Full Version: The Right to Secede
Once President Lincoln took office several Southern States have already seceded from the Union to pursue their own happiness with the protection of slavery in hand. Those in the North, such as Lincoln, saw the secession of these States as illegal because it violated the contract created by the Constitution. Here is an excerpt from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address:
This is obviously supporting the notion that the States had no right to secede. However, lets look at document of great importance to us, The Declaration of Independence:
Questions for Debate:
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
QUOTE
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
<snip>
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
<snip>
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
This is obviously supporting the notion that the States had no right to secede. However, lets look at document of great importance to us, The Declaration of Independence:
QUOTE
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object 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.
Questions for Debate:
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
QUOTE(lederuvdapac @ Jun 5 2006, 10:55 AM)
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?[/b]
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?[/b]
1.) It depends on which document you take for law. I participated in a debate about a year ago concerning the legality of the Deceleration. If you take the Deceleration as law and the rules that govern society, then yes. If you hold the Constitution as the highest laws of the nation, then no. All laws aside, the states should have the option to secede if they so wish.
2.) No, he was not. The Southern states had their own vision of government and life. Lincoln should have tried working in the system a lot longer than he did to champion the change he did with diplomacy rather than war. In my opinion, Lincoln was a coward who knew that the South was too headstrong to back down in a typical way. So, he took the nation to war. Is war ever right?
Lincoln's actions divided the nation then and for sometime after and in some more radical factions, still does. His choice of how he chose to pursue his agenda was a mistake and the attempts to unify the nation by diving it first was foolhardy.
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
There's nothing in the Constitution that says states can leave the Union.(I seem to remember the Articles of Confederation did say you can't leave). But on the other hand there's nothing in the Constitution that says you can't. It seems to me that in before a state can succeed it should have to go through a process mandated by the federal government. That process should require a referendum to be voted on by citizens of the state.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
Yes. First, because slavery was immoral and the South succeeded mainly to maintain the institution of Slavery. Second, because the Southern States didn't have the right to succeed. There were no state-wide referendums to decide whether states would leave the Union and even if there had been they would have been suspect. A large portion of many of the Southern States were the slaves the South was succeeding in order to keep enslaved. Seems to me that since slaves had counted as 3/5 of a person in the election of 1860 they should have some say.
There's nothing in the Constitution that says states can leave the Union.(I seem to remember the Articles of Confederation did say you can't leave). But on the other hand there's nothing in the Constitution that says you can't. It seems to me that in before a state can succeed it should have to go through a process mandated by the federal government. That process should require a referendum to be voted on by citizens of the state.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
Yes. First, because slavery was immoral and the South succeeded mainly to maintain the institution of Slavery. Second, because the Southern States didn't have the right to succeed. There were no state-wide referendums to decide whether states would leave the Union and even if there had been they would have been suspect. A large portion of many of the Southern States were the slaves the South was succeeding in order to keep enslaved. Seems to me that since slaves had counted as 3/5 of a person in the election of 1860 they should have some say.
QUOTE(VDemosthenes @ Jun 5 2006, 08:27 AM)
Lincoln's actions divided the nation then and for sometime after and in some more radical factions, still does. His choice of how he chose to pursue his agenda was a mistake and the attempts to unify the nation by diving it first was foolhardy.
And having half the country leave and make their own country wasn't divisive? That's seems like the definition of dividing. What Lincoln did was jam the separated part back on with some difficulty. It seems to me that the issue of slavery had to be dealt with some time. Abolition would be a difficult and contentious process whenever the South chose to smell the Coffee. The central division of America that started when the Massachusetts and Virginia colonies were founded and has never really ended wasn't solved by the Civil War. However the war did decide that whatever differences there were inside America, we're best off when we come together to create a compromise.
QUOTE(Rancid Uncle)
There's nothing in the Constitution that says states can leave the Union.(I seem to remember the Articles of Confederation did say you can't leave). But on the other hand there's nothing in the Constitution that says you can't. It seems to me that in before a state can succeed it should have to go through a process mandated by the federal government. That process should require a referendum to be voted on by citizens of the state.
But through our understanding of the intentions of the Founding Fathers who obviously felt it was within our natural rights to as they said in the Declaration the people have the right to alter or abolish their government, wouldn't it be implied that the right to secede from government is essential to the creation of government?
QUOTE(Rancid Uncle)
Yes. First, because slavery was immoral and the South succeeded mainly to maintain the institution of Slavery. Second, because the Southern States didn't have the right to succeed. There were no state-wide referendums to decide whether states would leave the Union and even if there had been they would have been suspect. A large portion of many of the Southern States were the slaves the South was succeeding in order to keep enslaved. Seems to me that since slaves had counted as 3/5 of a person in the election of 1860 they should have some say.
As many scholars of the Civil War will show, the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery but rather over the issue of States' Rights and Southern Nationalism. One needs only to glance at the Lincoln Douglas Debates to see that it was never Lincoln's intention to free slaves.
QUOTE(Rancid Uncle)
And having half the country leave and make their own country wasn't divisive? That's seems like the definition of dividing. What Lincoln did was jam the separated part back on with some difficulty. It seems to me that the issue of slavery had to be dealt with some time. Abolition would be a difficult and contentious process whenever the South chose to smell the Coffee. The central division of America that started when the Massachusetts and Virginia colonies were founded and has never really ended wasn't solved by the Civil War. However the war did decide that whatever differences there were inside America, we're best off when we come together to create a compromise.
The bloodiest war in American history seems like quite a compromise. After looking at the Civil War and Lincoln's presidency from a different perspective, it truly raises a number of questions about what we as a country believe and how that has differed from the principles we were founded upon. Lincoln asserted that states had no right to secede from the Union which, through natural law theory, only exists through the consent of the governed. The result from today's perspective is probably that it was a good thing that Lincoln maintained the Union, but this another one of those do the ends justify the means situations.
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
I have always believe that the States did have this right. I am wholly convinced that the Framers felt that such a "parting of the ways" was the only resort should the government decline into tyranny. Several States reserved the right to secede in their ratification of the Constitution, including Virginia, New York and Rhode Island.
Parting Company Is An Option
This article was written a few years ago by one of my favorite writers: Walter E. Williams. He writes:
The question would be whether or not the federal government would allow it. In the regionalistic hostilities leading up to the Civil War, it was clear that the President (Lincoln) held the unity of the Union to be his highest priority. What he probably feared was a rival nation springing up with entrenched enmity towards the United States.
I think that if a serious problem were to arise today and one state or another felt wronged then secession might be a possibility if it were approached in a reasonable and legalistic fashion. The South's secession was done among the heated bosoms of a emotionally charged time period. If handled differently, it could be at least a talking point about serious reform in the way things are handled and how states are handled.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
This is a can-of-worms question that is not easily answered. While the end was justified, did the means of achieving that end allow this country to transition smoothly away from the slave era? If slave owners had been shown the economic viability of a free working population, would they have fought so bitterly to keep their slaves and then repress their former slaves for decades afterward?
These questions cannot be answered so easily.
I have always believe that the States did have this right. I am wholly convinced that the Framers felt that such a "parting of the ways" was the only resort should the government decline into tyranny. Several States reserved the right to secede in their ratification of the Constitution, including Virginia, New York and Rhode Island.
Parting Company Is An Option
This article was written a few years ago by one of my favorite writers: Walter E. Williams. He writes:
QUOTE
Since there is only a remote possibility of successful negotiation with Congress, the Courts and White House to obey the U.S. Constitution, it is my guess that liberty could only realized by a unilateral declaration of independence - namely, part company - in a word secede. While our Constitution is silent about secession, there is clear evidence that our Founders saw it as an option.
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Senator James R. Doolittle (WI) proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States." Several months earlier Representatives Daniel E. Sickles (NY), Thomas B. Florence (PA) and Otis S. Ferry (CT) proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. One is immediately faced with the question: would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional? There's more evidence. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers.
There's more evidence. At the 1787 constitutional convention a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it saying, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, in his revised The Real Lincoln, provides abundant evidence in the forms of quotations from our Founders and numerous newspaper accounts that prove that Americans always took the right of secession for granted. Plus, secession was not an idea that had its origins in the South. Infuriated by Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, the first secessionist movement started in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and other New England states.
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Senator James R. Doolittle (WI) proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States." Several months earlier Representatives Daniel E. Sickles (NY), Thomas B. Florence (PA) and Otis S. Ferry (CT) proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. One is immediately faced with the question: would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional? There's more evidence. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers.
There's more evidence. At the 1787 constitutional convention a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it saying, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, in his revised The Real Lincoln, provides abundant evidence in the forms of quotations from our Founders and numerous newspaper accounts that prove that Americans always took the right of secession for granted. Plus, secession was not an idea that had its origins in the South. Infuriated by Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, the first secessionist movement started in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and other New England states.
The question would be whether or not the federal government would allow it. In the regionalistic hostilities leading up to the Civil War, it was clear that the President (Lincoln) held the unity of the Union to be his highest priority. What he probably feared was a rival nation springing up with entrenched enmity towards the United States.
I think that if a serious problem were to arise today and one state or another felt wronged then secession might be a possibility if it were approached in a reasonable and legalistic fashion. The South's secession was done among the heated bosoms of a emotionally charged time period. If handled differently, it could be at least a talking point about serious reform in the way things are handled and how states are handled.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
This is a can-of-worms question that is not easily answered. While the end was justified, did the means of achieving that end allow this country to transition smoothly away from the slave era? If slave owners had been shown the economic viability of a free working population, would they have fought so bitterly to keep their slaves and then repress their former slaves for decades afterward?
These questions cannot be answered so easily.
1) Do we have the right to secede from the Union?
That issue was settled 141 years ago at a place called Appomattox Court House.
The short is answer is no. Individuals are free to leave, American territory does not go with them.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
He had little choice in the matter. Most of the states succeeded prior to his inauguration. The matter of diplomacy ended on 12 April 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina when Confederate forces open fired on the fort.
On a personal note I believe that he made a great mistake. The South has been and will continue to be a huge drain on the rest of the United States.
We would be far better off if they had stayed a separate and backward nation.
That issue was settled 141 years ago at a place called Appomattox Court House.
The short is answer is no. Individuals are free to leave, American territory does not go with them.
2) Was Lincoln correct in pursuing military action in the hopes of protecting the Union?
He had little choice in the matter. Most of the states succeeded prior to his inauguration. The matter of diplomacy ended on 12 April 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina when Confederate forces open fired on the fort.
On a personal note I believe that he made a great mistake. The South has been and will continue to be a huge drain on the rest of the United States.
We would be far better off if they had stayed a separate and backward nation.
QUOTE(lederuvdapac @ Jun 6 2006, 12:23 PM)
But through our understanding of the intentions of the Founding Fathers who obviously felt it was within our natural rights to as they said in the Declaration the people have the right to alter or abolish their government, wouldn't it be implied that the right to secede from government is essential to the creation of government?
The Articles of Confederation say
QUOTE
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 inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual
Obviously the articles weren't law at that point, but as there isn't anything in the Constitution. This line does show some original intention for the Union to be permanent. And as long as we're talking about "natural" rights, what about the natural rights of the citizens and slaves in the South? The only people who decided that the South would succeed were the white, male elite class in the various legislatures. Even if the South did have a right to leave, they didn't leave by the consent of the governed. And they particularly didn't leave by consent of the enslaved. One could argue no state truly had universal suffrage and the "consent" of the governed until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
QUOTE(lederuvdapac @ Jun 6 2006, 12:23 PM)
As many scholars of the Civil War will show, the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery but rather over the issue of States' Rights and Southern Nationalism. One needs only to glance at the Lincoln Douglas Debates to see that it was never Lincoln's intention to free slaves.
No, the Civil War, from the South's point of view was about slavery. States rights was just a smoke screen, just like it is now. A state's right to do what? To decide whether there would be slavery. That's the only state's right that was being fought over. Sure, Lincoln didn't intend to free the slaves, but he did say in November 1860
QUOTE
Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free
. And even if Lincoln wasn't anti-slavery, the South felt his election would lead to abolition. Just look at the South Carolina Declaration of Succession. I agree the North wasn't initially anti-Slavery however the South left the Union because they were Pro-Slavery. Slavery was a central economic pillar of Southern Society, and they feared that Lincoln would eventually abolish it. Cultural and political differences between the South and North weren't worth fighting a war over, slavery was. QUOTE(lederuvdapac @ Jun 6 2006, 12:23 PM)
The bloodiest war in American history seems like quite a compromise. After looking at the Civil War and Lincoln's presidency from a different perspective, it truly raises a number of questions about what we as a country believe and how that has differed from the principles we were founded upon. Lincoln asserted that states had no right to secede from the Union which, through natural law theory, only exists through the consent of the governed. The result from today's perspective is probably that it was a good thing that Lincoln maintained the Union, but this another one of those do the ends justify the means situations.
You know what they say, you can't make an omelet without killing 600,000 people. As I said before natural rights and the consent of the governed did not exist in the South. The landowning, Slaveholder elite made the decision to leave the Union, not free men, equal under the law. We can exalt the principles of our founding all we want but the fact remains we were also founded on contradictions. A slave owner writes "All men are created equal?" We believe in "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" but we send Native Americans on the Trial of Tears? We had strayed from the principles of our founding as soon as the Founders put pen to paper. The most egregious offense against the natural rights we believed in was slavery. It's illogical to use natural rights as a justification for the preservation of slavery.
I believe that right would be granted in each state constitution. As the 10th 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."
It is clear to me, that if no specific provision is in the constitution about such an issue, then it would fall within the states rights to decide. However, I am currently unaware if specific secession provisions were included in the constitutions of the southern states, or any state for that matter, or if they were meely legislative action, and not amendments to such constitutions.
"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."
It is clear to me, that if no specific provision is in the constitution about such an issue, then it would fall within the states rights to decide. However, I am currently unaware if specific secession provisions were included in the constitutions of the southern states, or any state for that matter, or if they were meely legislative action, and not amendments to such constitutions.
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