I have not been posting recently, partly because I've been working on finishing a book on The Federalist, which I've just sent off to the Yale University Press for publication sometime around September, and organizing a conference at the University of Texas Law School.
“Popular Sovereignty,
Self-determination, and Secession” will be the focus of a symposium to be held
at the University of Texas Law School on January 22-24. Participants will
be drawn from several disciplines as well as several countries.
Formal registration is not required.
So why is the topic so important? Consider the following excerpt from Woodrow Wilson's speech to
Congress in 1918, which may be said to have transformed the purpose of World
War I, at least so far as the United States was concerned, from “simply”
defending democracy to endorsing the claims of all peoples to
“self-determination” as part of the breakup of the existing imperial order (at
least in Europe) that was the consequence of the conflict that began 100 years
ago (and whose results we live with every single day):
Address
of Woodrow Wilson to Congress, on February 11, 1918
Peoples are not to be
handed about from one sovereignty to another by an international conference or
an understanding between rivals and antagonists. National aspirations must be
respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent.
"Self-determination" is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative
principle of actions which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We
cannot have general peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a
peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings
between powerful states. All the parties to this war must join in the
settlement of every issue anywhere involved in it; because what we are seeing
is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain and every item of it
must be submitted to the common judgment whether it be right and fair, an act
of justice, rather than a bargain between sovereigns….
This war had its roots in
the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked
the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own
allegiances and their own forms of political life…
The principles to be applied [in achieving a
conclusion to World War I] are these:
First, that each part of the final settlement must
be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such
adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent;
Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be
bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels
and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the
balance of power; but that
Third, every territorial settlement involved in
this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations
concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims
amongst rival states; and
Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations
shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without
introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that
would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the
world.
To put it mildly, Wilson’s “principles” raise many questions. Consider, for example, the following commentby Karl Meyer in The New York Times of August 14, 1991,
If one were to choose the
man of the hour in post-Communist Europe, his name might well be Woodrow
Wilson, long deceased and seldom celebrated. For he was the President who
memorably informed Congress in 1918 that "self-determination is not a mere
phrase. It is an imperative principle of action which statesmen will henceforth
ignore at their peril."
From the Baltics to the Adriatic, from the Ukraine
to the Balkans, oppressed millions have given new life to his imperative -- and
often troublesome -- principle. Indeed, if results are the measure, Wilson has
proved a more successful revolutionary than Lenin.
Wilson's anxious Secretary of State, Robert
Lansing, sensed at once that self-determination was a phrase "simply
loaded with dynamite." As he presciently remarked in a confidential
memorandum in December 1918:
"What effect will it have on the Irish, the
Indians, the Egyptians, and the nationalists among the Boers? Will it not breed
discontent, disorder, and rebellion? Will not the Mohammadans of Syria and
Palestine and possibly of Morocco and Tripoli rely on it? How can it be
harmonized with Zionism, to which the President is practically committed?"
Lansing's alarm was shared by the imperial victors
in World War I, who successfully diluted Wilsonian doctrines at the Versailles
peace conference. Britain, France and Italy firmly rejected self-determination
for their own colonies; they applied the principle only to defeated powers, and
did so inconsistently. Even so, however grudgingly, they lent force to a slogan
seized on by aggrieved peoples everywhere to challenge imposed rule.
To be sure, the phrase was trumpeted by dictators
as well as democrats. Lenin's Bolsheviks championed self-determination -- for
those not under Soviet control. Hitler claimed the right for those Herrenvolk
who were outside Germany, while subjugating whole nations without pity or
scruple.
Lansing's initial misgivings were prudent. If
Wilson was right, he asked, was Lincoln wrong to deny self-determination to
seceding Confederate states? And what unit did Wilson have in mind: a race,
territory or a community? "Without a definite unit which is
practical," he wrote, "application of this principle is dangerous to
peace and stability."
These are sand traps that Wilson largely and
loftily ignored. To dissolve a union by unilateral secession can nullify
democracy and sunder a nation that owes its existence to an act of
self-determination. Few states are tidily homogeneous; frontiers are often
disputed. Nor is it self-evident that a passport and national flag are
essential to self-determination: Switzerland's several peoples have cohabited
in a single state for centuries.
Yet qualifying a principle is very different from
rejecting it. Lansing, a realist, sourly scorned Wilson's vision as "the
dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late. . . .
What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered!" Try telling that to a
billion people whose liberation has been speeded by a doctrine enshrined in the
first article of the United Nations Charter.
[The first article, in relevant part, is as follows:
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
2. To
develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of
equal rights and self-determination of peoples…]
Wilson, who died defeated and embittered, has
earned the epitaph bestowed by Londoners on Sir Christopher Wren: If you wish
to see his monument, just look around.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22
5:30 Tom Sealy Lecture (Eidman Courtroom, UT Law School)
David Armitage (Harvard): "Three Concepts of Civil War:
Succession, Supersession, Secession”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23
Introductory remarks
9:10-9:25 Dean Ward Farnsworth,
Sanford Levinson
1.
9:30-10:30
An overview: what have written
constitutions actually said about popular sovereignty and secession? Zack Elkins (University of Texas Department
of Government), comment by Wayne Norman
2.
10:45-12:30 Rule by “we the people” in the United
States: To what degree have legal
instruments (ranging from the British constitution in operation in 1776 to the
United States Constitution of 1787 and state constitutions) cabined “popular
sovereignty”?
Sandy Levinson, moderator (and
participant); David Armitage (Harvard University), Roman Hoyos (Southwestern Law School);
Michael Les Benedict (Ohio State Department of History, emeritus)
LUNCH
12:40-1:55
3.
2:05-5:00 Secessionist impulses in Europe and the
former Soviet Unio
Ran Hirschl (University of Toronto), moderator
and participant
Victor Ferreres (Barcelona, visiting
the University of Texas Law School), Stephen Tierney (University of Edinburgh);
Elise Giuliano (Columbia); Susanna Mancini (University of Bologna, Johns
Hopkins)
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24
4. 9:30-noon
Coming to terms with the
theories (and practices) of popular sovereignty, self-determination, and
secession
Gary Jacobsohn,
University of Texas Department of Government, moderator and participant
Wayne Norman (Duke);
Stephen Tierney (Edinburgh); Susanna Mancini (Johns Hopkins and Bologna), David
Armitage (Harvard); Maurizo Viroli (University of Texas Department of
Government)