Some thoughts from Jefferson:
“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:270
“Certain States from local and occasional discontents might attempt to secede from the Union. This is certainly possible; and would be befriended by this regular organization [of the Union into States]. But it is not probable that local discontents can spread to such an extent as to be able to face the sound parts of so extensive an Union; and if ever they should reach the majority, they would then become the regular government, acquire the ascendency in Congress and be able to redress their own grievances by laws peaceably and constitutionally passed. And even the States in which local discontents might engender a commencement of fermentation, would be paralyzed and self-checked by that very division into parties into which we have fallen, into which all States must fall wherein men are at liberty to think, speak, and act freely according to the diversities of their individual conformations, and which are, perhaps, essential to preserve the purity of the government by the censorship which these parties habitually exercise over each other.” —Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:20
“Should... schism be pushed to separation, it will be for a short term only; two or three years’ trial will bring them back, like quarreling lovers, to renewed embraces and increased affections. The experiment of separation would soon prove to both that they had mutually miscalculated their best interests. And even were the parties in Congress to secede in a passion, the soberer people would call a convention and cement again the severance attempted by the insanity of their functionaries. With this consoling view, my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world.” —Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:283
“I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 1820. ME 15:250
“The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched nor modified even to make them answer their end because of rights gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch but is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine and suppose that preceding generations held the earth more freely than we do, had a right to impose laws on us unalterable by ourselves, and that we in like manner can make laws and impose burdens on future generations which they will have no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the living.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1816. ME 15:46
... understand - this last one is the one used by liberals to validate a ‘living constitution’ while throwing out the principles of liberty upon which the country was born.
I don’t undestand why any of us, in any state, would want to force the people of a state that does not want to belong to the Union to do so.
Whatever happened to the concept of self-determination?
If Texas, or any state (or states) is not happy being part of the United States, then I say let them go, and good luck to them.
As to some of the details:
There are American ex-patriate citizens all over the world, so I don’t see a problem with citizens of TX keeping their American citizenship and remaining in a secessed TX if they so choose.
Likewise we have U.S. military bases in sovereign countries all over the world (whether that is a good idea or not is subject of a different discussion). I’m sure Texas could accomodate that situation temporarily until those bases could be phased out amicably.
Secession doesn’t have to be bloody or via force of arms. I don’t see why one group of free people would want to force another group of free people into an agreement that doesn’t benefit all. If Texans believe they would be better off as their own country, then they ought to be free to give it a go.
I don’t know about all this succession talk, but I do know that Dear Leader believes in keeping the peace by allowing, even demanding, establishment of separate governments when there is disagreement. Look how strongly he supports a Palestinian State.
I would rather live free in a stand-alone state that follows the Constitution, than in a union of 50 under a socialist/oppressive federal government that does not.
The question is not can they secede but can states be purged or expelled. That is can the states north and east of New York be purged from the union?
The union will be preserved but the Euros will be kicked out
Q: Doesn't the Texas Constitution reserve the right of Texas to secede?
A: No such provision is found in the current Texas Constitution[1](adopted in 1876) or the terms of annexation.[2] However, it does state (in Article 1, Section 1) that "Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States..." (note that it does not state "...subject to the President of the United States..." or "...subject to the Congress of the United States..." or "...subject to the collective will of one or more of the other States...")
Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the united States, explicitly or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary, rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said).
Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that "All political power is inherent in the people ... they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper."
Likewise, each of the united States is "united" with the others explicitly on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." [3]
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Q: Didn’t the outcome of the “Civil War” prove that secession is not an option for any State? [BACK TO TOP]
A: No. It only proved that, when allowed to act outside his lawfully limited authority, a U.S. president is capable of unleashing horrendous violence against the lives, liberty, and property of those whom he pretends to serve. The Confederate States (including Texas) withdrew from the Union lawfully, civilly, and peacefully, after enduring several decades of excessive and inequitable federal tariffs (taxes) heavily prejudiced against Southern commerce.[4] Refusing to recognize the Confederate secession, Lincoln called it a "rebellion" and a "threat" to "the government" (without ever explaining exactly how "the government" was "threatened" by a lawful, civil, and peaceful secession) and acted outside the lawfully defined scope of either the office of president or the U.S. government in general, to coerce the South back into subjugation to Northern control.[5]
The South's rejoining the Union at the point of a bayonet in the late 1860s didn't prove secession is "not an option" or unlawful. It only affirmed that violent coercion can be used—even by governments (if unrestrained)—to rob men of their very lives, liberty, and property.[6]
It bears repeating that the united States are "united" explicitly on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." [7]
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Q: Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White prove that secession is unconstitutional?
A: No. For space considerations, here are the relevant portions of the Supreme Court's decision in Texas v. White:
"When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
"...The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union ...remained perfect and unimpaired. ...the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union.
"...Our conclusion therefore is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union." — Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700, 703 (1868)
It is noteworthy that two years after that decision, President Grant signed an act entitling Texas to U.S. Congressional representation, readmitting Texas to the Union.
What's wrong with this picture? Either the Supreme Court was wrong in claiming Texas never actually left the Union (they were — see below), or the Executive (President Grant) was wrong in "readmitting" a state that, according to the Supreme Court, had never left. Both can't be logically or legally true.
To be clear: Within a two year period, two branches of the same government took action with regard to Texas on the basis of two mutually exclusive positions — one, a judicially contrived "interpretation" of the US Constitution, argued essentially from silence, and the other a practical attempt to remedy the historical fact that Texas had indeed left the Union, the very evidence for which was that Texas had recently met the demands imposed by the same federal government as prerequisite conditions for readmission. If the Supreme Court was right, then the very notion of prerequisites for readmission would have been moot — a state cannot logically be readmitted if it never left in the first place.
This gross logical and legal inconsistency remains unanswered and unresolved to this day.
Now to the Supreme Court decision in itself...
The Court, led by Chief Justice Salmon Chase (a Lincoln cabinet member and leading Union figure during the war against the South) pretended to be analyzing the case through the lens of the Constitution, yet not a single element of their logic or line of reasoning came directly from the Constitution — precisely because the Constitution is wholly silent on whether the voluntary association of a plurality of states into a union may be altered by the similarly voluntary withdrawal of one or more states.
It's no secret that more than once there had been previous rumblings about secession among many U.S. states (and not just in the South), long before the South seceded. These rumblings met with no preemptive quashing of the notion from a "constitutional" argument, precisely because there was (and is) no constitutional basis for either allowing or prohibiting secession.
An objective reading of the relevant portions of the White decision reveals that it is largely arbitrary, contrived, and crafted to suit the agenda which it served: presumably (but unconstitutionally) to award to the U.S. federal government, under color of law, sovereignty over the states, essentially nullifying their right to self-determination and self-rule, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, as well as the current Texas Constitution (which stands unchallenged by the federal government).
Where the Constitution does speak to the issue of powers, they resolve in favor of the states unless expressly granted to the federal government or denied to the states. No power to prevent or reverse secession is granted to the federal government, and the power to secede is not specifically denied to the states; therefore that power is retained by the states, as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment.
The Texas v. White case is often trotted out to silence secessionist sentiment, but on close and contextual examination, it actually exposes the unconstitutional, despotic, and tyrannical agenda that presumes to award the federal government, under color of law, sovereignty over the people and the states.
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Third, new States of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provision of the Federal Constitution.
The “dividing line” is urban/rural, not state/state. Secession isn’t viable.
" When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, 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.
OK. How does a state go about seceding? Does the governor say, we want to secede? And then what? Does it not participate in sending federal taxes? Do they cancel elections for Senators and Congressmen? And what if the people of the state do not wish to participate in secession? Do they just move?
“The BIG question lately - CAN STATES SECEDE?”
they certainly can’t ‘succeed’ under the current state of things.
“Can States Secede?”
Of course. Just as the colonies seceded from a larger power that they no longer wanted to be ruled by. Our declaration of independence sets forth the principles for just that.
Now as a practical matter, though a people have a right to self-determination and a right to withdraw peacefully from a gargantuan central government that has thrown aside all constitutional restraints, whether that people will be able to do so in the face of superior force is another issue.
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."
Was the power to prevent secession delegated to the federal government or prohibited by the constitution to the states?
But wait...
If the Constitution says nothing about secession, then isn’t that right reserved for the state, or the people?
...I’m just sayin’...
That's the whole point, the constitution doesn't say states can't leave or that they can leave. In other words states can leave because they are not forbidden to leave by the constitution. States would never have ratified the constitution and joined the Union if they didn't have the right to unjoin the Union.
Lincoln was wrong, he wanted to keep the Union together so he managed to kill of 500,000 men on both sides in order to do it. No wonder he had so many attempts on his life and that one finally succeeded.
Come on Red South,
You believe this assclown, obamma lamma ding dong would use the military against say Texas should the good folks of that State vote to leave the union?
This empty suit would shudder and fold.
Go Florida, beat Alabama.
Try this:
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.
The simple answer is no, unless there’s a civil war and the feds lose.
I believe the 10th Amendment allows secession. It is a power not given to the federal government therefore it is reserved for the states or the people respectively. Thus I believe that if a state wanted to secede it is allowed.
Once secession is done each would be a total independent state and could form any type confederation it chooses.