The people of each State did get to decide. Each seceding State elected a Convention to consider the issue of secession. The conventions embody the sovereignty of the people. The delegates were empowered specifically to consider this issue in the name of and with the sovereignty of the people. The sending of the decision to the people in a referendum was solely for greater certainty, given how momentous the decision was. A referendum was not mandatory, since the Constitution had been adopted by the mechanism of conventions only. And another point, the Constitution did not need to be amended to allow secession, since, as I have shown in earlier posts, the recalling of delegated State powers was understood across sectional lines (VA, NC, NY, RI) and the understanding that there was no such thing as an unspecified Federal power was universal. The Constitution DID required amending to allow the Federal government to force a State back into the Union against the will of the people of that State, or to overthrow an elected State government once the Army had conquered a State. But Northerners were unwilling to discuss that amendment or simply elevated the idea of Union above that of representative democracy. Southerners elevated the idea of representative democracy above that of Union.
Isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the republican form of government?
For States within the Union, yes. The Founding Fathers (well, most of them) saw monarchy and aristocracy as a societal disease that they could not tolerate within the Union, so they made that stipulation. But isn’t it at least a little ironic that this stipulation would be cited by Radical Republicans as the justification for overthrowing elected State governments in the immediate aftermath of the war? Don’t you find that at least a little bit unrepublican? And if this authority can be drawn from Article IV, Section 4, then what good is it to have written Constitutions?
More importantly, isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the people of each state when laws are broken? Rebellion is a violation of the law.
No, actually, it is not the Federal government’s duty to do that. It is the Federal government’s duty to execute the powers specifically delegated to it by the people of the several States. The Federal government violating the Constitution is hardly an effective way to protect the people of each State when laws are broken.
I suggest you read two other Madison documents. The Virginia Resolution (http://www.closeup.org/ky-va.htm) and Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolution (http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr_1799.txt). They make clear that Madison was very concerned about how the Federal government may usurp undelegated powers and what States should do about it.
“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorised by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.” (http://www.constitution.org/jm/17981221_virres.txt)
My point on the Supreme Court case is that Texas v. White cannot be cited as a pre-war justification for opposing secession. It wasn’t case law yet, although it is now.
Respectfully,
D J White
Part of the governments duties is to guarantee each state a republican form of government. Preventing rebellion certainly would be part of that.
While Texas v. White was a post war decision, it decided the legality of the southern actions in 1860-61. The southern belief that they had the right to arbitrary secession was incorrect. I'm not using it as justification for opposing secession in 1860-61, I don't need to. Lincoln's opinion was that southern secession was illegal and he took actions consistent with that position. All Texas v. White did was confirm that his actions were the correct ones and the southern actions were illgal.
Let me offer two quotes from Madison as well:
"One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned; that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co-States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtruded it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them!
Madison was pointing out the dangers of arbitrary secession. It's obvious that he knew that such arbitrary actions must be opposed by the federal government.
"An inference from the doctrine that a single State has the right to secede at will from the rest is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late been palatable anywhere, and nowhere less so than where it is now most contended for..."
Would you agree with this? Do the other states have the right to expel a single state regardless of that state's wishes?