, one right that cannot be ceded or abandoned: the right to
personality. Arguing upon this principle the most influential writers on
politics in the seventeenth century rejected the conclusions drawn by
Hobbes. They charged the great logician with a contradiction in terms. If a
man could give up his personality he would cease being a moral being. …
This fundamental right, the right to personality, includes in a sense all the
others. To maintain and to develop his personality is a universal right. It …
cannot, therefore, be transferred from one individual to another. … There
is no pactum subjectionis, no act of submission by which man can give up
the state of a free agent and enslave himself (Cassirer 1963, p. 175).
Few have seen these connections as clearly as Staughton Lynd in his

Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (1969). When commenting
on Hutcheson’s theory, Lynd noted that when “rights were termed
‘unalienable’ in this sense, it did not mean that they could not be trans-
ferred without consent, but that their nature made them untransferrable”
24 D. P. Ellerman
(Lynd 1969, p. 45).16 The crucial link was to go from the de facto inalien-
able liberty of conscience to a theory of inalienable rights based on the
same idea:
Like the mind’s quest for religious truth from which it was derived, self-
determination was not a claim to ownership which might be both acquired
and surrendered, but an inextricable aspect of the activity of being human.
(Lynd 1969, pp. 56–57)
In the American Declaration of Independence, “Jefferson took his

division of rights into alienable and unalienable from Hutcheson, who
made the distinction popular and important” (Wills 1979, p. 213). But
the theory behind the notion of inalienable rights was lost in the transi-
tion from the Scottish Enlightenment to the slave-holding society of
ante-bellum America. The phraseology of “inalienable rights” is a staple
in our political culture, for example, our 4th of July rhetoric, but the
original theory of inalienability has been largely ignored or forgotten
(Fig. 2).17
Fig. 2 Reframing that separates non-democratic and democratic classical

liberalism
he Implications for Today’s Social-

T
Organizational Structures
After this long “detour” through intellectual history, we must return to
the main theme of how the virtues of individual self-regarding activity in
the marketplace might generalize to the virtues of collective activity by
people in their own organizations. We have taken James M. Buchanan’s
description of the normative basis for classical liberalism as the frame-
work to apply to the theme. We have also noted that Buchanan’s mature
thought moved beyond the mere calculus of consent in the solely eco-
nomic way of thinking to the stronger requirement that people always
remain sovereign or principals who only delegate decision-making
authority. And we have noted how Buchanan’s strictures implied demo-
cratic self-governance in contrast to the currents of right-libertarianism
and Austrian thought that accept the consent of the governed to non-
democratic governance, for example, startup cities.
In many modern discussions of associative and deliberative democracy
(e.g., in the tradition of Tocqueville), there is a curious “dog that didn’t
bark.” The emphasis is rightly on the associative activities of citizens who
come together for discussion, dialogue, deliberation, and responsible
action to address problems that they cannot resolve at the level of the
individual or the family. People create many associations for collective
action: church groups, charities, issue-oriented non-profits, unions, social
clubs, hobby groups, political parties, and ad hoc special-purpose groups.
People might participate after-hours in these various Tocquevillean asso-
ciations to try to accomplish together what they cannot accomplish
individually.
But that list of non-governmental associations leaves out the one orga-
nization that dominates most people’s lives outside the family, namely,
the workplace.18 That lacuna corresponds to the curious classification of
non-governmental organizations into the second sector of private work-
place organizations and the third sector of “non-profit” organizations.
Of course, some people work for themselves or in small family firms so
those workplaces are only a marginal extension of family life. But most
people work in larger organizations requiring the concerted associated
26 D. P. Ellerman
activities of many non-family members. These work organizations pro-

vide the primary sites, outside the family, where people acquire mental
habits and social skills and where they engage in effective collective
activities.
Almost all workplaces are organized on the basis of the employment
contract. In common usage, to have an income-producing job is to be
“employed.” Indeed, Ronald Coase (1910–2013) identifies the nature of
the firm with the “legal relationship normally called that of ‘master and
servant’ or ‘employer and employee’” (1937, p. 403).19
In the employment contract, the employees are not Buchanan’s princi-
pals; they do not delegate decision-making authority to the employer.
The employer is not the representative or delegate of the employees; the
employer does not manage the organization in the name of those who are
managed. The employees are not directly or indirectly part of the decision-
making group; the employees have alienated and transferred to the
employer the discretionary decision-making rights over their activities
within the scope of the employment contract. In short, the employment
contract is the limited pactum subjectionis of the workplace.
The form of workplace organization that would satisfy the strictures of
Buchanan’s liberalism is one where all the people working in a firm are
the members or workplace citizens. That requires re-constituting the cor-
poration as a democratic organization; the workplace citizens are the
principals who only delegate decision-making authority to the managers.
Two Earlier Liberal Philosophers

John Stuart Mill
To see the context and corroboration for Buchanan’s normative frame-

work, we might consider the work of two earlier liberal philosophers,
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and John Dewey.
Mill argued that social institutions should be judged in large part by
the degree to which they “promote the general mental advancement of
the community, including under that phrase advancement in intellect, in
virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency” (Mill 1972, Chapter 6).
Mill saw government by discussion as an “agency of national education”

and mentioned “the practice of the dicastery and the ecclesia” in ancient
Athens as institutions that developed the active political capabilities of
the citizens.
In his Principles of Political Economy, Mill considered how the form of
work would affect those capabilities and how the workplace association
could become a school for the civic virtues if it progressed beyond the
employment relation:
But if public spirit, generous sentiments, or true justice and equality are
desired, association, not isolation, of interests, is the school in which these
excellences are nurtured. The aim of improvement should be not solely to
place human beings in a condition in which they will be able to do without
one another, but to enable them to work with or for one another in rela-
tions not involving dependence (Mill 1899, Book IV, Chapter VII).
Previously those who lived by labor and were not individually self-
employed would have to work “for a master,” that is, would not be a
principal in their work activity:20
But the civilizing and improving influences of association, …, may be

obtained without dividing the producers into two parties with hostile
interests and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants
under the command of the one who supplies the funds, and having no
interest of their own in the enterprise except to earn their wages with as
little labor as possible (Mill 1899, Book IV, Chapter VII).
One halfway house in this direction would be various forms of associa-

tion between capital and labor:
The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve,

must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist
between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice in the man-
agement, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equal-
ity, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations,
and working under managers elected and removable by themselves (Mill
1899, Book IV, Chapter VII).
28 D. P. Ellerman
Under this form of cooperation, Mill sees an increase in the productiv-

ity of work since the workers then have the enterprise as “their principle
and their interest.”:
It is scarcely possible to rate too highly this material benefit, which yet is as
nothing compared with the moral revolution in society that would accom-
pany it: the healing of the standing feud between capital and labour; the
transformation of human life, from a conflict of classes struggling for
opposite interests, to a friendly rivalry in the pursuit of a good common to
all; the elevation of the dignity of labour; a new sense of security and inde-
pendence in the labouring class; and the conversion of each human being’s
daily occupation into a school of the social sympathies and the practical
intelligence (Mill 1899, Book IV, Chapter VII).
What Mill sees as happening in the democratic workplace echoes what

he earlier found in Tocqueville’s description of the educational effect of
the New England township. In Tocqueville’s words:
Nevertheless local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free

nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science;
they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how
to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but with-
out the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty
(Tocqueville 1961, Chap. V, p. 55).
As Mill expanded on the point:
In this system of municipal self-government, coeval with the first settle-

ment of the American colonies…our author (Tocqueville) beholds the
principal instrument of that political education of the people, which alone
enables a popular government to maintain itself, or renders it desirable that
it should. It is a fundamental principle in his political philosophy, as it has
long been in ours, that only by the habit of superintending their local inter-
ests can that diffusion of intelligence and mental activity, as applied to their
joint concerns, take place among the mass of the people, which can qualify
them to superintend with steadiness or consistency the proceedings of their
government, or to exercise any power in national affairs except by fits, and
as tools in the hands of others (Mill 1961 (1835), p. xvii).
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ministers walked out for conscience’ sake; the perplexed look of the
remaining members of Assembly; the awe-struck, solemn silence of
the crowd as the line of reverend and grave men became longer and
yet longer; the tumult of joy and sorrow as they crowded into Tanfield
Hall; the reception they got from ministers of other denominations
and the Christian public. As, however, these are fully described in
the chronicles or annals of the times, I will not repeat them here, but
would commend the subject to the attention of the student of history,
and of the Scotch people, whichever side of the questions in dispute
they may favour.
When he had laid the case before us, Mr. Barrie with great
earnestness said, “I wish no one to join the Free Church, for”—here
he hesitated, and looked as if debating something with himself, then
resumed, “for—for—well, excuse me for using the term, for my sake.
I wish every man to act only on distinct conviction; and, if I know
myself at all, I consider the right of private judgment in such matters
such a holy thing, that I will respect those who, on conviction, differ
from me on this matter, as much as I will those who go along with me
in it. And now, Christian friends, I leave the matter in your hands.
Consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.”
A long, impressive silence followed Mr. Barrie’s
remarks. The deputation looked down, then up, then at FRIENDS
one another. At length Mr. Taylor said: “Gentlemen, IN
ye’ve heard Mr. Barrie—I can answer for myself—with COUNCIL.
great satisfaction. I’ve been reading the Merqry” (an
Edinburgh newspaper called the Caledonian Mercury) “and the
Scotsman on this matter—thanks to Mr. Smith for it. I’ve mair time for
readin’ than I once had, and I never was prouder o’ my country than
when I read that abune[4] four hunder ministers had courage enough,
and faith enough, and principle enough, to leave the Kirk when they
saw that her birthricht was wrested frae her by the sec’lar power, and
their consciences scandaleez’d by open defiance to the fundamental
principles of the Christian economy. I needna tell you, gentlemen,
that this leaving o’ the Kirk means loss o’ house and ha’, and way o’
livin’, or stipend as it’s ca’d; an’ nae doubt there’s a sair heart in
mony a minister’s breast, when he thinks o’ his family and them that
depends on him. And nae wonder, for in that respect it’s a step in the
dark,—a’ the eerier that he has his nearest and dearest on his back,
and a wrang step might finish them a’.” Here Mr. Barrie winced, and
emitted a sudden sound as if cold water had been poured on his
back, which led Mr. Taylor to change his graphic style to one of
practical application. “But no’ to detain ye, gentlemen, I for one side
wi’ the Free Kirk, and will dae all in my power to back Mr. Barrie; and
I hope and trust that the world’ll see that Scotland hasna lost the
Covenanter’s spirit yet, and will countenance what I may ca’ the
martyrs o’ her third Reformation, that have gi’en up sae much for
their Maister’s sake, and never let them want a ‘competent portion of
the good things of this life.’ ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so
fulfil the law of Christ.’”
[4] Above.
Others expressed themselves to the same effect. The oldest man in

the party, George Brown, verging on eighty years of age, a
“Nathanael,” after a few words said, “Mr. Barrie, and Christian
friends, I propose that we renew the Covenant.” He made the same
proposal in one of the early Assemblies, although his weak voice,
and the unexpectedness and inexpediency of the motion, prevented
its being taken up.
It was resolved, on Mr. Barrie’s suggestion, to call a meeting of the
parishioners for Saturday afternoon, so that he might have an
opportunity of explaining the “Disruption” fully to all who would meet
with him, and to let the meeting be known in the parish, so that there
might be a good attendance. Mr. Barrie also said that, as he
considered it inexpedient to conduct the Sabbath service in the (he
called it for the first time) “old” church, he would on Sabbath preach
on the Annie Green, a nice grassy common, with its banks sloping
upwards in a fairly-sized semicircle, formed at a bend of the burn.
Before leaving the manse there was a service. The daylight had
begun to fade; Mr. Barrie said that on that account we would sing
what we all knew so well as not to need books, the 2d Paraphrase.
As he read it, his voice faltered, and there was not a dry eye, or a
throat without a lump in it, as it was sung. I give it in full below,
although it must be familiar to nearly all of my readers, leaving them
to judge of its singular applicability to the case:
“O God of Bethel! by whose hand

Thy people still are fed;
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led:
“Our vows, our pray’rs, we now present

Before thy throne of grace:
God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.
“Through each perplexing path of life

Our wand’ring footsteps guide;
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.
“O spread thy cov’ring wings around,

Till all our wand’rings cease,
And at our Father’s lov’d abode
Our souls arrive in peace.
“Such blessings from thy gracious hand

Our humble pray’rs implore;
And thou shalt be our chosen God,
And portion evermore.”
The prayer was impressive and devout, fervent in its cry for light and
strength and grace, simple and reverent.
After leaving the manse, the deputation walked
GEORGE slowly down the approach, old George Brown
BROWN. leaning on Mr. Taylor’s arm. When we reached the
gate opening on the public road, George, who was in
front, turned about, and when all had gathered round him, he said:
“Freends, I’m an auld man, the auldest o’ ye a’, and I
thank God I’ve lived to see this day. I’ve lang mourned ALL THE
o’er the backslidings and defections o’ our times, but TITHES.
the Lord has made bare His holy arm. This is the day
of His merciful visitation. I’ll say to you as Moses said to Joshua, ‘Be
strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the
Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor
forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.’ Dinna turn your back in
the day of battle, like the sons of Ephraim; dinna abide by the
bleatings of the sheep, like Reuben, or remain in ships, like Dan;
abune a’, dinna provoke the curse of Meroz for not coming to the
help of the Lord against the mighty. Mind, when things werena as
they should have been in the days o’ Haggai, when men lived in their
ceiled houses and let the house o’ the Lord lie waste, that they
sowed much but brocht in little, when neither their meat nor their
drink nourished them, and even their vera claes werena warm. Their
wages were putten into a bag wi’ holes, and the Lord blew on what
did grow; an’ the drouth[5] spoilt their corn, an’ wine, an’ oil, an’ men,
an’ cattle, an’ a’ the labour o’ their hands; and they had blastin’, an’
mildew, an’ hail. But frae the vera day, the four-and-twentieth day o’
the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation o’ the Lord’s
temple was laid—frae that vera day the Lord blessed them wi’ plenty,
an’ scattered their faes, and made them as a signet—that I take to
be a finger-ring, aye in His sicht. We hae gude reason to believe that
the Lord’s time to favour Zion has come. He’s sitting like a refiner of
silver, purifying the sons of Levi. Dinna rob Him in tithes and
offerings, or He’ll curse us wi’ a curse; but oh, my freends, bring a’
the tithes into the store-house,—the tithe o’ pious hearts and godly
zeal, an’ prayer, an’ brotherly love, an’ charity, an’ works o’ faith, an’
labours o’ love, and worldly goods—a’ the tithes; dinna keep back
pairt o’ the price, as ye would escape the fate o’ Ananias and
Sapphira. And if we a’ dae our pairt, the Lord will prove true to His
promise, an’ open the windows o’ heaven, and pour out a blessing till
there’s no room to receive it; and ours will be a delightsome land—
no more desolate and forsaken, but Hephzibah and Beulah, which
means ‘Delighted in,’ and ‘Married.’”
[5] Drought.
There was something of the old prophet in the good man, as he
“lifted up his voice and testified.” An interesting conversation
followed, in which present duty was discussed, and each resolved to
help the good cause. Before leaving the avenue, under the shade of
the two limes which graced its entrance, without previous concert,
but as if moved by a simultaneous influence, we uncovered and
looked to old George. He quite understood the look, and feeling the
impulse, he engaged in prayer. His words had the rich unction of
Christian experience; they lifted us up for the time until we felt as if
inside the audience-chamber; he spoke as one speaks to a father
and friend; it was not wrestling, it was more like Hezekiah’s
spreading out the letter of the Assyrian captain before the Lord in the
temple. The close of the prayer for light and direction was fervent,—
that every one of us may ask, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
and do it with all our might, as good soldiers, and good servants, and
good stewards. During the prayer was heard an occasional “amen,”
and there was a unanimous “amen” at its close, a very uncommon
thing in such exercises in Scotland.
All had shaken hands with George, and were bidding good-bye to
each other, when George said: “My freends, I’m gaun to ask a
favour. I am a descendant of John Brown o’ Priesthill, the carrier that
was shot by Claverhouse. I hae his Bible and Psalm-book, and table
and arm-chair. I wad like them to be used at the Annie Green on
Sabbath by Mr. Barrie. They hae served the same purpose wi’
Cameron and Peden and MacMillan in the covenantin’ times, and I
think the blood o’ the martyrs is noo springing into the seed of the
Church.”
“Certainly,” was the unanimous reply.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DISRUPTION AND BLINKBONNY.
“Long, long be my heart with such memories filled,

As the vase in which roses have once been distilled;
You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”
Thomas Moore.
N OTICE of the meeting that had been resolved on in the manse

was given in the village and parish, chiefly by one telling
another of it; and so effectively was this done, that not a few
who had given the day to the work of announcing it, felt disappointed
at finding the news had preceded them.
Before the hour of meeting there was an unusual bustle in the
streets, even for a Saturday, and the folks seemed all to have on
their Sabbath-day clothes. As soon as the doors of the Beltane Hall,
the public hall of Blinkbonny, were opened, a stream of people
flowed into it, leaving the streets with scarcely a human being on
them. Mr. Barrie entered very fully into the history of the “Ten Years’
Conflict.” He was calm, self-possessed, and impressive. His
references to the opposite side were marked by caution and
Christian courtesy. When speaking of himself, he did so with great
modesty; but he was high in his praise of the leaders of the
movement, and of the determined attitude they maintained against
all interference with the rights of the Christian people, for these alone
were the true Christian Church. He pressed on the attention of all the
duty of considering prayerfully the whole question; that they should
not be influenced by any motive of mere human friendship or
partiality or partisanship, but should bring the light of Scripture and
conscience to bear on the path of duty, and walk in it and along it
through good and bad report.
Before concluding, he thanked them all for their presence and
manifest attention to his statement, and most touchingly for all their
loving kindnesses to him: “As the minister of the Established Church
of Blinkbonny, I must now say to you ‘Farewell,’ but I fervently add
the prayer, ‘The God of peace be with you.’ By whatever distinctive
name the Churches to which we shall henceforth belong may be
called, may we all be members of the ‘Church of the firstborn, whose
names are written in the Lamb’s book of life,’ and be found in Him
here, complete in Him, and for ever with Him yonder; and as we
have this hope in us, let us, as far as we are agreed, walk by the
same rule, mind the same thing, and live at peace one with another.”
He then told that he did not feel himself at liberty to
occupy his old pulpit next day; that as far as he knew, RING IN
no one had been appointed to preach in it; but that he THE NEW.
would preach on the green by the burn-side at the
usual hour in the forenoon, and at six o’clock in the evening. And he
hoped his former (with a slight hesitation on his part, and a
responsive sigh from the meeting) congregation would join in the
service, and not be deterred by the fear that their presence would be
construed as committing them to his views of the Church question.
No such conclusion would be drawn. He would endeavour by God’s
help to preach the gospel. Let them come to hear it, not him. He also
expressed a willingness to answer any questions, or give further
explanations, or to confer with any who might prefer a private
interview.
There was a long silence; at length old George Brown rose and said:
“My friends, it’s Saturday nicht. Mr. Barrie’s haen a sair week, an’
doubtless mony o’ ye hae come here this day upon account o’ the
occasion, when but for it ye wad hae been at hame at your proper
duties; and ye’ll a’ hae to get things weel forrit[6] to get to ordinances
the morn, so I think we’ll be maist in the way o’ our duty if we think
weel aboot what we’ve heard, and meditate on it.” Then looking
round the audience, he asked, “What say ee, my friends?” As there
was no reply, George looked to Mr. Barrie, and said, “I think, sir, ye
should just conclude wi’ praise and prayer; and if I may venture, I
would say, gie oot the Forty-third Psalm an’ the 3d verse. If we all
sing the first four lines frae the heart, there will be a time o’ refreshin’
the morn.”
[6] Forward.
“O send thy light forth and thy truth;

Let them be guides to me,
And bring me to thine holy hill,
Ev’n where thy dwellings be.”
George was unmarried, and lived by himself. He was

READIN’
THE LINE.
in the constant practice of making worship aloud and
alone, reading each verse singly and then singing it.
He, without waiting for Mr. Barrie “giein’ out” the psalm, and as if
quite forgetful of his presence, started to sing it to the tune called
“Bedford,” which the audience very heartily joined in. At the close of
the first verse George held up one hand to secure silence, and
repeated in singing tone on one key the next verse,—what my older
readers will remember as “reading the line,”—which was then sung,
and so on to the end of the psalm. George was then proceeding to
close his eyes for the prayer, after having made a slight bow to Mr.
Barrie; but Mr. Barrie said, “Lead our devotions, if you please, Mr.
Brown;” and the old man did this so as to make every heart thrill, and
many strong men sob, and all the women cry. I was too much
agitated to be able to carry away much. I am sorry to confess that
the bit I can best recall is not the most impressive and solemn part,
but rather a bit memorable for its quaintness as a specimen of the
prayers of the earlier days of the old worthies: “That all who on the
coming Sabbath assemble in the courts of Thy house may be
delivered from formality, and legality, and carnality, purged from the
leaven of malice and wickedness, and prepared according to the
preparation of the sanctuary; ... and that all Thy sent servants may
be ministers of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not
man, and may be as the he-goats before the flocks.”
Mr. Barrie pronounced the benediction, but the audience seemed
unwilling to break up. At length old George stepped forward and
shook Mr. Barrie’s hand, wishing him “the blessing of him that was
separated from his brethren.” This proved contagious: every one
shook hands with Mr. Barrie; even Bell, who had been trying to keep
herself concealed during the meeting, forgot her reserve, and
although she broke down immediately after, and sobbed bitterly, she
kept saying between the sobs, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance;
—the bush burning but not consumed;—the five loaves and the two
small fishes.”
As she went out, old George Brown was at her side, and everybody
that could get near him was shaking his horny hands. He had
overheard Bell saying, “It is good for us to be here.” George knew
Bell well, and taking her hand he said, “Yes, Bell, ’deed is’t. Or ever I
was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadab.” Then
looking heavenwards: “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return,
that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it
were the company of two armies—or, as it’s in the margin,
Mahanaim, the place where the angels met Jacob on his way back
to Canaan, and Jacob said, ‘This is God’s host, and he called the
name of that place Mahanaim.’”
One subject filled every heart on the way homewards. There was
little said; they mused, and the fire burned.
Sabbath morning brought promise of a lovely summer
day, and the promise was not belied. Gavin Sinclair, or THE
“Guy,” now the full beadle, sexton, bellman, and BELLMAN’
minister’s man of Blinkbonny, was in a state of great S
DILEMMA.
perplexity. Annie Gawdie, who cleaned the church,
had told him that just as she was finished on Saturday night,
everybody came “troopin’ into the kirk to take awa’ their books, an’
spoke o’ coming in soon to take away their cushions and stools; that
they had made a bonnie mess o’ her clean kirk, and when she
quarrelled them for it, they said there was to be nae kirk in the morn,
but Mr. Barrie was to preach on the Annie Green.”
Guy had not gone to the meeting. He was a cautious man, and
“didna think it became the like o’ him, being a man in a public
capacity, to meddle wi’ kirk quarrels; for although Mr. Barrie micht
leave the kirk,—the mair’s the pity, for we’ll no’ soon get ane like him,
if ever,—there was the kirkyard. Ane didna ken how soon they micht
hae to break the gr’und for some death or anither in the parish. He
didna like to gi’e offence to ony side—he had to look till his bread,”
etc.
Guy’s difficulty was whether to ring the church bell or not. He always
rung it at ten o’clock, and would do that as usual,—“That wasna the
bell for gaun to the kirk—it was just to let folk ken the richt time to set
their clocks by.” His “swither” was about the ringing of the bell for
calling the folk to the kirk at the usual time. If, as he learned, there
“was to be no sermon in the kirk, what for should he ring the bell?
Then, on the ither hand, what business had he to stop the ringing o’
the bell without orders? and wha was to direct him? Would he ask
Mr. Barrie, or the schoolmaster, who was session-clerk? He never
did that before, and it would look officious.” So he resolved to go on
as usual. He rang the bell at ten o’clock, and sauntered, as was his
wont, to the manse to ask if there were any orders for him, such as
to make preparations for a baptism; but instead of going into the
kitchen, he hovered about the door until Bell observed him. Bell was
full of activity to get all ready that she might go to the Annie Green,
and had forgotten about Guy’s regular call. Both were perplexed.
Guy muttered, he wondered if there “would be ony orders for him the
day—she micht ask the minister—if—if he—if he had ony—ony
special—” Then a happy idea seemed to strike him, and he got out
—“onything to get ready before bell-time?”
Bell took in the situation at once, but had not time to
GUY’S master it. Generally the pulpit Bible and Psalm-book
DECISION. were put on the parlour table on Sabbath mornings,
ready for Guy, and Bell got instructions about
anything specially wanted. They were not on the table, but in the
study, which Bell never entered before church time. She asked Mrs.
Barrie, who answered that there could be nothing. Bell lingered, and
said in a distant tone, “I think, mem, that Guy disna ken whether to
ring the bell at kirk-time or no’.”
Mrs. Barrie hesitated a little whether to disturb Mr. Barrie or not, then
said, “Tell Guy to please himself; that Mr. Barrie left no orders, and I
cannot disturb him at present, but will ask him at half-past eleven
and let Guy know what he says.”
At half-past eleven, as usual, Mrs. Barrie tapped at the study door,
and said, “Now, my dear.” Mr. Barrie almost immediately came out,
and she asked him about the bell, lifting up at the same time the
simple Geneva pulpit gown worn by Presbyterian ministers, to help
him on with it. Mr. Barrie did not turn and stoop a little as usual to get
the robe of office put on, but kept saying,
“Bell—ring the bell—I had not thought of that. What do you think,
Mary?”
Mrs. Barrie said she had told Guy to do as he thought fit, unless he
got other instructions,—“the best thing that could have been done in
the circumstances.”
Guy did ring the bell as usual, and got a neighbour to tell any who
came that the service was to be on the Annie Green. The herald,
however, had little to do. A few slipped quietly into the church for
their pew Bibles; some paid their weekly visit to the graves of their
loved ones around the church; but the stream was towards the Annie
Green. About a dozen male figures stood around the church door
when the bell ceased; the stream had passed; not a straggler was in
the churchyard. After a general conversation they broke up; some
went to the Annie Green, others moodily and wonderingly
homewards.
I had arranged with George Brown to get his ancestor’s chair, table,
and books brought to my place on Saturday evening, and persuaded
him to stay with me till Monday. I had also told Mr. Barrie about them.
The incident pleased him, and touched him not a little. All forms,
chairs, and available seats were brought by willing hands to the
Annie Green early in the forenoon. The Priesthill relics were placed
nearest the burn, the forms and chairs in front, and the dry grassy
braes of the burn, which at the place had the form of an irregular
half-circle sloping gently upwards, afforded comfortable room for a
large congregation.
Long before the hour of meeting, the country folks
UNDER began to come in, going from “strength to strength.”
THE OPEN Many lingered about the old church and churchyard,
CANOPY. and on the road or sward leading to the place of
meeting. Mr. Barrie left the manse in time to walk
leisurely. His plain black Geneva gown, his handsome figure, his
“Aspect manly, grave, and sage.

As on king’s errand come,”
gave solemnity to the scene. Mrs. Barrie leant on his arm. Each led
one of the younger children by the hand, whilst Bell followed with the
two older ones. As soon as they entered the avenue, the word,
“There he is—there they are,” passed from lip to lip; and when they
came to the public road, and as they walked along it, the people
stepped aside and stood hat in hand till they had passed, then falling
in behind, formed an irregular procession to the green. Those who
had already gathered there all rose up and uncovered as Mr. Barrie
appeared. When the audience had got seated or settled, Mr. Barrie
opened the service by reading the 125th Psalm, which he did in a
firm, clear voice. The braes of the burn, the glen, the neighbouring
woods, and for a considerable distance the country around, heard
the sound of grave, sweet melody, rising in volume and intensity as it
proceeded. The tune was “St. Andrew’s,” an old favourite, and said
by tradition to be associated in early Scottish Reformation times with
the same words:
“They in the Lord that firmly trust

Shall be like Sion hill,
Which at no time can be remov’d,
But standeth ever still.
“As round about Jerusalem

The mountains stand alway,
The Lord his folk doth compass so,
From henceforth and for aye.”
All the services were impressive, but I will not attempt

GRAVE,
to detail them. The text was, “Jesus Christ, the same SWEET
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” The sermon was, MELODY.
in the opinion of all, the best sermon they had ever
heard from him. George Brown was delighted with it—characterized
it as “a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well
refined;” and all the more so that Mr. Barrie’s practice had hitherto
been to have his carefully prepared manuscript before him when
preaching, and to use it occasionally, while on this occasion all that
he had was the open Priesthill Bible. The only objection that George
ever had to Mr. Barrie was that he used “the paper;” read sermons
were, according to George, neither good for minister nor people. To-
day there was nothing to mar George’s enjoyment of the worship.
The concluding paraphrase was sung with even more enthusiasm. It
was the 48th Paraphrase, verses 6–9; the tune was “Montrose,”
sometimes called “the burghers’ rant.” I give it in full, as I did the one
sung in the manse, and my readers can imagine the vigour with
which such words were sung in such a meeting at such a crisis:—
“Who then can e’er divide us more

From Jesus and his love,
Or break the sacred chain that binds
The earth to heav’n above?
“Let troubles rise, and terrors frown,

And days of darkness fall;
Through him all dangers we’ll defy,
And more than conquer all.
“Nor death nor life, nor earth nor hell,

Nor time’s destroying sway,
Can e’er efface us from his heart,
Or make his love decay.
“Each future period that will bless,

As it has bless’d the past;
He lov’d us from the first of time,
He loves us to the last.”
Not the least surprising of the forenoon’s incidents was the amount
of the collection. It had been debated whether there should be any
made on the occasion, but Mr. Taylor was most determined to have
one. “Bring an offering with you,” said he, “is as plain a command as,
Come into His courts;” and he undertook to provide and to stand at
“the plates,” which were placed just inside the gate of the Annie
Green. The result surprised Mr. Taylor. I have since learned that
many borrowed of their neighbours, and that the amount put in as
the congregation retired was larger than that made as they entered.
The sum was £29, 13s. 3d.
George, of course, took dinner with us, and a few country friends
joined who wished to be at the evening service. I had been struck
with the worn appearance of the knees of George’s clothes
compared with the fresh “nap” on the other parts; but I observed that,
when asking a blessing before meat, and returning thanks after it, he
rubbed his hands firmly over his knees, moving his body backwards
and forwards, and speaking louder as he began the forward motion.
His exercises were longer than are usual in such cases, and I found
on further acquaintance with him that they were stereotyped,
generally containing, “May we go up through the wilderness of this
world, leaning on the staff of Him who is the beloved of our souls.
May we sit under His shadow with great delight, and find His fruit
sweet unto our taste. Bless and sanctify all Thy ways and dealings
towards us,” etc. When remarking on the sermon, he also rubbed his
knees and discoursed rather than conversed about it.
The evening service was better attended than the forenoon one. The
burst of music was overpowering as the 46th Psalm was being sung:
—
“God is our refuge and our strength,

In straits a present aid,” etc.
The sermon was from these words, “Seek ye first the

FREE-WILL kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all
OFFERING these things shall be added unto you.” It was a
S.
grand sermon, suitable for all times. At the close, in
a few moderately worded sentences, Mr. Barrie referred to the
special circumstances under which they had met, and stated that
they would meet in the same place next Sabbath, the first Sabbath of
June, the anniversary of the battle of Drumclog; and he waxed
eloquent as he held up John Brown of Priesthill’s Bible, and referred
to the other relics before him, until the audience felt the martyr spirit,
and were sorry that he concluded so soon.
I have already referred to the singing of the day, and will only add
that the singing of the concluding psalm—cxxii., verses 6–9, to the
tune of “St. Paul’s”—
“Pray that Jerusalem may have

Peace and felicity;
Let them that love thee and thy peace
Have still prosperity”—
was grand. The evening’s collection made the day’s offering amount
altogether to over £38. I have dwelt at more length than I intended
on this subject, but it was a great event for a little place. Very
possibly I have overdrawn the picture; but had you mingled with the
companies of the worshippers as they walked homewards, you
would have heard Mr. Barrie’s oldest hearers say he never preached
like that in his life before, and strangers that they had no idea that
Mr. Barrie could preach like that,—“he was a man of immense ability,
—the best sermon they had ever heard,—it’s a wonder he had been
so long in Blinkbonny.”
The attendance at the Annie Green on the first
Sabbath of June was as large as on the previous FRIENDS
Sabbath, and the services had special reference to the IN DEED.
struggles of the Covenanters and the battle of
Drumclog. Old George Brown was highly satisfied. “I have often,”
said he, “spoken to Mr. Barrie about saying ower little about thae
Cath’lics, and that he should raise his testimony against Prelacy and
Popery; but he aye said that even if he was speakin’ to Cath’lics, he
wad preach the plain gospel, an’ no scare them away by denouncin’
baith them an’ their system, or settin’ them against the truth by no’
speakin’ it in love; and for his ain people, it would ‘minister questions
rather than godly edifying,’ as he thocht that runnin’ doon the
Cath’lics was apt to make folk think because they werena Cath’lics
that they were a’ richt, an’ beget spiritual pride. An’ he wasna far
wrang. But his subject led him on the day, and I was uncommon
pleased to hear him speak as he did o’ the auld worthies, Knox and
Melville, and Cameron an’ Peden, and my forbear Brown, an’ let this
backslidin’, worldly-minded generation ken hoo far behint their
ancestors they were in courage an’ piety, in thocht, word, an’ deed.”
There was a congregation of the United Secession, now the United
Presbyterian, Church in Blinkbonny, and Mr. Morrison, the minister,
and his session had generously offered to accommodate the Free
Church, as far as lay in their power, with the use of their church, as
the largest hall in the village was too small for the congregation. Mr.
Morrison was a diligent student, conscientious and minute in his
preparations for the pulpit: he wrote these carefully out, and spent
the last two days of the week in committing them to memory. He was
an estimable man, an excellent scholar, had been a great reader,
and was well versed in general science; but he had an affluence of
words and a Johnsonian style of composition that injured him as a
preacher. His matter was good, sound, unexceptionable, but his
manner of conveying it was verbose, often a mere recasting of the
grand old English of the Bible into a laboured and profuse style of
expression. He seldom used the terse old Saxon words if he could
get a word of grander sound derived from another language, but
used “plenitude” instead of “fulness,” “capacitate” for “fit,” and
“salubrious” for “healthy.” His voice was good, but the long, involved
sentences made it appear monotonous, and justified the critique of
old Robert Gunn: “Vera gude matter, nae doubt, but tedious, a wee
tedious. He has lang ‘heids,’[7] an’ disna aye gi’e them ower again in
the same words, which fickles[8] the young folk that have to tell the
‘heids an’ particulars’ when they gang hame; for if, as is gey an’
often the case, the first ‘heid’ is, ‘The persons mentioned in the text,’
we’re almost sure to hear when he’s done with it, ‘Having thus
considered, in the first place, the individuals to whom reference is
made in the deeply interesting and highly instructive passage which I
have selected as the subject of this morning’s exposition,’ which is
baith confusin’ an’ tedious.”
[7] Divisions of a sermon.
[8] Puzzles.
The services in the “Meetin’-house,” the local name of

the Secession Church, occupied without interval fully CORN AND
three hours, and included a lecture and a sermon of at CHAFF.
least an hour each. In order to suit the Free Church,
these were begun at ten o’clock, and ours at one. This put Mr.
Morrison to the serious difficulty of condensing his services. For the
first two Sabbaths he did not manage this. As he had proposed that
the Free Church should meet at one o’clock, he was remonstrated
with very plainly by some of his people. Robert Gunn, a forward
“body,” had suggested the means: “Just dicht [sift] yer corn better,
and leave less chaff in’t.”
On the third Sabbath he got through in about two hours and a half,
and kept thereafter rather within that limit, although not without
having often to say, “Did time permit, I would have proceeded,” etc.,
or, “The brief space of time at my disposal prevents me from entering
on the full illustration of my next head, but I may say in a word—.”
That was an ominous expression, and the result often proved it an
inconsistent one, as the “word,” or “one word more,” seldom
occupied less than fifteen minutes. “Lastly, and very briefly,” was
another term contradicted by the sequel.
The shorter service was a comfortable change for those whose
uneasy task it was to keep their children “behaving themselves” in
the church. James Spence, whose regular remark to his neighbours
on their road home had been, “He said a great deal, really he said a
very great deal,” gave as his opinion that “he really thocht that there
was less skailt noo that the kirk skailed sooner,[9] for even yet there
was a great deal said that we couldna carry home, and mair that we
didna carry oot; and wi’ the bairns no’ bein’ sae fashious through no’
bein’ sae lang in, we could attend better.”
[9] “There was less spilt now that the church was dismissed
sooner.”
The Free Church services in the Meeting-house were well attended.

Many of the Seceders joined in them, and confessed with shame
that their sectarian bitterness towards the principle of a church
establishment had extended to its ministers, on whom they had
looked uncharitably as “Samaritans,” with whom they could have no
dealings, and they were surprised to find Mr. Barrie so excellent.
Maggie Gunn told her father “that yon minister preached as well as
Mr. Morrison, only far better.” Mr. Barrie became a favourite with
them; although, to the honour of all parties be it told, that no one left
the Secession to join the Free Church on that account. Between Mr.
Morrison and himself, as well as between the office-bearers and
congregations, there existed the most cordial relationships, and the
interchange of pleasant communion and fellowship. I look back with
so much delight to the sympathy and help we got in the beginning of
our way from our Secession friends, that I fear I have been, to use
Robert Gunn’s phrase, “a wee tedious.”
Mr. Walker of Middlemoor was Mr. Barrie’s successor
in the parish church of Blinkbonny. In making THE NEW
application to Sir John McLelland for the living, he was PARISH
very honest in telling his motives, viz. that the stipend MINISTER.
was larger, and the manse and glebe were better; and his family
were growing up, and he would like to get settled in a place where
he could get openings for the older ones, schooling for the younger
ones, and where they could all come home at night; and he would be
very much obliged to Sir John if he would present him to Blinkbonny.
And he was presented and inducted in due form and time.
He was a kind-hearted, stout, canny man, of moderate abilities as a
scholar and preacher. His parish of Middlemoor was a small one, in
a pastoral and moorland district, thinly peopled. It had a large glebe
of indifferent land, which he cultivated diligently to eke out his small
stipend. He was quite as good at farming as preaching, and had, on
Mr. Barrie’s suggestion, been Bell’s adviser in the purchase or sale
of cows, sheep, or pigs. Even on the subject of poultry he was at
home, as he made his son keep a “hen journal,” partly as a lesson in
book-keeping, and partly as a practical application of the inspired
proverb, which was often in his mouth, “Be diligent to know the state
of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.”
He was a frequent visitor at Mr. Barrie’s, an occasional “assistant” at
the October communion services, and a regular member of the
“thanksgiving” dinner-party at the manse on the Monday thereafter.
He was a man of peace, and took little interest in the Voluntary,
Disruption, or other controversies; and when these formed the
subject of after-dinner discussion, he left the dining-room, and slowly
betook himself to the kitchen for a smoke, for he was an inveterate
smoker.
He looked relieved as he entered the kitchen; said, “Well, Bell;” dropt
heavily into the arm-chair which stood at the fireside (the arms of
which were barely wide enough to admit him, but they yielded with a
creak, and he got in, but had to press them firmly down before he got
out); took out his pipe—generally a short black one; knocked out the
dottle[10] on the hob-plate; tried if it would draw, and if not, cleared the
bowl with the point of his knife, and if that failed, asked Bell for a
stalk of lavender. When the pipe was cleared to his mind, he slowly
cut some thin slices from a roll of twist tobacco, rubbed the
fragments between his hands, filled his pipe, put on the “dottle,” and
applied the “spunk,” from which Bell had broken off the sulphur tip.
All these operations and details were done with very great
deliberation and in grave silence, with the exception of asking the
lavender stalk, which was only resorted to after the knife and the
repeated blowings from the bowl and shank ends of the pipe had
failed; and after it was fairly lighted and going well, he began an
intermittent, congenial crack.
[10] The dry, crisp remains of a former smoke.
Tobacco smoke Bell could not endure. No other

person would have been permitted to pollute her “THUS
kitchen with it, and as a general rule she got Mr. THINK AND
Walker to combine his inspection of the garden and SMOKE
glebe with “enjoyin’ his smoke;” but as this dinner-day TOBACCO.
”
came round she had to submit, so she provided
against it by removing the hams and things of that sort, that they
might not be “scomfished;” and she set herself to enjoy the leisurely
preparations, and to respect the silence with which they were
conducted, as the after-crack was sure to be quite to her mind.
At the last October dinner, after a few soothing whiffs, Mr. Walker
began the colloquy with, “Bell, I’m glad to get away from these
discussions about the Kirk; I cannot bear them. I like better to talk
about live stock. How are yours?”
Bell entered heartily into an account of her year’s doings, and Mr.
Walker listened approvingly, and in return told about his crops and
herds, and what the “mairt” (the animal which had been killed and
salted for winter use) had weighed, and how the hens, bees, etc. had
done—alternately speaking and smoking. I cannot give the interview
in detail, but both agreed they had had a grand crack—better than
ony kirk quarrels.
It was from the following story, which Mr. Walker then told, that Bell
had first heard of the Church “question;” but his way of putting it was
so conclusive to Bell, that she thought no more about it until the
matter of the potatoes brought it home to herself.
A lady from Leith had come to reside in Middlemoor, and had said to
the farmer of Hillend, who had accosted her with, “Weel, mem, hoo
d’ye like to bide in this moorland country?”
“Very much indeed, it’s delightful! If I had only my own doctor and my
own minister, I would stay here all the year through; but you know
your country doctors are not quite—quite—well—well enough in their

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Reclaiming Democratic Classical Liberalism 1

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Vancouver, BC, Canada David F. Hardwick

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