[jdege]

The States surrendered their right to unilaterally secede when the signed the Articles of Confederation.

Article XVIII: Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be be inviobly observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

Yes, we later changed our form of government, when we adopted the Constitution. But the Union we formed persisted, and the individual States had no more authority to unilaterally secede under the latter than they did under the former.

Be that as it may, the South would have been allowed to secede, had it not decided to begin open warfare against the Union.

[sheltonmac]

The excerpt of the Articles of Confederation you cited in no way applies to the issue of secession. It is simply saying that those states in the Union agreed to abide by the Articles, and that the Articles could only be altered with the consent of Congress and the various states. That is similar to the amendment process we have today.

Like the Constitution, the Articles did not forbid a state from leaving the Union. Once a state left, it was no longer under any obligation to abide by the conditions of that document. As far as the "perpetual" Union was concerned, if the South had been allowed to secede, the Union would have continued to be perpetual. It just would have perpetuated with a few less states.

Show me where secession is expressly forbidden and we might be able to debate Lincoln's war honestly. Until then, all arguments against the Confederacy are moot.

[Colt .45]

"The States surrendered their right to unilaterally secede when the signed the Articles of Confederation. "

Its time to throw my hat into the ring here. your statement is the dumbest thing I've ever read. You need to go back and study up on your history. When the Constitution was ratified, the repealed Articles of Confederation were null, void, and of no force. Now during the ratification debates, several legislatures of the respective States (Virginia, Rhode Island, Massachusettes, South Carolina, and others) incorporated ordinances in their respective States to the effect of (quoting from the Virginia Ordinance of 1788) "We the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation of the General Assembly and now et in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of teh Federal Convention and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us to decide thereon, do in the name of the People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the People of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will."

It was well understood at the framing of the Constitution that if the Federal Government was ever to become usurping of its Constitutionally mandated limited powers to the extent that States felt that their "Pursuit of Happiness" was no longer being looked after, that delegated power could be resumed by the People.

Amendment X of the United States Constitution - "The powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

'Amendment X added nothing new, but was meant to stress again that the regular governments of the several States and of the Union were but public corporations, not vessels but creatures of sovereign power; that, as between these regular governments, what was not granted to the Union was reserved to the several States; and that sovereign power, including the prerogative to make or unmake the constitution and the Union, WAS VESTED IN THE PEOPLE, NOT OF ONE NATION, BUT OF THE SEVERAL STATES.' - 'A Constitutional History of Secession' - John Remington Graham