Judge Gorsuch and the Dissolution of the Administrative State

The New York Sun ran an editorial today about a New York Times article by two children of left-wing judges.  They claim that the appointment of Judge Gorsuch will threaten the administrative state. The reason is that Judge Gorsuch opposes a decision called Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc  (467 U.S. 837, 1984), and Judge Gorsuch's appointment may lead to  its reversal.  The decision enunciated the Chevron principle, by which the Supreme Court held that when decisions are unclear the courts should defer to administrative agencies.

Repeal of such deference would be a great thing, and if we start a tabulation of costs versus benefits of the Trump administration, curtailing or ending the Chevron principle would add to the benefits side of the ledger.    

I go further.  The Chevron principle is a good argument for the inability of the courts to determine Constitutionality.  That claim was made in the early 19th century, but it was violated by Abraham Lincoln and denied by Andrew Jackson.  

The  Lincoln and Johnson administrations were unwilling to adjudicate the issue of secession. Rather than sue the first seven states that seceded, Lincoln chose to raise an army and illegally threaten them with military power.  The issue of secession was never adjudicated, which is why the North did not punish the leaders of the Confederate States of America for treason. If secession had been adjudicated early on, Chief Justice Taney's Supreme Court may have ruled on the side of the South.  The Civil War may have been averted.  At one point Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Taney, but it was never carried out.  

The Chevron doctrine exhibits an authoritarian bias that reminds me of of Friedrich Hayek's warning, in The Road to Serfdom, that the bureaucratic state is inherently dictatorial.  By renouncing its own authority in favor of bureaucrats, the Supreme Court has ceded American governance to dictatorship by appointed agency.

The bungling incompetence of the appointed dictatorship that the Times has supported since the 1930s needs little clarification.  From 1830 to 1970 the average American saw wage gains of .5% to 2.0% per year.  Since the expansion of the administrative state under Johnson and Nixon, and especially the abolition of the gold standard in 1971 and the expansion of the powers of the Federal Reserve Bank, economic improvement for the average American has been nil. 

If wage gains had continued at 1.5% per years from 1971 to 2015, the average American would be earning roughly twice what he is earning now.  The administrative state is responsible for the halving of Americans' wages. 

More on Slavery

 In response to a comment:

One of the more blatant lies taught in American schools is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. A reading of DiLorenzo's and Hummel's books will disabuse you of that myth.

First of all, four slave states fought on the side of the North--Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky. They did not abolish slavery even after the war ended. It took the Thirteenth Amendment passed by the radical, post-war Congress.

Second, four secessionist states that in total had a greater population than the seven that seceded when Lincoln was elected, most importantly Virginia, did not secede until Lincoln attacked the South after he was elected. The reason was specifically Lincoln's violent imposition of the federal government on the secessionist states.

Third, Lincoln repeatedly said that he did not aim to repeal slavery. In fact, he said that he favored a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited the abolition of slavery. He said this repeatedly.

Fourth, on November 7, 1861 The London Times wrote an editorial expressing its and the British people's dislike of slavery. Britain at that time was the leading abolitionist nation in the world, for it  had abolished slavery a few decades earlier. Nevertheless, the Times editorialized, it was eminently clear that the Civil War was not being fought about slavery. As Lincoln repeatedly stated and made clear through direct action, the war's aim was to keep the union united. This was contrary to the aims of the American founders, and directly contradictory to Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence that just government is derived FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. As a result, The London Times opined, most British citizens favored the South over the North because the North's war was an effort to enforce a government on a people who did not consent; The Times held that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

Fifth, many leading abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison, had for years advocated NORTHERN SECESSION as a way TO END SLAVERY. In other words, leading opponents of slavery had believed all along that secession would by itself end slavery. Rather than give this idea a chance, Lincoln chose to kill 500,000 to 800,000 people, maim a million people, and conquer the South, forcing a tyranny on them.

Why might secession have ended slavery? Because the Fugitive Slave Law was a key impediment to slaves' escaping, and it would have been repealed with secession. The result would have been that slaves could escape and not be returned. That is what happened in Delaware. By the end of the war virtually all the slaves had left to enlist and could not be returned. Rather than let slavery die naturally, Lincoln, who  repeatedly said he favored continuation of slavery, fought a war to suppress the South and prevent them from seceding.

In sum, your belief that the Civil War was fought over slavery and that disagreement with the Civil War in some way suggests agreement with slavery is based on bad education, lies, misinformation, and propaganda that you probably learned in an American school. You did not get a good education, and I didn't either.


 In response to two political activists:

Dear     _________           :

 I have decided to disassociate myself from political activity.  Political activity requires some concern and common ground with the polity and the citizenry.  Having just read DiLorenzo’s Lincoln Unmasked and, worse, Jeffrey Hummel’s Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, I have concluded that the United States is based on the false premise that a government can be derived from the barrel of a gun; consequently,  the American people and the American form of government are immoral; focusing concern or political emotion on them is misguided.  

The developments that occurred after the Civil War are a function of a people bent on violence, theft, and self-aggrandizement;  the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank and Wall Street’s ongoing economic rape of the American people is a symptom of a deeper, underlying immorality on the American people’s part.  All con men know that it is greed that makes a mark susceptible to their cons.  Americans are those greedy marks.  

Americans have been satisfied with the violent compulsion that Lincoln imposed on the South (he did not oppose slavery, and four slave states fought on Lincoln’s side, which we are not told in in pro-government, progressive schools).  More generally, America is not a nation based on premises of freedom and consent of the governed; as a result, I do not support the current form of government, and I do not care what happens to an American people willing to use violence to impose their will on others.   I have zero interest in conservatism, in Republicans, in establishment candidates, or in opposing Andrew Cuomo with other, equal candidates.

Please remove me from your mailing list.

In 1861, The London Times Got It Right

The contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces.

---The London Times, November 7, 1861, quoted in Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, Chicago and La Salle, Illinois, Open Court Press, 1996, p. 168

Hummel notes earlier on p. 168:

Britain was the neutral country that mattered most, and slavery was a key issue affecting its reaction.  Lincoln, however, had made clear that the war was for the preservation of the Union only.  He promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, and many Union commanders during the early campaigns returned runaways to their southern masters, in compliance withe the Fugitive Slave Law.  As a result, the foreign antislavery movement was reluctant to throw its weight behind the Union, and many Britons openly sympathized with the Confederacy.