My answer to the OP is that the only rights that have any meaning are those that you have the ability to enforce. So whether or not there is a theoretical “right to secede,” the Civil War settled the question about whether or not a state can secede and make it stick.
No, a state can’t do that.
Seems ironic.
Slavery is the legally enforced, arbitrary subjection of one group to the will of another. Denying a state the opportunity of seceding means the legally enforced, arbitrary subjection of one group to the will of another. We fought a war to elminate the one, and impose the other.
Which is not to say that slavery was not a moral wrong. It just seems odd to impose the condition of “no secession” on states, when that condition was not clearly spelled out in the Constitution they ratified when the Union was incorporated. Isn’t ex post facto law specifically forbidden in the Constitution?
Legally, I have no idea, but morally, it seems they did have the right to secede if they wanted. Whether or not the firing on Fort Sumter meant they lost that right is another question.
Regards,
Shodan
Um…I believe the PC term in “negroling” or “Afro-Ameriling”. 
My interpretation is that while the Constitution does not specifically discuss seceding from the Union, such matters would require an act of Congress.
As for whether any state has the moral right to seceed, I would have to say no. I believe that such a right would give an unfair representation to the economically powerful states who could threaten secession every time they want to influence legislation.
I disagree. Being part of the Union means that you abide by the legislative process. A state should no more be able to seceed without Congressional approval than I should arbitrarily be able to decide which laws I wish to follow. And from a strictly moral standpoint, I have a difficult time accepting the morality of allowing states to reject their participation in the US so that can exercise their right to continue an anachronistic existance of slave ownership by aristocratic landowners.
Maybe so. It does seem to me that states do not have rights. I think on a question as vital as seceding from the Union a special election ought to be held to see whether or not the people of ther state, all of them and not just the big slave owners, want to secede.
As to the “arbitrary subjection of one group to the will of another” that is the outcome of every election. More voters wanted Al Gore than wanted George W. Bush, but those voters lost and now have to live with W and his actions. Even where the winner doesn’t lose the popular vote millions of people vote against him or her.
In any case, the OP question has been moot for quite a while.
Even the states of the confederacy imposed a “no secession” condition on their constituent parts. What is sacred about the state level, if one is arguing morality rather than legality. It was fully Virginia’s intent, should she possess the means, to retake West Virginia into the bosom of a loving and vengeful confederacy. Certainly if countersecession were an option (without a sufficient Federal troop presence) I think I would be somewhat more inclined to accept the moral argument for secession. Of course the result of that would be a physically indefensible confederacy, with the majority of Appalachia at least strongly considering staying in the union.
THe problem with allowing secession without mutual consent is that at some level it becomes difficult to manage - at what level should the right be cut off. If a small enough unit is allowed then you can end up with a thousand microstates, each of which cheerfully (but legally) abuse their minorities or majorities or disenfranchised.
One might argue that the word “rights” is not explicitly used, but I don’t see how you could say states do not have rights in light of:
Probably true, but, since the Constitution doesn’t address the issue, there is no firm guideline on what would be good enough - a simple majority, two-thirds, or whatever. And, since women and (obviously) slaves could not vote, that would muddy the issue of “consent” even further.
I have no idea what the level of support was for secession. My WAG would be that it was very high in the slave states.
Sort of. The legitimacy of this depends (in my view) on “the consent of the governed”, in that people agree to participate in elections and abide by the outcome. Whether or not they can be forced to if they are prepared to go off and create their own country is pretty much the question under discussion.
Clinton got elected even though most people (including me) didn’t want him. But the result of the election was legitimate and binding (on me) because I agreed to participate in the society running the election, even after I lost. The question under discussion is whether or not it would be moral to force me to continue as part of the society if I didn’t want to.
Suppose I wanted to emigrate if Kerry wins. Would it be moral to try to force me to stay in the country and live under a Kerry administration? What would be the morally relevant distinction if a whole state wanted to do the same?
The only distinction I can think of off the top of my head is that the federal government has some property rights to the land and holdings of the seceding state. Probably true now, but much less likely in 1861, since federal spending on individual states was much lower than it is now.
Don’t know. Although you are probably correct that this is settled in principle now. People want to drop “under God” from the Pledge, but I never heard any squawk about “indivisible”.
Regards,
Shodan
I would accuse the framers of the careless use of language. In light of our own Declaration of Independence, governments, including state governments, are instituted with the consent of the governed and the state government is merely the machinery that the people of the state erect for their benefit. Governments have certain powers delegated to them by the citizens, not rights. IMHO of course.
Could be, but I think the framers use of “the people” and the “the states” were somewhat the same, in that they both were seperate from the federal government. In this sense, the people [of a given state] have the right to govern their own affairs in so much as they don’t cede that right to the feds.
After a vigorous debate lasting four years and causing the death of over 600,000 citizens, the answer to the OP’s question was determined to be “no.”
The whole state didn’t want to secede. A majority in the state legislature at that moment voted to secede, not a majority of the voters and most certainly not a majority of the population. Most of the southern states had non trivial unionist minorities, especially in the mountains or areas less suited to plantation economies.
It would absolutely be immoral to prevent you from leaving the country. Barring legal issues (property, debt, etc) and to a certain extent practical issues I feel that preventing your state from unanimously leaving the union would also be immoral. A velvet divorce a la the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At some point of less than unanimous support tough nougies. Your right to make your own new rules does not trump others’ rights to continue to play by the previously agreed upon rules.
A slight hijack: what rules, if any, does the European Union have concerning secession?
I would expect that they could simply vote themselves out the same way the voted themselves in. But check out this site and see if the details are spelled out.
Actually, that is evidence that states did have the right to unilaterally secede from the union.
It is a principal of statutory construction that where the original statute specifically prohibited an action, but the statute is thereafter amended and the new statute is silent on the issue, the legislative intent is to now allow that action. When you think about it, it makes sense. For example, if a law on traffic safety originally reads (among other provisions) that passing in the right lane is prohibited, but the amended statute makes no mention of passing in the right lane, the implication is that passing in the right lane is now legal.
By analogy, the presence of a bar on secession in the Articles of Confederation, and its absence in the Constitution should be construed as permission for secession. The FF’s were certainly aware of that provision in the Articles of Confederation, and certainly could have transferred it to the Constitution, but chose not to.
As for Madison, his opinion is nice, but personally I don’t place much stock in the Federalist Papers when it comes to constitutional interpretation. There is no “legislative history” of the Constitutional Convention, which provided the authors of the Federalist Papers and other such propaganda the opportunity to make claims about the meaning of the Constitution they did not have to defend. If Mr. Madison believed that the Constitution barred secession, he should have fought for inclusion of such a provision in the Constitution. Indeed, it is quite likely that he did fight for such a provision, and lost.
Sua
I would not accept this definition of slavery. It is both too vague to identify slavery as a particular act or state and too easily reworked to encompass any law or set of laws in which a majority will is carried out at the expense of an opposing minority. Thus, it becomes meaningless. Tariff structures (that benefited the North while damaging the South and which are often cited as a contributory cause for the secession, but which have never been challenged philosophically that I am aware) were clearly the legally enforced subjection of the South to the will of the North.
Slavery, as carried out in the U.S., was the deliberate denial of one person’s civil rights and the transference of all of that person’s rights excepting life, itself, to another individual.
On the other hand, if considering the moral right of any state to secede, one might look at the actions of several legal entities under the dominion of the United Kingdom in the years 1775 - 1781. Had they a moral right to secede? Considered only from the perspective of secession, itself, without any other circumstances, what gives one group a right to secede while denying that same right to others?
Texas
Well, 'twas more an analogy than an attempt at a definition.
Certainly slavery was a more sweeping denial of rights than denial of a right to secede, assuming that there is such a thing. What they have in common is the assertion of authority over another person or class of people without their ongoing consent.
About your point regarding the American Revolution, frankly, I don’t know. IIRC, the rationale for declaring independence was taxation without representation (among other things). The Americans were thus being exploited for the benefit of the British Empire. I suppose you could make the same case for outlawing slavery; i.e. that it is wrong to economically exploit other people without allowing them the benefits of citizenship. But, again, I don’t know.
I once horribly shocked an American history class by arguing against the rationale for the Declaration of Independence. I don’t know if I still hold that position.
What do you think?
Regards,
Shodan
Good point. Particularly as the OP wrote “What would happen today if a few states wanted to be there own sovereign government. Again, would they have the right?” What if Hawaii wanted to become an independent nation tomorrow? I’d say they should expect to have no right, having known the history of the Civil War before coming a state.
You’re speculated that an absense of evidence implies something. Others can equally well speculate that the same lack of evidence implies something else. I was pointing out that the United States was originally founded on the stated principle that statehood was irrevocable and nothing was ever said to contradict that. And I doubt you’ll find much support for the principle that either party in a contract can dissolve the contract at any time.
Madison expressed his opinions on the subject years after the Constitution was enacted. Some politicians (including Jefferson) were floating the argument that Virginia had the right to secede. Madison stepped forward and said no such right existed in the Constitution. Granted, his words had no legal authority it’s hard to argue the right to secede is implied when he said it is not.