Occupation

Volume 94 Number 885 Spring 2012work of contract by individuals who lived previously, out of it; no necessary evil,no ill of humanity which will be cured in time and by civilisation; no accidentalthing, no institution above and separate from society, no instrument for one orafew– the state is a form and faculty of mankind to lead the species towardperfection – it is the glory of man. 71The role assigned to the state underpins Lieber’s views on authority, law, obedience,and revolution. It equally controls his approach to suffering in war, for Lieber leftlittle room for the individual in the ‘Leviathan he had conjured up [which] mightabsorb all ...social relationships (and thus ...all the media for the realization ofindividuality) under its “protecting” wings’. 72 In essence, he reconciled liberty andnationalism by instrumentalizing both the individual and the state to the pursuit ofmodern progressive civilization, of humanity-as-vocation. Neither the state nor theindividual was supreme; both were subordinate to that humanity’s vocation. Thestatealways remains a means, yet it is the most indispensable means to obtainthe highest end, that man be truly man. ...On the one hand, the individualstands incalculably higher than the state; for that he may be able to be all thathe ought to be, the state exists. ...On the other hand, the state standsincalculably above the individual, is worthy of every sacrifice, of life, and goods,of wife and children, for it is the society of societies, the sacred union by whichthe creator leads man to civilization, the bond, the pacifier, the humanizer, ofmen, the protector of all undertakings in which and through which theindividual has received its character, and which is the staff and shield ofsociety. 73Nationalism and inter-nationalismIf reconciling liberty and nationalism imparts the vocational, progressive, and unindividualnature of Lieber’s sense of humanity, the way that he squared offnationalism and inter-nationalism (the dash is crucial) and the role that he assignedto inter-national law underscore the primacy of order in his sense of humanity. Hesaw no tension between nationalism and inter-nationalism; on the contrary, heconsidered the existence of national states a necessary condition for inter-nationalorder in which civilization can advance. Thus, one of the ‘main characteristics of thepolitical development’ marking modern times was:the decree that has gone forth that many leading nations flourish at one and thesame time, plainly distinguished from one another, yet striving together, with71 Ibid., pp. 183–184 (‘The state does not absorb individuality, but exists for the better obtaining of the trueends of each individual, and of society collectively’).72 C. B. Robson, above note 54, p. 237.73 F. Lieber, above note 29, pp. 180–181; see also F. Lieber, above note 63, p. 60.93