In regards to the Civil War did the South have the “right” to seceded from the Union. The word “right” could mean the letter of the law and or the sprit. If the South did not have the letter of the law then in spirit? Isn’t it comparable to the reasons for the Revolutionary War. Oh, yeah I am aware of the slaver issues, but not wanting to debate that aspect **if ** it can be left out.
Did the Union have the “right” to use military force. What would happen today if a few states wanted to be there own sovereign government. Again, would they have the right?
Forgetting for the moment whether or not the South had the right or not, I would say the minute they fired on Fort Sumter, starting the war, the Union had every right to fight back.
(I can’t remember or not if their declaration of secession had been answered or had been official. If it hadn’t, then firing on Union troops could be construed as treason).
I meant to pick up a book I saw recently asking this very question, but I got distracted by something shiny and didn’t. BUT, from what I recall from reading the cover blurbs, there was no legal or traditional reason preventing secession. I do not recall the title.
It is worth pointing out that prior to the American Civil War, “The United States” was invariably referred to in the plural (“The United States are…”) while after the war it became singular (“The United States is…”). Peoples in general thought of themselves first as citizens of their state and only secondarily as American citizens.
IANAHistorian, but it seems to me that if the South had gotten all their diplomatic ducks in a row before announcing secession (and before firing on Federal troops) they could have easily won the issue.
Seriously, which state would be stupid enough to want to be its own soveriegn state? I know there are probably some nuts on either fringe who would want their state to leave the union, but I doubt that the majority would want to give up their statehood. Any benefits would surely be more than offset by all the problems it would cause.
As implied by Guin above, the Union did not use any military force until after the secessionists fired on Fort Sumter, thus making the REASON for using military force against secessionist states a moot point. Politics had failed. The south Confederate States had seceded from the United States and declared war on those United States. The USA was simply reacting to this.
Also, FWIW, the politicians of the south were really spoiling for a war. They were so tired of those damned northerners always preaching to them about slavery and stuff. :rolleyes: If ever Americans were betrayed by their politicians, the Americans of the south were betrayed by theirs. They and the small elite of slaveholders that they represented were completely full of themselves and totally unwilling to compromise at all on the issue of slavery. It’s funny how they went on and on about how it was really about “states rights” and not slavery, but really, what “state right” were they going on about? Sure, there were a number of other niggling little issues, but really it came down to slavery.
Err, I appear to have wandered somewhat off topic. Please forgive me.
Just to be clear, if I understand it, you’re asking a two-part question?[ul][li]Dis the American South have a legal right to secede (a legal question)?[/li][li]Did the american South have a moral right to secede (a philosophical question)?[/ul][/li]If so, I couldn’t answer the first knowing so little about American law.
As for the second, I’d say, yes. As someone who’s lived nine years in a Canadian province that could very well secede from the country he loves, I still feel that the people of a province/state/department/etc have a right (if put to a democratic vote) to remove their part of the country from the rest.
Was the secession question ever put to a vote? I never got American civil war history in school, obviously.
No, it had not been formally answered. Yes, it was treason.
The reason they didn’t string up Lee and all the rest as traitors is that after the war it just wasn’t something anyone wanted to do. Killing four percent of your entire male population will tend to reduce your appetite for killing.
Interstingly, in the public discourse running up to the Hartford Convention, where new England voted strongly to secede to escape “Mr. Madison’s War” (of 1812), the South was filled with indignant rhetoric condemning the posibility of secesssion. But just as “States’ Rights” could only be an issue after Dred Scott was decided against States’ Rights, so secession was only to be condemned wen other states considered it.
Although the Constitution is mute on the issue of secession, the union under the Articles of Confederation was indeed supposed to be a perpetual union. WHether the Constitution, being intended to be a more perfect union would be more or less perpetual is I suppose debatable.
It is not entirely suprising that the issue of secession was left off the table at the Constitutional Convention, so as not to scare off reluctant states (by forbidding it) while trying to avoid making it too easy for a few states to trash the whole (by making it too easy).
Or possibly the answer to the question was so obvious to all involved that there was no need to discuss it.
While not precisely the issue of states’ seceding from the country as a whole, there have been other types of secesion which may be of interest to see how laws on this differ between the U.S. and Canada.
For example, there recently was an attempt for the San Fernando Valley to secede from the city of Los Angeles, and form its own independent city.
In order for this to happen, the referendum had to be approved by both the residents of the proposed new city, AND by the residents of the entire city of Los Angeles. It did not succeed.
The equivalent in Canada would be that a referendum making Quebec a separate country would have to succeed both in Quebec itself, and in the entire country of Canada.
There’s nothing in there permitting you to pick your nose either, but I bet you’ve done it.
Unless I’m forgetting something, the Constitution is silent on matters of secession. Silence does not necessarily mean approval or disapproval. The Articles made the Union thereunder perpetual, but the Articles had no authority as of 1790.
I believe that the Tenth Amendent (reserving undelegated powers to the states and the people) would give a state the legal right to secede, since the secession is not menitoned elsewhere.
We can also look at precedents for joining the union. Both the state and the federal governments must approve the new state. In reverse, it seems reasonable that a state and the union could decide to go separate ways. The troubles come when the state wants to go and the union doesn’t want it to go.
There’s also another situation: could the federal government unilaterally throw a state out of the union?
That was my first thought, but I’m not really so sure. It would seem that if the states were allowed to secede, the constitution would outline the procedure. I know that’s an indirect argument, but secession is so serious that I just can’t believe the constution is silent about it beacuse it’s just one other authority reserved to the states. But considering there are issues such as how to divvy up a given state’s share of the national debt, what to do with federal lands, etc., that the lack of a procedure for secession speaks strongly to the idea that is not allowed.
Hmm. Some of the states of the union were at one point sovereign or quasi-sovereign (the originial thirteen, for example). The rest of the states were formed out of territory owned by the Federal government - there was no prior state to revert to. They were granted statehood status within the union. Is it reasonable that the state legislature could nullify that act of congress (essentially granting home-rule, national representation and possibly* participation in national elections), or subsequently remove itself from the union.
Thoughts?
*possibly because I do not recall what status a territory has.
The Constitution did not explicitly state whether or not states had the right to unilaterally secede from the union.
But the following would be evidence they did not:
The Articles of Confederation which preceded the Consititution explicitly stated that the union was permanent and states did not have the right to secede. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, said that states did not have the right to secede (so there clearly was no “original intent” that such a right should exist). And the Constitution was a legal contract between the states and the national government; as a matter of contract law, absent any clearly defined procedure otherwise, one party cannot unilaterally void a contract.
There also was the duty of the United States to protect its citizens. The Confederate government was, in effect, taking away the rights of several million people to be American citizens.
Thay Madison stated this, and the fact there is no provision for secession, clearly implies that no state could unilaterally secede. And, if secession were thought to be OK, then would there not surely have been a provision if that happened how would the issue of the seceding state’s share of the national debt be dealt with?
Interesting point. Given the same consideration, if secession of the Southern tier of states had been put to a referendum, it would have lost, because the population of the Northern states was greater. They may have had the legal right to petition the government for a referendum, but they could not have won it.
It is interesting to note that, while the Civil War was really fought over slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t signed until after the beginning of hostilities. Secession was intended to free the South from having to free its slaves. But the slaves were not legally free until after the war had begun.
