President James Buchanan, Chief Justice Roger Taney, Copperheads—and the Quakers

The Quakers—in the North and South—sat out the American Civil War (as best they could). They had deeply held religious scruples against killing, notwithstanding that they also believed slavery wrong. It was no easy position to hold during war-time, and many Quakers—particularly in the South—suffered for holding fast to their religiously-rooted moral position. See Fernando G. Cartland, Southern Heroes: The Friends in War Time (Cambridge, Riverside Press 1895) (available on the Internet Archive), <https://archive.org/details/southernheroesor00cartuoft/mode/1up?ref=ol&view=theater>.

Now there is a prudential question here. Is it good policy for a government to conscript people who oppose war-making, particularly where those people’s objections are religiously rooted? I want to leave that practical question aside.

Instead, I want to focus on the widely shared moral intuition that the Quakers’ opposition to service in northern and southern armies was admirable. Or, to be more exact, why their opposition to the war was seen as admirable. It strikes me that there are two possibilities. First, the Quaker position is seen as admirable specifically because it was religiously rooted. Or, second, it is seen in a positive light because, broadly speaking, principled pacifism is admirable, even if not religiously-rooted.

If our moral intuitions accord with the second view, if we credit the Quakers’ behaviour without regard to their religious inspiration, then why do our standard histories judge President James Buchanan and Chief Justice Taney so harshly?** Buchanan and Taney preferred the United States go to pieces rather than maintaining it by war. They were unwilling to order or to support a war, and the deaths, which would undoubtedly follow. Yet very few today see Buchanan and Taney as heroes or as acting on moral principles akin to those of the Quakers. Why?

Perhaps, just perhaps, our society only sees pacifism as admirable if it is specifically motivated by religious scruples? Or are these two divergent moral intuitions rooted in a prudential judgment: we can only have reasonable confidence that pacifism is sincere if rooted in religious garb? In other words, secular pacifism might sometimes be real, but we suspect that it is more often than not used strategically, as opposed to sincerely. Or perhaps a third possibility: many hold divergent moral intuitions because they have not thought it all through sufficiently? Which is it? Or is there another possibility?

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘President James Buchanan, Chief Justice Roger Taney, Copperheads—and the Quakers,’ New Reform Club (Oct. 30, 2016, 7:44 AM), <https://tinyurl.com/3nk5hcef>;

**S Calabresi & C Yoo (describing Buchanan as “the worst president in American history”), <http://tinyurl.com/zpbkr7f>.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman ( @SethBTillman ) 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Law of the Clinton Candidacy (Again), The New Reform Club (Oct. 30, 2016, 3:59 AM). [Here]