Is Secession Legal?

01/19/2020 | Rfreedom4u

[rfreedom4u]

Many people have stated that secession is illegal and not allowed as determined by the American Civil War. But is it really? Throughout the history of the United States our government has supported the independence/secession of states/territories/colonies from various other nations.

Haiti seceded from the French empire through a slave revolt. South Sudan broke from Sudan. Yugoslavia broke into several countries and later Kosovo seceded from Serbia. Czechoslovakia split into two countries. The Soviet split into quite a few countries. The UK left the European Union. And many others….

So why do people say secession is illegal in the United States? There’s nothing in the US Constitution that mentions secession. The Tenth Amendment states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Using my logic this means that since the issue of secession is not given to the federal government it is reserved to the states or the people themselves to determine. I’ve read the constitution of my own state (Texas) and secession is not mentioned at all. This even furthers my belief that is should be determined by the people.

If I were to join a club and did not like what the club became, I would be well within my rights to quit that club. If I go to see a movie and don’t like it, I can walk out. So why would anyone believe that the United States is a “once you’re in you can’t leave” type of deal? When someone doesn’t like the state in which they live they are free to move to another state or even another country.

If secession/independence/splitting up is supported for other people in the world why is it not ok for citizens of the United States? And yes, I know that politicians are garbage and want to maintain their power and control. So please give me your opinion on whether it is legal or not and why you think that way? But please spare me the “if it’s broke, we don’t run away, we fix it” argument. At this point I am fairly certain that it is not repairable.

[eastexsteve]

The US government no longer seems to be concerned if something is legal or not. Why should Texas? TEXIT!

[SeeSharp]

How about naming a few of them?

Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase.
Attorney General William Evarts.
Abolitionist attorney Richard Henry Dana.
Etc.

[Kevmo]

Then look at that map and tell me how big the break off republic would be.

[Kevmo]

They had early military victories.

[DoodleDawg]

They had early military victories.

That's far from the upper hand. To have had any sort of advantage over the U.S. the Confederacy would have to have had recognition and support from other countries. That diplomatic and military support was never given. The Confederacy was never in a position to win.

[Kevmo]

When the guts who wanna secede have their army in YOUR territory, that’s when you’ll listen attentively to their request to sue for peace.

[DoodleDawg]

Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase.

The Chief Justice Chase who ruled the southern secession unconstitutional in the Texas v. White decision?

Attorney General William Evarts

AG Evarts was part of the team prosecuting Davis.

Richard Henry Dana.

Dana's concerns with the Davis trial, of which he was also a member of the prosecution, had nothing to do with the legality of secession.

[BroJoeK]

Carry me back: "It’s legal.
Most everyone in the early days believed it was.
It’s a very important part of being free imo."

That's totally wrong, bass-ackwards.
The real truth is every Founding President faced his own secession crisis, in one form or another, and all acted & spoke against it.

1. George Washington raised an army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, put Virginia Gen. Light Horse Harry Lee in charge, rebels dispersed.
   Washington also sent armies to fight against British supported Indians in the US Northwest Territories.

2. John Adams passed the Alien & Sedition Acts to prevent pro-French Revolution guillotining Americans from sedition in the Quazi-War against France.

3. Thomas Jefferson had his former VP, Aaron Burr, arrested and tried for treason when Burr attempted to secede Louisiana.

4. James Madison, during the War of 1812, moved US Army troops off the frontier with Canada to oppose New England secessionists after the 1814 Hartford Convention.

5. James Monroe, even during the "Era of Good Feelings" faced threats of secession & civil war (always linked together) over what became the Missouri Compromise.
   "You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish."
   — Representative Thomas W. Cobb of Georgia

   "If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so!
   If civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come!"
   — Representative James Tallmadge Jr. of New York:

6. Andrew Jackson, most famously, faced down South Carolina secessionists in 1830, over the "Tariff of Abominations", threatened to hang any man supporting nullification or secession, also quoted as saying:
   "John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body..."

   "In his December 1832 Annual Message to Congress, Jackson called for another reduction of the tariff, but he also vowed to suppress any rebellion.[120]
   Days later, Jackson issued his Proclamation to the People of South Carolina, which strongly denied the right of states to nullify federal laws or secede.[121]
   Jackson ordered the unionist South Carolina leader, Joel Roberts Poinsett, to organize a posse to suppress any rebellion, and promised Poinsett that 50,000 soldiers would be dispatched if any rebellion did break out.[122]"

Every Founding President faced rebellion, insurrection, secession and/or treason and all Founders opposed such forces.

[Kevmo]

Voters don’t count votes, hacked voting machines do.

Voters don’t verify vote counts, corrupt judges and politicians do.

[SeeSharp]

 Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase.

The Chief Justice Chase who ruled the southern secession unconstitutional in the Texas v. White decision?

Attorney General William Evarts

AG Evarts was part of the team prosecuting Davis.

Richard Henry Dana.

Dana's concerns with the Davis trial, of which he was also a member of the prosecution, had nothing to do with the legality of secession. 

Evarts requested a written legal opinion from Dana, who wrote a letter recommending against prosecution. Evarts had only been considering prosecution in the first place because Johnson had made it a campaign issue and was insisting on it. Meanwhile Chase was doing everything he could to slow the process down. In the end, the prosecution fizzled because Johnson got impeached and so had other things to worry about. Johnson had been the only real driving force behind the prosecution because Davis had treated him like the moron he was when the two of them had served together in the Senate.

At the time all of this was going on Davis was out on bail and was actually touring Europe. His bail had been paid by a group of mainly northerners. One of whom had been one of John Brown's financial backers.

[Brass Lamp]

“. . . When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve . .” Reading is really not that hard.

Read further: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another," (a 'union' as it were)"... and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." (from a union, presumably)

By the way, the Declaration was not a “disunionist” manifesto, it was a revolutionary explanation of independence justifying the right to overthrow a government and a sovereign.

I'm fairly certain that neither the Crown nor its ministerial government were overthrown by our successful separatist revolt.

Secession is not revolution. You diminish the Declaration's revolutionary meaning.

That's just the same semantic word play that leftists employ when they say that "communism is not fascism". The end-product of our revolt is that we separated from the British government and withdrew from their control, the very substance of secession.

Oh contraire, (I'm not holding my breath waiting for an actual contradiction to follow "Oh contraire") the Constitution required the approval of a super majority to be enacted - nine states - thus being exactly the mechanism of, say Vermont to allow or not allow New York to join. And all new states joining thereafter would also have to be approved by the others. You are confused

When New Hampshire became the ninth member of the original confederation to ratify the Constitution, it was not determining whether Delaware COULD be a member, which matter had already been decided by Delaware's own separate convention. Nor was it deciding whether Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, or South Carolina, which had all already ratified, COULD be member states. It simply determined WHEN the threshold number had been reached for members to begin proceeding as members. If not for New Hampshire, Virginia or North Carolina, or holdout Rhode Island would have been the ninth. The fact that North Carolina and, finally, Rhode Island did hold out testifies to the historical truth that other states could not bind them. Under your understanding of the arrangement, New Hampshire, in being the ninth, became a sort of super-delegate with the singular power to bind other states as well as itself.

See above.

See the below of the above.

Oh dear! You do know, I hope, that after the original 13 states became one nation there were territories in which US citizens lived? And that these citizens were not fully self-governing until their territory was accepted as a state. Meanwhile these citizens, while not having “states” rights or citizenship still had federal rights and obligations. And all of this well before the Fourteenth Amendment. Whew!

Actually, we still have territories and the federal government STILL maintains a distinction between a "US Citizen" and a "US National". If your understanding were correct, Puerto Ricans wouldn't have needed the Jones Act to confer citizenship. Let me know when Samoans can vote.

You also do realize that the colonies were not states. I was speaking of constitutionally formed states and their permanent union.

I hope that you're not one of those people whose usage of the word "state" is not narrowly constrained to a wholly American middle-school experience and that you believe it to truly merely mean 'a subdivision of the federal government'.

As for your argument about the colonies overthrowing the King, well yes there were Tories and pacifists, and they did suffer greatly as did patriots. Your point being . . . Ummm, well, huh?

I suppose the point of my analogy was to compare the analogues. It's a form of argumentation, really.

Do I sense an unreconstructed Southerner here?

You detected time-travel-sceptic who knows that there is an etymological connection between the words "author" and "authority".

Everyone realizes the Constitution “punted” on the issue of slavery. It was a devils bargain to get it ratified. Lincoln most definitely laid out or “wrote”, if you will, the conclusion to that constitutional issue.

And how, exactly, did he constitutionally do this without changing the constitution? You people keep using words incorrectly. Multi-syllable latinates aren't just emotional intensifiers.

He also put to rest the silly, but dangerous notion, that the “permanent” union that the Constitution created, could be reduced to a confederation which had previously been found wanting, and that secession was an option.

It is with some hilarity that I note that the perpetuity clause is found in the Articles of Confederation and not the Constitution.

Finally, though he did not want to, he “laid” out the South, decisively. He finally saw the war as a purging of an “original” sin that the Union had within its founding with hopes for ultimate extinction but that the South demanded to be kept, blemishing all. He is as much a founder as Washington, Jefferson, and all.

If he is a founder, it is of some new nation enjoying no continuity with its predecessor.

I'll give you the short version (you can read your Montesquieu and Locke, et. al. for the longer one). Sovereignty posed a ticklish problem. So in typical American fashion, for practicalities sake, the founders “ignored” its philosophical conundrums, by simply asserting the “people” were sovereign.

I am fairly certain that the founders truly believed in the sovereignty of the people and that it was not a jaded political expediency.

They concentrated on distributing the “exercises” of sovereignty assigning national uses to the federal government, and the rest to the states or “to the people themselves”. Neither the federal government nor the states are “sovereign”, but each has roles in the exercise of the powers of sovereignty.

According to the Treaty of Paris, the states were sovereign in the international sphere. That is why they have the power to negotiate Articles and Constitutions and such.

The claim that the people are sovereign fits well with the notion of one nation.

The ratification process recognized the sovereignty of state populations, which is why it proceeded along state lines instead of being a simple popular referendum.

It also allows for the assertion that the people can overthrow an unjust government. Overthrow means revolution not secession.

Tell it to the British, from whom we seceded.

Of course, an unsuccessful revolution is seen as a failed rebellion, in which the losers are drawn and quartered.

The only consistent principle espoused by anti-secessionists is that might makes right.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks:

So please give me your opinion on whether it is legal or not and why you think that way?

Secession is legal because there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents it. Since it is legal then the only question remaining is how to go about it? How to permit secession so that both sides of the matter, the states leaving and the states staying, have all their rights protected?

The only way to do that is through negotiation and then approval of a majority of the states as expressed through a majority vote in both houses of Congress. In short, leaving should be not more difficult than joining. The hard part would be the negotiations leading up to the vote, but without those negotiations and agreement by both sides you are guaranteeing an acrimonious split.

224 posted on 1/20/2021, 4:12:57 AM by DoodleDawg

[Brass Lamp]

With the exception of the original 13 states, the individual states decided nothing. They were admitted and only after the existing states said that they could joing. Why should leaving be any different?

Law isn't symmetrical nor does it rhyme like poetry. The powers of government are derived from the rights of individuals. They are comparable across their differing scales. If you want to know what powers a government has, look first to what powers its constituent citizens enjoy and scale that up. Can you imagine, as a private person, joining an organization which initially requires their consent to joint, but which then also requires their consent to quit? The Mafia, perhaps?

[Brass Lamp]

requires their consent to joint,

Uh, wrong argument. "join", should be.

[DoodleDawg]

Can you imagine, as a private person, joining an organization which initially requires their consent to joint, but which then also requires their consent to quit?

You have just described most business contracts that I'm aware of. Ending the agreement almost always requires the agreement of both sides, absent a complete violation of the contract by one side.

[x]

Washington fought for independence. Then he worked for union. He recognized that without union the country would have fallen back under foreign influence.

[x]

Chase was part of the swamp.

As Lincoln said, Chase got the presidential bug, and once you get it, you don’t lose it. His circuit happened to include Virginia, where he could go down and try cases. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate the people in the returning states. He knew this was going to be very divisive and kept it from being tried for a good long while and undermined the prosecution once it looked like it might actually go to trial. He privately insinuated to one of the defense lawyers that the 14th amendment would shield Davis from prosecution. There are signs that everybody knows what Chase is doing is improper, but he’s doing it anyway.

Source

Also, the Johnson Administration wanted to build up its support among Southern Democrats and trying Davis wasn't the way to do it.

[jmacusa]

Slavery had been abolished in the North by 1804. Slavery was vital to the Souths economy and it choose a path of violent secession and lost.

[x]

Wirtz was tried by a military commission or tribunal. Davis's trial would probably had to have been by a civil court.

The U.S. Constitution says that treason will be tried in the location where it was committed. To be true to the Constitution, they’ve got to try him in Richmond. That’s a terrible spot for the federal government to try the president of the Confederacy. Not only because the jury pool is going to be tainted against the federal government but if you find people who are loyal to the Union, to try the Confederate president, there’s going to be the intimidation factor, especially for African Americans. That’s very real in the South after the Civil War.

Source

[jmacusa]

You’re indeed correct.