LAUSR

Francis Lieber (1800–1872), professor at South Carolina College and Columbia College, New York City, spent his career grappling with the nature of political organization. A German émigré, Lieber’s political theory of the state grew around a critique of social contract theory, which he believed fostered a “Gallican liberty” prone to centralization and democratic absolutism. He contrasted this tradition with one premised on a healthy “Anglican liberty” that diffused power through societal institutions and cooperative government structures. This transatlantic perspective informed Lieber’s response to the primary threats confronting the American political system at midcentury: Calhounite states’ rights theory and Democrats’ amoral understanding of “popular sovereignty,” both of which opened the door for slavery’s expansion. Preserving institutional liberty and the Union led Lieber to a full-throated defense of the United States as an organic nation-state capable of squashing secession and advancing civilization and freedom through constitutional reform and international law.