Is Secession Legal?

01/19/2020 | Rfreedom4u

[Badboo]

You are missing the whole point of the “union”. The Declaration and the Constitution establish the framework of not just a union of states but of “one people”. It was a vote of the people in ratifying conventions in each new state that created the union. One joined it takes the consent of the whole for a State to depart. You are simultaneously a citizen of your state and of the nation as a whole. Just as one state may not abrogate or diminish your citizenship rights in another state, a state may not abrogate or diminish your national citizenship though secession. Lincoln laid this all out, many times.

There is no constitutional process for dissolving all or part of this union of states and people. A constitutional amendment would have to be enacted that would lay out the process. Good luck with that. Just trying to figure out who absorbs the national debt or how to keep social security payments flowing or how to divide military assets would never be resolved.

You may not be a citizen of California or Texas or Ohio, but as an American you have as much “right” to to those states as anyone else. Equal protection of the law and other federal rights is what you gained in union, having that also granted to all American citizens. That can’t be taken from you by another citizen or a state in any legal manner.

[Secret Agent Man]

No one will endure bad optics

All those will be painted as white racist extremists

The media will happily present things this way to the nation

They are doing so already

[Kevmo]

Nope, Lincoln proved might makes right, and that was only in the end. The south should have sued for peace when they had the upper hand.

[devere]

By the 10th amendment secession should be legal. The stupid Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and the resulting civil war of 1861-65 has caused the subject of secession to become legally unclear.

[Secret Agent Man]

Germany, Japan

[Verginius Rufus]

During the New York ratifying convention in 1788, which narrowly voted for ratification, someone wrote to Madison to the effect that New York might ratify on the proviso that a Bill of Rights be added (but then repeal the ratification if it wasn't), but Madison wrote that a ratification could not be rescinded. (Don't remember the exact terms used, but to that effect.)

I believe that during the first week of the first meeting of Congress in 1789, a Congressman from South Carolina threatened secession.

During the War of 1812 there was sentiment for secession in the New England states.

[mabarker1]

TEXAS can.

[Secret Agent Man]

I meant certain states in the early years of the nation, they werent colonies anymore

[Secret Agent Man]

Nope.

But they did try to work within the system for about 3-4 decades and it just kept getting worse and worse for them.

[SeeSharp]

The Constitution doesn’t say either way but SCOTUS ruled that unilateral secession is unconstitutional.

You do see the contradiction there don't you?

[Captain Walker]

Congressman Lincoln would have had President Lincoln thrown in jail for his conduct as President; the congressman told anyone who listened to his campaign speeches that secession was absolutely a right held by the states.

Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island would never have ratified the Constitution without assurance that each of them had the right of secession.

[Kevmo]

We are ALL colonies now, competing against the illegal colonization of folks who care nothing about our constitutional rights other than what they can take in the form of benefits to themselves.

[Kevmo]

That is how it’s implemented NOW, but when the concept was SOLD, they were sovereign nations and that is what the treaties say.

[cgbg]

Sometimes if you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer.

This is a classic example—really dumb and irrelevant question...

If a state secedes, the lawyers will be the least of their worries. :-(

[Secret Agent Man]

People are citizens of the states they live in

And because they are citizens of hose states they are ciizens of the usa

The founders held this view overwhelmingly, the union was mentioned second, they were virginians, and new yorkers, and pennslyvanians, and also because of that, citizens of the unted stages

[Kevmo]

Right now there are millions of Americans like myself who are looking for cheap places to retire and not get harassed by the guvmint. These reservations would represent a perfect intersection of cooperative wills. But the Indian Nations have the right to exclude you and me from living there on the basis of how many drops of blood in your veins is injun blood. Sovereign nations. Otherwise, such a thing would be considered extremely racist.

[mac_truck]

Secession is legal if you can exercise the power, military or otherwise, to make it stick.

Even if every American secessionist lived in the same state they wouldn't have the power necessary to force a vote on the issue in any state legislature. There is just no popular support for secession in the United states.

[joshua c]

If I remember my history correctly that disagreement is settled by bullets.

[Kevmo]

+1

[Kevmo]

How do ya figure?