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."
We can all agree that the right to secede is not expressly "prohibited" to the States in the constitution. If it were, the argument would be mute. Thus, under the plain meaning of the Tenth Amendment, the States retain or possess the right to secede, just as citizens possess the right to renounce ones citizenship. The Tenth Amendment also makes clear that a right or power need not be expressly granted to the States by the Constitution. Rather, the States are irrebuttably presumed to have such a power, unless that power is expressly taken from them by the Constitution.
This textual reading is buttressed by the historical fact that the States had the right to secede in 1776 and did not expressly give up that right in ratifying the Constitution. To the contrary, several states, including New York, in their acts of ratification, noted that "the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness."
Can we also agree that the word 'expressly' is nowhere to be found in the Amendment? And that implied powers, as outlined by Chief Justice Marshall, also exist? And that those implied powers could be delegated to the United States or denied to the states?
This textual reading is buttressed by the historical fact that the States had the right to secede in 1776 and did not expressly give up that right in ratifying the Constitution.
Actually, no. A textual reading of the Articles of Confederation make it clear that it was a perteptual union.
To the contrary, several states, including New York, in their acts of ratification, noted that "the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness."
In those ratification documents was also a statement saying that they ratified the Constitution as passed by the convention. The Constitution proclaims itself the supreme law of the land, and if anything, including ratification documents, conflict with it then the Constitution overrules them. According to the Supreme Court the right to secede unilaterally is not in the Constitution.
“If it were, the argument would be mute.”
No, it would be moot. Mute is what many of our so-called constitutional experts ought to be, since there seems to be a lot of misinformation being tossed around here.
As a resident of Washington State, something I’m not always proud to admit, I hope we never decide to secede. So much of this state is owned by the federal government that by the time we got done paying the rest of the states for their interest in it, we’d have to apply for foreign aid as we’d be broke. So we would be right back to surviving on federal money with strings attached to it. What improvement would that be?