Campbell – Presentation for Leonard Liggio

Presentation for Leonard Liggio

Philadelphia Society, April 3, 1993

William F. Campbell

Louisiana State University

It is my great pleasure to be able to make a presentation to our outgoing President Leonard Liggio.
Who else can make the living difference between a libertine and a libertarian so vivid? Who else
has put the case for libertarianism so richly draped in historical gowns and religious garb instead of
naked psychological abstractions? Who else could have complained that, "Human beings are
sacrificed to abstractions–a holocaust of individuals is offered up to `the People.’"

Who else could remind us that the original impetus for free trade was not just simply improved
living standards for the masses but a pacific vision of the world where war becomes unthinkable
because of economic interdependence? "…the progress of civilization, the commercial tendency of
the epoch, and the communication of the various peoples among themselves have multiplied and
have given an infinite variety to the means of personal happiness. It follows that we ought to be
more attached than the ancients to our individual independence…The purpose of the moderns is
security in private enjoyment; and they give the name liberty to the guarantees accorded by the
institutions to that enjoyment."

Who else could recognize that as Samuel Johnson put it, the purpose of life is to be essentially
private, to be allowed to live happily at home, and in our day and age to be allowed to die at
home? But at the same time could warn us that, "The danger is that we will be so absorbed in the
enjoyment of our private independence and in the pursuit of our particular interests that we will
renounce too easily our right of participation in political power."

Leonard has lived these words by participating in the public arena, not as a holder of political
power, but as one who understands that it is ideas not vested interests which determine things in the
long run. I am not free to divulge the source of this phrase in these surroundings, but it is the same
person who stated the empirically non-testable proposition that in the long run we are all dead.

But at the same time who could better describe the U.S. Congress when it is operating without
limits? "When no limits are set to the representative authority, the representatives of the people are
not the defenders of liberty, but the candidates for tyranny. Moreover, once tyranny comes to be, it
may well be the more hideous for the tyrants being more numerous….An assembly which can
neither be suppressed nor restrained is, of all possible authorities, the blindest in its movements and
the most incalculable in its results, even for the members who compose it. It plunges into excesses
which, on a first view seem inconceivable. An ill-considered bustle about everything; an endless
multiplicity of laws; the desire to gratify the passions of the popular party by self-abandonment to
their pressure or even by encouraging them to press; the rancorous hatred inspired in it by the
resistance which it meets or the disapproval which it senses; the flouting of national sentiments and
the stubborn clinging to error; often enough the esprit de corps which gives strength but for
usurpation only; the alternation of rashness and timidity, violence and feebleness, favouritism to one
and distrust of all; the motivation by purely physical sensations, such as enthusiasm or panic; the
absence of all moral responsibility, and the certitude of safety in numbers from either the reproach
of cowardice or the dangers attending on rashness; such are the vices of assemblies when they are
not confined within bounds which they cannot overstep."

Who else has carried out the great traditions of De Tocqueville and Acton in linking liberty and
religious faith? Who could say, "Christianity has introduced moral and political liberty into the
world." "If Christianity has been often despised, it is because men have not understood it. Lucian
was incapable of understanding Homer; Voltaire has never understood the Bible."

Or who could better have described than Leonard the rise of the administrative state: "From a
society ground to dust emerged centralization. Centralization has not arrived, as so many other no
less dangerous doctrines, with bold arrogance and the authority of a principle; it has insinuated itself
modestly, as a consequence, as a necessary evil. Indeed, where we have nothing but `individuals,’
all matters which are not properly theirs are public affairs, affairs of the State….This is how we
became an administered nation."

Coming from Louisiana always allows me an oddball comment or two, useful for introductions.
Who else but Leonard Liggio could find the great threads of the French connection, indeed they
might even be called the cords of French Liberalism, and show some of them to be friends of
ordered liberty?

Now many of you may suspect by now that my quotes had a little cast of the antique about them.
In fact all the passages read came from two pillars of the French tradition, prints of whom we are
giving Leonard this morning, Benjamin Constant (1757-1830) and Royer-Collard (1763-1845).
But I believe that they are all quotes which could have been written by Leonard himself. Leonard,
we thank you for your firm but gentle guidance both of the Institute for Humane Studies and the
Philadelphia Society.