Wrong about rights
Sir: Whilst I agree with Julian Brazier (Letters, 20 October) that human rights have a murky 'Enlightenment' provenance, his American Civil War example is inaccurate. Rights were not 'trumpeted loudest by those supporting slavery'. It was the Abolitionist Federal North which framed its case in terms of rights, whereas the South asserted established law and the Constitution.
The legality of secession was privately acknowledged after the war, when the proposed prosecution of Jefferson Davis for treason was dropped after advice from the chief justice that secession had indeed been in line with the standard Constitutional theory that Davis had been taught at West Point.
This is not a matter of legal/historic pedantry. Human rights have since become the weapon of choice of 'progressives' when they cannot secure their objectives democratically. How else can unpopular measures such as abortion, exclusion of religion from schools or gay marriage be established in the USA if not via unelected judges?
A similar tension lies behind the current European debate, with constitutional 'advances' promoted by unelected officials of the Commission. We might profitably learn from history that human rights and federal ambitions have a poor record of respecting legislatures and the will of the majority — let alone 'red lines'.
Martin Sewell Gravesend, Kent
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