The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

60 The Essential Rothbard
While the radicals had succeeded in pulling much of the centralist
teeth, the Articles were still a momentous step from
the loose but effective unity of the original Continental Congress
to the creation of a powerful new central government.
To that extent, they were an important victory for conservatism
and centralization, and proved to be a half-way house
on the road to the Constitution. 151
For Rothbard, this was decidedly the wrong road.
He emphasizes the radical nature of the Revolution.
It was the first successful war of national liberation against
western imperialism. A people’s war, waged by the majority of
Americans having the courage and the zeal to rise up against
constituted “legitimate” government, actually threw off their
“sovereign.” 152
To this it might be objected that an external revolution need not
be internally radical as well; but Rothbard stands ready with his
answer:
the sudden smashing of that [British] rule inevitably threw
government back into a fragmented, local, quasi-anarchistic
form. When we consider also that the Revolution was consciously
and radically directed against taxes and against central
government power, the inevitable thrust of the Revolution
for a radical transformation toward liberty becomes crystal
clear. 153
Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine rank high among the heroes
of this radical drive toward liberty. Paine in Common Sense
not only laid bare the roots of monarchy, but provided a brilliant
insight into the nature and origins of the State itself. He
had made a crucial advance in libertarian theory upon the
social-contract doctrine of the origin of the State. While he
151
Ibid., p. 254.
152
Ibid., p. 443.
153
Ibid., pp. 444–45.