Opinion: Vote with Your Feet!

Perhaps the single greatest leap in the history of civilizations is the idea expressed so eloquently in our Declaration of Independence – that human beings are by right free and autonomous individuals, “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” among them the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The goal was a society where voluntary interaction among free citizens supplants the Old World notions of status, elitism, and aristocracy, as the path to personal happiness and fulfilment for the people.

Sadly, many Americans no longer hold these values in high esteem. A glance around at our fellow citizens often shows an attitude of tragic disregard for the principles on which our nation was founded, and an alarming willingness to surrender liberty in exchange for the illusion of security. The main political parties compete in a race where the loser is always freedom.

Caught between the hammer and anvil of statism, those few who desire more – not less – control over their own lives can easily find their voices drowned out by the many, those who call for further restrictions, greater controls, more regulations and bureaucracy, less privacy, higher taxes, and increasing interference by government officials in the lives of the people. What’s a freedom-lover to do?

The Constitution is replete with mechanisms which, when properly employed, provide the individual citizen some sanctuary from the ravages of unreasonable majorities – what Isabel Paterson called “the counter-check on government, by legitimate means.” Examples are the Electoral College, judicial review, separation of powers, the equal distribution of Senators (regardless of state population), the appointment of Senators by state legislatures (undone by the 17th Amendment), and the Bill of Rights, particularly trial by jury and the individual right to keep and bear arms – each one a potential hedge against the tyranny of the majority.

Another important option for safeguarding liberty available to members of our constitutional republic is what the libertarian historian Clarence Carson, in The Rebirth of Liberty, identified as the “ultimate recourse of an oppressed minority”: migration.

The United States was meant to be a vast laboratory of democracy, providing an opportunity for people to vote with their feet in the world’s largest free-movement zone. By seeking out a state most respectful of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and deciding to call that place home, Americans can, with relative ease, leave behind the oppression of one locality for another more to their liking.

This concept has been put into practice from the earliest days of North American settlement. In fact, it was the search for greater freedom and tolerance that underlay the foundation of the first colonies that would later become part of the United States. For example, Puritans landed in present-day Massachusetts seeking religious tolerance not found in England. Under the leadership of Roger Williams, Rhode Island was founded by dissidents seeking independence from Massachusetts Puritanism; Maryland was founded as a Catholic enclave among the more numerous Protestant colonies, while Vermonters sought refuge from the “land jobbers of New York.” After 1789, Americans began moving steadily westward, beyond the Appalachian Mountains, creating new states that would join the Union with their own constitutions and unique cultures and concerns. In the decades following the Civil War, many people of African descent migrated west and north to flee the oppression of Southern apartheid governments.

The preservation of peaceful relations between members is the paramount concern of a free society, allowing commerce, industry, charity, mutual respect, and goodwill to govern the course of our respective destinies. More than any other principle, it is self-government that best allows for the realization of such virtues. A just order is maintained by “setting man free from men,” as Ayn Rand observed – but also by holding people to the highest standards of justice and good citizenship.

Here in New Hampshire, we like to think of ourselves as being dedicated to the promise of the American Revolution.

The “Live Free or Die” state can boast of its citizen legislature, the fourth-largest representative assembly in the world, but one that still remains easily accessible by the people; a weak chief executive, advised by an elected council of advisers; no personal income or broad-based sales taxes; tremendous opportunities for homeschoolers, entrepreneurs, sportsmen, and beer-lovers; respect for gun-owners, privacy, independence, and non-traditional marriages; an attitude of fiscal restraint, and a general commitment to freedom and personal responsibility unmatched anywhere in the Union – not to mention beauty from ocean to mountains that is the envy of the nation.

Writing about Germany under the Holy Roman Empire, James Bryce called German cities “the centers of...intellect and freedom...the surest hope of future peace and union.” Throwing off the shackles of feudalism and autocracy, peasants flocked to these urban centers in search of opportunity, education, employment, and a better way of life.

New Hampshire awaits those today who seek air that, when breathed, still tastes of liberty – and the hope of a better world.

This commentary originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Free Stater Magazine.