The Doughfaces rise again

Good for Glenn Reynolds for laying the smackdown on the Doughface Libertarians:

One suspects that for a certain sort of infantile mind, pro-Confederacy statements provide the same sort of thrilling sense of nonconformity that Marxism has provided. This, I guess, explains the weird strain of pro-Confederate sympathy that one finds among a certain segment of libertarians. Or, of course, there’s always racism as an explanation—an explanation you’d rather believe didn’t apply, but that clearly does sometimes. Muller makes a pretty persuasive case that it applies here, and author Thomas Woods seems to have connections to some of those fringe libertarians.

That’s exactly right—well, I don’t know about whether Woods is a racist. But he’s certainly a crackpot. I read somewhere or other recently that Woods claimed Jefferson believed in secession—which at best is a ludicrous exaggeration. In fact, Jefferson argued that even under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had the authority to coerce the states to remain in the union! See Answers to Questions Propounded by Monsieur de Meusnier, Jan. 24th, 1786, in 17 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 121-122 (A. Bergh ed., 1905) (“When any one State in the American Union refuses obedience to the Confederation by which they have bound themselves, the rest have a natural right to compel them to obedience.”) See also Letter to Edward Carrington, Aug. 4, 1787, in 6 id. at 217-218. Long before, Woods wrote an article for Ideas on Liberty, on the same theme. I wrote a response, which Ideas on Liberty refused to publish (the editor claimed that they don’t engage in written debates). Woods wrote a reply here.

Update: More on the Doughfaces here.

Update 2: Thanks to the Ass for the link. Those interested in why the Declaration of Independence does not support the neo-Confederate argument may consult my articles on the subject.