REVOLT
No state is eternally existent. Every state, every government,
has had a beginning. That finite nature suggests the possibility
that for every beginning there is an end. The state that claims
sovereignty today may lose it tomorrow. Something that lacks sovereignty
today may gain it tomorrow.
Hobbes believed that in creating government, man lost all rights
excepts those which the government gave back to him. That initial
surrender of rights was binding on all future generations, giving
the state the right to rule in perpetuity over all who live within
its borders, whether infant, dissident, or foreigner.
The presumption that consent was once given long ago is an acknowledged
fiction. It did not happen. Yet it is the presumption of that
fiction which makes the issue of consent irrelevant in the present.
Whether or not a particular living individual consents, whether
or not the entire population consents, those in power have the
right to remain in power by virtue of a contract that was never
offered and never signed. The right does not have to be proven,
it only has to be enforced.
Revolution is the response of those who a) deny the legitimacy
of the rule of those in power; and b) are willing to fight to
end that rule. It is a declaration that those in power have no
right to rule, no reason to be obeyed.
Those who revolt always believe they have the right to do so.
Sometimes they articulate the nature and source of the right,
sometimes they don't bother. The primary purpose of revolt is
to cast off the yoke. Changing the theoretical justification of
government may or may not be an attendant goal.
The 1789 French "Declaration of the rights of man and of
the citizen" (Article 35) proclaimed that, "When the
government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is
for the people, and for every portion of the people, the most
sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."
In a world where so many claim a right to do or have whatever
they want, it is a still worthwhile to ask: How do we know who
has a right to what? Does saying so make it so? Not in most of
life. Equating desire with justification causes all kinds of problems.
By what authority do those in power rule? By what authority do
those under that rule cast it off? Legal rights are codified in
law and subject to change. Natural rights are seen by faith, and
articulated by interpretation. Social rights are a function of
the traditions and customs of a particular society.
Where then is the standard by which we know that something is
justified or not? Modern theoreticians usually do not state the
source of their standard or its content. They are content to assume
what they cannot establish.
The United States Declaration of Independence is a remarkable
document, which attempts to define the standard of authority.
It is a singularly beautiful justification for revolt. For two
centuries it has inspired people around the world to seek to be
free from the government ruling over them. In other words, it
has inspired them to deny the sovereignty of the power ruling
over them.
Its signers declared that, "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 and 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 certain
unalienable 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 to abolish
it..."
The justification for revolt proceeds like this: God's Law in
revelation and in Nature entitles all men to equal status. God
has given men rights which no state is authorized to diminish
or destroy. For the purpose of protecting these God-given rights,
governments exist, legitimized by the actual, contemporary consent
of the people. The government that infringes on those inalienable
rights loses its right to rule or exist.
King George disagreed. Hobbes would have disagreed too. All laws
require interpretation, but they interpreted both Nature and Scripture
differently. Who was correct? and on what basis? Each had their
supporters, each their critics. Whose view should be decisive
- that of the king, the parliament, the people of Great Britain,
or the people of the colonies? or simply the one who wins on the
battlefield?
The concept of sovereignty includes the notions of justice and
legality. If the ruler is the one who defines justice and legality,
then every ruler is just, and all his actions are legal. As Hobbes
believed, the sovereign can do no wrong. In that case, political
theory exists simply to justify political practice.
Individuals believe what they believe, but not everyone believes
the same thing. Law is the codification of the values in which
the lawmaker believes. The power behind the law enforces the belief.
Nothing, however, persuades everyone, not even the sword. That
is why people sometimes choose to fight and die in a hopeless
cause, as the Melians did against Athens, as many have done throughout
human history. Dying is seen as a lesser evil than submission.
The sovereign says there is no right to revolt. The rebels say
there is such a right, and it is necessary to use it. Regardless
of who is correct, revolt is a common part of the human experience.
Thousands of years ago, Aristotle wrote about the causes and goals
of revolution.
Is the right to revolt a part of Natural Law? Certainly Hobbes
would not consider it "a Precept, or generall Rule, found
out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is
destructive of his life..." 88 But, for their own reasons,
people often choose to die for a good perceived to be greater
than life itself.
If there is no right to revolt, then how can any government established
by revolt be declared sovereign? There are many such governments
in the world today. The fact of rulership is often deemed sufficient
to signify sovereignty.
It is, however, sufficient power and its effective use that prevents
revolt, not philosphical argument. Alexis de Tocqueville detailed
the ways in which the unwillingness of the Old Regime to defend
itself brought on its downfall through the French Revolution.
Similarly, Crane Brinton analyzed the American, English, French,
and Russian revolutions and concluded: "There is a time -
the first few weeks or months - when it looks as if a determined
use of force on the part of the government might prevent the mounting
excitement from culminating in an overthrow of the government...
"Yet one is impressed in all four instances more with the
ineptitude of the government's use of force than with the skill
of their opponents' use of force... Nobody knows. They don't commonly
take plebiscites just before revolutions....it is almost safe
to say that no government is likely to be overthrown from within
its territory until it loses the ability to make adequate use
of its military and police powers." 89
When revolt comes, whichever concept of rulership is succesfully
backed by greater force will rule. The determination of who is
to rule is not usually decided by theory or moral justification.
Revolutions themselves do not in general seem to excel in justice
or legality, though those involved may think they do. They often
surpass in cruelty and destruction the regime they overthrow.
Thucydides accurately described the dark side of the French Revolution,
or the Russian, or some other revolution, when he wrote: "When
troubles had once begun in the cities, those who followed carried
the revolutionary spirit further and further, and determined to
outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity
of the enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The meaning
of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed
by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be
loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation
was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to
do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. A conspirator
who wanted to be safe was a recreant in disguise. The lover of
violence was always trusted, and his opponent suspected. He who
succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master
in craft was he who detected one. On the other hand, he who plotted
from the first to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker
up of parties and a poltroon who was afraid of the enemy. In a
word, he who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded,
and so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it....The
tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a partisan
was more ready to dare without asking why." 90
Revolutions sweep away one set of rulers and their rules, replacing
them with another. After time, as in Orwell's Animal Farm, the
new set often bears an uncanny resemblance to the old. There seem
to be inbred or innate traits that reassert themselves in modified
ways.
De Tocqueville described how the consolidation of the French Revolution
re-established under new rulers the mechanisms of the Old Regime.
"They were hunted for among the wreckage of the old order
and duly salvaged. These institutions had formerly given rise
to customs, usages, ideas, and prejudices tending to keep men
apart, and thus make them easier to rule. They were revived and
skillfully exploited; centralization was built up anew, and in
the process all that had once kept it within bounds was carefully
eliminated. Thus there arose, within a nation that had but recently
laid low its monarchy, a central authority with powers wider,
stricter, and more absolute than those which any French King had
ever wielded." 91
Revolution, which challenges the sovereignty of one government,
often produces another with the same claims of sovereignty. The
concept outlives those who use it. One of the strangest aspects
of the notion of sovereignty is a continuity of rule that is undisturbed
by death, defeat, or revolution. The Tsar was crowned, Kerensky
and the Duma were elected, and then Lenin and the Party violently
overthrew them - all in the course of a year. Each claimed a different
source for their right to rule, but somehow the theorists and
the rulers of other nations found it to be the same sovereignty.
The sovereignty of Imperial China was transferred to the Democrats
and then to the Communists. That sovereignty is deemed sufficient
to control Hong Kong, which the British had "leased"
from the Emperor, Taiwan, which the nationalists had overrun,
and Tibet, which wasn't Chinese.
International recognition has come to be part of national sovereignty.
Those who rule in one place recognize the right of others to rule
in a different place. Sometimes they choose not to recognize it,
claiming the right of intervention to make the government what
they want it to be.
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(go back)
What is National Sovereignty?
Where Does Sovereignty Come From?
Hobbes Reconsidered
Realpolitik Morality
Anti-State
Revolt
Intervention
One World, One Sovereign
Notes & Bibliography