Federalism and Anarchism
By W. J. Whitman
“I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and
I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it
finally amounts to this, which also I believe—‘That government is best which
governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of
government which they will have.”
—Henry David Thoreau1
Anarchism and federalism are complementary ideologies. The biggest names in the
anarchy movement happen to also be the biggest names in the federalist movement. Among the
big names that belong to both the federalist and the anarchist camps are Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
Thomas Jefferson, and Leopold Kohr. 2 Of course, it is anachronistic to call Jefferson an
“anarchist,” as the term anarchy was not coined until after his time. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s
ideas happen to conform perfectly to the ideas upon which the philosophy of anarchism is based.
Proudhon was the founder of the modern anarchist movement, and his political views are almost
identical to those of Jefferson. Even advocates of federalism that do not openly advocate
anarchism, like Thomas E. Woods, Ron Paul, and Wilhelm Röpke, are closely associated with
the libertarian anarchist movement—all of these modern advocates of federalism hail from the
Austrian School, which is a school of thought made up predominantly of anarchists.
Federalism is the belief that a national government should merely be a loose federation of
smaller local governments, established on the basis of a “treaty” or “contract” (foedus in Latin).
Federalists believe that the federal government should be the least authoritative unit of
government. Authority ought to decrease as you go up the chain. The local governments of the
cities and towns are supposed to have the most power, with the “state” or provincial governments
having less power, and the federal government having even less power than the state
governments. Each individual state in the federation is supposed to remain totally sovereign, as a
federation is “a state constituted by a plentitude of autonomies.”3 The federal government is not
1
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Cf. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s The Principle of Federation, Leopold Kohr’s The Breakdown of Nations, and
Thomas Jefferson’s The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798
3
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Principle of Federation, Part 1, § 7
2
to have the authority to make laws, enforce laws, or do anything of its own accord. All judicial
and legislative power is to be reserved to the states, except for the few powers explicitly given to
the federal government by the “constitution” or “treaty” that established the federation. The
smallest and most local level of government is to do all the governing. The only purpose of the
federal government is to ensure free trade among the member states, provide a written guarantee
that the member states will not invade each other’s territories, and ensure that all of the states
will unite in defense of any member state that happens to be invaded by an outside power. This,
for the most part, is the sole purpose of the federal government. Moreover, the federal
government is not to have any standing army in times of peace. The military in a federal system
is to be comprised of local militias in the various states, uniting for common defense only in
times of war.4 Finally, a system of “checks and balances” against the federal government is to be
provided by the states. Each individual federated state is to have the right to interpret the
“constitution” (foedus) for itself. If the local governments of the confederated states believe that
the federal government has violated the constitution, they are to assert their sovereignty through
nullification. In federalist political theory, nullification is the process by which a state declares
an act or law of the federal government to be “unconstitutional.” In the act of nullification, the
state officially declares that it will not enforce an unconstitutional law within its territory. The
state authorities could, and should, go so far as to arrest and prosecute any federal authorities that
attempt to enforce nullified federal laws within any territory that has officially deemed them to
be unconstitutional. If the federal authorities persist in trying to enforce unconstitutional laws,
then the states are obligated to secede from the federal union, declaring the “constitution” to be
null and void on the grounds that the federal government has violated the constitutional contract.
In federalist theory, nullification and secession are two separate means by which the federated
states can individually provide “checks and balances” against the abuses of the federal
government.
The notion that the federal government can be the arbiter between itself and the people of
the United States is bogus: it is a violation of federalist principles. The notion that the Supreme
Court—a federal court!—can be the judge between states and the federal government is
4
The United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, prohibits the federal government from permanently
maintaining a standing army.
irrational and unconstitutional. 5 The federal court will always side with the federal government,
as it is part of the federal government and its judges are appointed by the officials of the federal
government! The principle of state nullification is what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
regarded as the real source of “checks and balances” on the power of the federal government. We
cannot be even remotely loyal to the Constitution without paying attention to Madison’s
interpretation of it, as Madison was himself the “father of the Constitution” and the author of the
Bill of Rights. If Madison says that the 10th Amendment is a clause establishing the rule of state
nullification, then that settles the matter; Madison wrote the damned amendment, so surely he
knows what his own intentions were.6 The power of the federal government is to be balanced by
the right of the states and the people to disregard unjust federal laws! This is the principle of
nullification, and it is still being practiced in America today. For example, there are several states
that have chosen to legalize medical marijuana in spite of federal laws against it. There are also
states that have passed laws to the effect that federal laws concerning “gun control” will not be
enforced in their territories. 7 There is even a recently introduced bill here in Indiana that would
declare ObamaCare to be unconstitutional and make it a “Class D felony” for any federal
authority that would attempt to enforce ObamaCare in the state of Indiana. 8 The state of Ohio has
officially amended its state Constitution to outlaw the enforcement of certain aspects of
ObamaCare in its territory, even prohibiting the federal government from fining or punishing
state citizens who disobey the unconstitutional federal law. 9
Federalist thinkers, like Thomas Jefferson, were thoroughly rooted in natural law theory.
They held that man has God-given or natural rights that are guaranteed by natural law. The
natural law is, according to these theorists, higher than any man-made law. If any man-made law
conflicts with the natural law, it is to be regarded as null and void. A human law that conflicts
with natural law is “no law at all.” It is upon the basis of natural law theory that Thomas
5
Cf. The United States Constitution, 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” & The
Articles of Confederation: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power,
jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress
assembled.”; also see the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and
Jefferson’s Draft Declaration and Protest of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the Principles of the Constitution of
the United States of America, and on the Violations of them (December 1825)
6
Cf. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
7
Cf. http://tracking.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
8
Cf. Senate Bill 0230
9
Cf. The Ohio State Constitution
Jefferson justified the American Revolution. Natural law theory means that every man has the
right to overthrow his government whenever it violates his individual liberties. Thus, Thomas
Jefferson wrote in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence:
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of
the earth the separate & equal station to which the laws of nature
and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent
and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it…”
A person’s civil rights are given to them by God, as a consequence of their very human nature.
Natural rights and civil liberties should never be regarded as freedoms granted by the
government. The centralized government does not grant freedom: it only restricts it! Freedom
comes from God, or nature, whereas tyranny comes from government. The American system has
not given us the freedom of speech. Civil liberties are not just civil rights; they are natural rights
that are due to us because of our very nature as human beings. These rights are “inherent and
inalienable,” and the violation of them is the greatest possible crime.
The opponents of federalism criticized it as being tantamount to anarchism. To a certain
extent, they were correct, insofar as the goal of federalism is to get as close to anarchy as
possible. Abraham Lincoln (who was a racist, pro-slavery fuckhead, by the way) once said,
“Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.” 10 Jeremy Bentham rejected the
10
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (1861)
theory of natural law and equated Jefferson’s idea of natural rights with anarchy. Lincoln and
Bentham were correct in identifying the Jeffersonians and federalists as crypto-anarchists.
Federalism was never intended to be a rejection of anarchism, but a concession to fallen and
sinful men. It is often asserted that Proudhon was wrought with self-contradictions because of his
federalist-anarchist dialectic, wherein he advocate minimal government, on one hand, and no
government on the other. I don’t think that there was really ever a conflict between the two
ideologies. There simply was no earlier Proudhon and latter Proudhon, like the earlier and latter
Marx. On the contrary, I hold that Proudhon advocated federalism and limited government
because he believed that it would allow for little pockets of anarchy. Federalism is not
incompatible with anarchism if it is used as a steppingstone on the way to anarchy. We have
limited anarchy already. There are areas of our lives with which the government does not
interfere. The government does not regulate when we are allowed to sleep, it does not regulate
the clothes we are allowed to wear, and so we can say that we have somno-anarchy and fashionanarchy. The goal of federalism is to expand the realm of anarchy a little further. One of the
things that federalism calls for is free trade among the member states, and we may call this
market-anarchy.
Personally, I have my qualms about local governments. The local governments across
America have more power and authority than even the federal government should have. I don’t
believe that any government should have the right to tax its citizens or confiscate private
property arbitrarily. I have serious doubts about whether or not nullification and the possibility of
secession can actually limit the power of the federal government. It seems to me that federalism
has failed in practice, otherwise we would not be where we are now. It would be good if
federalism worked, then you might be able to establish little pockets of anarchy. People might
actually be able to start agrarian communes and live in peace, totally outside of the system,
without having to deal with the government at all. But federalism is not going to get us to our
goal of true liberty and freedom. I think we need a perpetual revolution, with people constantly
protesting against every single thing that the government does, to the extent that the people
should annoy politicians so much that they cannot even successfully do their politicking! Every
time any level of government enacts new regulations or raises taxes, it should draw a crowd of
angry protesters so large that the politicians are afraid to leave their homes! We need a citizenry
that firmly believes that the “government” has no right to do anything, and that will throw a fit
about everything that the government tries to do. We need more protests against the government,
a coalescence of left-wing and right-wing movements, with cooperation between Occupy Wall
Street and Tea Party protesters. Not only do we need nullification at the state level, we need civil
disobedience at the ground level. The people need to refuse to comply with unjust “laws” at the
local level. Non-violent resistance only works if it is highly organized. Two people breaking an
unjust “law” will not accomplish anything; we need 10,000 people united in one place in civil
disobedience. Civil resistance requires that you have a large group of people disobeying in unity,
and the group must be so large that the civil authorities cannot possibly enforce the “law.” The
goal of civil disobedience is to create anarchy in the streets.
Ultimately we want an anarchist society. We want the abolition of the state altogether.
However, it appears that the state will exist for the foreseeable future. As long as the state exists
and we cannot effectively bring about its immediate abolition, we should push for a more
federalist and minarchist form of government, as less government is a movement in the direction
of anarchism. It is primarily for this reason that evolutionary and progressive anarchists have
tended to be associated with federalism. It is not that the federal state represents the ideal
system, but that federalism is a movement in the right direction. The system that we ultimately
want is anarchy, which means the eventual abolition of the federation itself. The great enemy of
anarchy is the centralized state, so the decentralized federation is a movement in the right
direction, even if it is not the ideal. And if we can use the federalist principle of nullification to
expand the realm of anarchy here and now, then the anarchist should be open to the idea of
trying to alter the existing system in order to expand the realm of anarchy even if the goal of
pure anarchy cannot be established in the near future.
The people need to become more politically active and they need to push for the state
governments to resist more of the federal laws. The American monetary system is totally
unconstitutional. 11 The states need to nullify the Federal Reserve System by legalizing alternative
currencies in their own territories and prohibiting federal authorities from coming after people
who use other things as “legal tender.” The states could prohibit their citizens from serving in the
armed forces of the federal government, and take back control of the local National Guard,
thereby taking the power to make war out of the hands of the federal government. The states
11
Cf. my article on The Illegality of American Money
ought to go out of their way to prevent federal authorities from doing anything within their
territories that is not encompassed in the powers expressly granted to the federal government by
the Constitution. This means that the states should outlaw the operation of organizations like the
FBI, CIA, ATF, and other unconstitutional federal agencies within their territories, and if the
federal authorities choose to still operate illegally in those states, then the states should arrest and
prosecute the federal agents as criminals.
The movement for liberty will be advanced by a combination of federalist and anarchist
activities, with the states practicing anarchistic civil disobedience through the process of state
nullification and the people actively nullifying the laws through anarchic civil disobedience.
When dealing with big government, we must be federalists. When dealing with small local
governments, we must be anarchists. We must always remember that if government is ever a
“necessary evil,” then it is always necessarily absolutely evil. The principles of anarchism are
implied in the principles of federalism.