Anglospherics

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY:

Abraham and Isaac : John Brown and the question of righteous violence. (Kevin D. Williamson, 10/20/25, The Dispatch)

If you have the right kind of American eyes, it may seem equally preordained that the prophet who came before the Christly figure of that American Abraham just as inevitably bore the name “John,” a fugitive voice crying in the wilderness, wild-eyed and full of holy terror and uncompromising, and marked for a divine appointment with Herod’s executioners. John Brown was, among other things, a former shepherd, for Pete’s sake. But there were complications and limits to the biblical parallels: John Brown’s great long patriarchal beard, familiar from the famous portraits, was a disguise—most of his life, he was clean-shaven, or at least as often as he could be in his vagrant circumstances. And when that American prophet traveled to Harpers Ferry, he did not sign his name “John” while securing accommodations for his holy insurgents—then, he was “Isaac,” presumably after the son of the free woman who ultimately would cast out his half-brother, Ismael, the son of the slave. One suspects that the choice of a nom de guerre was far from accidental. “This is an allegory,” St. Paul wrote to the Galatians. “These women represent two covenants. One covenant is given on Mount Sinai and bears children who are born into slavery … Now you, brethren, are, like Isaac, the children of the promise. … We are the children not of the slave woman but of the free woman.”

Lincoln—who belonged to no church but planned to spend at least part of his retirement in the Holy Land—was too fond of quoting Scripture, at least in Stephen Douglas’ judgment. But Lincoln understood the American context, which begins with understanding that the Declaration of Independence, even authored as it was by the unorthodox Thomas Jefferson, is a fundamentally Christian document and arguably a Puritan one at that, the implications of which for the matter of slavery could be seen as early as the drafting of the Constitution, with its provision for the abolition of the African slave trade. That constitutional settlement, as Lincoln noted in an 1859 speech in Illinois, was the work of:

representatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the confederacy — twelve of which were slaveholding communities. … These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. The erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began — so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

Fine words. Great words. Important words. Spoken just over a year before the raid on Harpers Ferry, when John Brown had decided that fine words would not do.

Brown had plans for his own kind of constitution, a “Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States,” to govern his insurgent followers until the realization of that “more perfect Union” Lincoln would talk about. He raged against the “heaven-daring laws” of the slaveholding states, echoing abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s denunciation of the Constitution as a “most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement” between the decent godly free Christians and the idolatrous slavers.

John Brown’s moral and political reasoning was reasonably straightforward: He wasn’t launching an attack on anybody—slavery was a de facto state of war, a war of conquest launched by one group of people with the aim of oppressing another, and all he proposed to do was to fight back. This was comprehended by Frederick Douglass, who tried to talk Brown out of his program of violent insurgency: “In his eye a slave-holding community could not be peaceable but was, in the nature of the case, in one incessant state of war,” Douglass said. “To him such a community was not more sacred than a band of robbers; it was the right of any one to assault it by day or night.”

THE REST IS LEGISLATION:

Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920 By Akhil Reed Amar (Reviewed by Jonathan Sallet, October 20, 2025, Washington Independent Review of Books)

But atop the mountain stands “Abraham,” the constitutionalist, fusing the broadened ambitions of the Declaration of Independence with the textual provisions of the Constitution. President Lincoln thereby built a foundation for concluding that the principles underlying “a more perfect union” justified the abolition of slavery, the codification of civil rights, and universal voting rights for adult citizens.

Amar takes pains to emphasize his view that the most important originalists in U.S. history are not our right-leaning modern jurists. For example, he details Lincoln’s lawyerly analysis to support a constitutional vision that fulfils the implicit (if not the expressly worded) promise of the Declaration of Independence: moving toward equality for all.

This is inspiring stuff, but here’s the thing: Conservative jurists embrace key conclusions that Amar identifies with Lincolnian originalism — say, that Plessy v. Ferguson’s vindication of racial segregation was wrong (and, although his history does not reach into the 1950s, that Brown v. Board of Education was right). And, for instance, Justice Clarence Thomas’ self-styled originalist opinion in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, the case ruling that the university’s race-conscious admissions process was unconstitutional (in which Thomas quoted Amar’s earlier views approvingly).

Which leads to a pressing question in today’s constitutional moment: Does Professor Amar’s Lincolnian originalism differ from the prevailing conservative approach?

No.

THE FOUNDERS COULD NOT HAVE ENVISIONED A SUPINE BRANCH:

How the Framers Made the Presidency with Michael McConnell, (Richard M. Reinsch II, 4/02/21, Law & Liberties Podcast)

Richard Reinsch :

And then Congress seems unwilling or unlikely or too partisan, depending on who’s in the White House, to stand up for its own institutional power.

Michael McConnell:

Yeah, Congress is basically no longer interested in institutional questions. They are only interested in partisan questions. And given that the Congress is pretty divided, Senate’s 50/50, democrats are just barely in control of that. The democrats in Congress are not going to rein President Biden in, just as the republicans when they controlled both houses of Congress under Trump were unwilling to rein Trump in. There was a time not that long ago when Congress cared about its institutional prerogatives, and they would join together on a bipartisan basis to object when presidents did things that they believed cut into a congressional authority. And there is no authority that is intended by our Constitution to be so exclusively congressional as the power over the purse. There are actually two provisions of the Constitution that protects Congress’s exclusive power here. We’ve now had three presidents in a row that rather blatantly have been spending large sums of money on pet projects that Congress disapproved of, and have gotten away with it. Actually, Obama didn’t quite get away with it, because the court stepped in when he spent $7 billion on healthcare subsidies to insurance companies that Congress had refused to appropriate. The court actually stepped in and said that that was illegal.

THE GENIUS OF REPUBLICAN LIBERTY…:

Forging the Chains of Virtue: Aristotle’s Raw Politics of Power (Clifford Angell Bates, 9/20/25, The Miskitonian)

While archē refers to legitimate authority, Aristotle also discusses bia, which refers to power that is exercised through force or coercion. Bia is characterized by the absence of consent and often involves rulers maintaining control through violence, intimidation, or oppression. This form of power is typically associated with tyranny, where the ruler governs through fear and force rather than through the consent of the governed. Aristotle views this type of power as fundamentally illegitimate because it violates the principles of justice and mutual agreement that should underpin political authority.

Aristotle condemns the use of unjust power (bia), arguing that it is corruptive both to the ruler and to the ruled. Power that is exercised through force leads to instability and oppression, as it disregards the common good in favor of the ruler’s self-interest. This form of power is in direct contradiction to natural rule, where authority is based on mutual consent and is directed toward the good of the community. Aristotle believes that legitimate power arises from the willing participation of citizens, and when rulers resort to force, they undermine the very foundations of political life.

Aristotle is clear about the negative consequences of coercive power. Rule by force leads to instability within the political community, as it erodes trust and undermines justice. Citizens who are governed through fear are less likely to feel loyalty to their rulers, and this can result in resistance, rebellion, and ultimately the destabilization of society. For this reason, Aristotle views coercive power as unsustainable in the long run. A ruler who relies on force may be able to maintain control temporarily, but the lack of legitimacy will eventually provoke opposition.

In Aristotle’s ideal political community, citizens play a central role in the exercise of power. In a democracy, power is distributed among citizens through mechanisms such as voting, holding office, and participating in decision-making processes. Citizenship is not simply about enjoying rights and privileges; it is about active engagement in the governance of the polis. Aristotle sees the collective power of citizens as essential to shaping the policies and laws that govern the state. In this way, power is not concentrated in the hands of a few but is shared among the many, creating a more equitable and just society.

For Aristotle, the rule of law is the embodiment of collective power. Laws are the means by which power is distributed and exercised fairly within a community. By adhering to laws, citizens can ensure that power is used to promote justice and prevent the abuse of authority by individuals. Aristotle contrasts the democratic form of power, where the many share authority, with oligarchic power, where a few wealthy elites hold power. In an oligarchy, power is often exercised for personal gain, whereas in a democracy, it is supposed to serve the interests of the community as a whole.

While Aristotle acknowledges the value of citizen participation, he also warns of the dangers associated with excessive collective power. In a democracy, the majority can sometimes use its power to oppress minorities or pursue selfish interests at the expense of justice and the common good. Aristotle refers to this as the “tyranny of the majority.” He emphasizes the need for balance and moderation in the exercise of power, ensuring that no single group dominates to the detriment of others.

…lies in the requirement that the majority bind itself by any laws it adopts.