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View Full Version : did bastiat ever have writings about his views on slavery?




ronaldo23
02-16-2013, 07:27 PM
particularly slavery in america, and what he must have forseen as an impending major war/conflict

Smart3
02-16-2013, 07:38 PM
Writing in 1850, Bastiat noted two areas where the United States fell short: "Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.

Expatriate
02-16-2013, 07:39 PM
I remember in The Law he mentioned that slavery and tariffs were the two principal wrongs in America at that time.

Edit: Ninja'd.

Here's the passage:

http://www.constitution.org/cmt/bastiat/the_law.html

Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder

What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs. These are the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the republic of the United States, law has assumed the character of plunder.

Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.

Its is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime—a sorrowful inheritance of the Old World—should be the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union. It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society, a more astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an instrument of injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences to the United States—where only in the instance of slavery and tariffs—what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of law is a principle; a system?

Sadly, looks like his prediction was correct. The seeds of aggression took root and look what we have now.