They thought that they did have that right - and then they voted to secede. The Union refused to honor that vote. What was the next step for them to follow?
If there was a lawful right to secession in the Constitution, I suppose the Supreme Court would have sided with the Confederacy.
Supremes did not make any decisions until after the war, making the immediate point moot. I also agree that the right is not recognized under current Constitutional law, nor do I see that changing.
I simply think that if we are still a Union of States, a State should have the right to leave the Union. I consider this the equivalent of the citizen’s Right to no longer be a citizen.
The justification for the war at the time was that secession is anathema to democracy. That works for me, though it would’ve been interesting to see how things played out had the CSA won. The Confederates had dreams of empire; had they been able to stay together and attain and hold dominion over large parts of North, Central, and South America in a stable way, it would have belied Lincoln’s rationalization.
Has there ever been a nation which allowed sections to secede unilaterally?
I can’t speak to the absolute veracity of this statement, but the famous example is that the outcome of the civil war had an impact on subject-verb agreement. Prior to the war, the standard construction was: “the United States are.” Subsequent to the war, that changed to: “the United States is.”
Whack-a-Mole said there’s no legal right to secede; there is a legal path–just get enough states to agree to the secession (sort of like passing an amendment).
In the U.S. Constitution, Article III Section 3 states: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” It does not say the “enemies” have to be foreign; and certainly Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee were guilty of levying war against the United States.
Would Canada & Australia becoming independent nations count?
You are right about the terminology change. Another interesting bit of sociology is that people referred to themselves as Virginians, not Americans. The Civil War was a huge shift in mentality in the USA.
Sure, but if they have renounced their citizenship, how can they be traitors? The Germans and the Japanese levied war against us, but we don’t call them traitors.
First of all, you speak of the Supreme Court ruling on secession as if they simply didn’t get around to it until 1869. (I believe that was the year.) If South Carolina believed the law was on their side and that secession was an inalienable right of a state, then they could have actually brought suit to force the judicial system to evaluate the claim.
However, one can’t have it both ways by saying that there is a lawful right to secede and also argue that there is no legal route to secession, necessitating war. Therefore, if one chooses to secede by illegal means, then the secession is illegal and invalid. Hence, treason.
I personally believe that there is a Right to secede.
The US Constitution does not list (enumerate?) that Right.
The Union chose to not recognize that Right.
I don’t even know what path South Carolina would have had to take, and where they would have sued. If, in the end, the USSC had said, “nope - no right to secede to be found here!” - then could they have split anyway?
They did not consider themselves citizens of the Union anymore. That is why I don’t consider secession to be Treason.
This is the thing. Treason is widely considered abhorrent and immoral, with reason, but sometimes it’s justifiable. If you sell military secrets to an enemy power, without regard to the fact that your fellow citizens will die because of your action, it is treason and morally little better than any other common crime. If you take arms against your government in order to liberate your people, and attempt to restrict as possible your use of tactics that could be considered terroristic, then it is also treason, and it is a crime, but definitely a political crime. It can be morally justifiable.
I’d say that George Washington was a traitor, since he did take up arms against his country. But it is usually Benedict Arnold who’s seen as the traitor, and he actually rejoined the “legitimate” side. They both were, but one of them had a much stronger claim to moral legitimacy.
Taking up arms to effect secession is treason. Whether it’s justified depends on the specific case, and there can be disagreement over this. And of course, secession can also be effected without arms and without any action that would fall under the definition of treason.
I don’t think renouncing your citizenship expressly in order to wage war against your country counts as a valid renunciation. And I believe that it’s even possible to commit treason against a country you’re not a citizen of, if you have enough of a link to it (by being a resident, for example). But I’m not a legal expert and I can’t tell you what the theory would be.
This happened over a long period, and mostly through acts of the British Parliament, so I think they consented.
Who is the Union in that sentence? Last time I checked, neither the president nor Congress is the final word on the rights of people or states.
This sounds like the militia/Freeman nonsense that they don’t consider Federal courts to have authority over them, therefore they don’t have to obey US laws. Just because you really really really REALLY don’t want US laws to apply to you doesn’t exempt you from them.
Because States aren’t the sole entity under a Federal system of government. The federal government of the US also has a say in whether States leave. The United States government is not a league. To suggest that any State may leave whenever it feels like is to say that the US is not a nation, let alone one with a Federal system of government.
And as you note, neither did the framers. Where do you believe the right to secede comes from?
U.S. Const. Art. III, Section 2.
“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.”
So they could sue directly in the Supreme Court
Well, if they recognize the supreme court as interpreting constitutional law, no, not legally. If they weren’t willing to recognize the decision of the Supreme Court, why sue in the first place?
Of course, as a practical matter, a state could (and the Confederacy tried to) secede whether or not they first got a ruling on whether it was legal. They could also secede even if they didn’t believe the U.S. Constitution gave them the right to secede.
This is because the question you seem to be asking here, after a loss in the S. Ct. is a practical one–whether they could successfully leave the Union, and assert exclusive sovereignty over their territory. That is a question that will be debated between the state in question and General W.T. Sherman, and is entirely distinct from the question of whether the constitution gives a state the legal right to secede, or whether there is any legal means through which a state can secede from the Union, perhaps by gaining the consent of the Union and the remaining states, or by a resolution of congress, or something like that.
Under this theory, someone can get out of treason charges by just saying “I don’t consider myself a U.S. Citizen anymore.” That can’t be right.
If someone gave up their citizenship BEFORE committing the so-called treasonous acts, I would not consider them a traitor. They might still be a criminal, an enemy combatant, etc. - but not a traitor in my eyes.
I would consider the ability to choose your nation to be an inalienable Right. The Constitution does not have to list every right, it only is supposed to list the powers of the State.
Did the Framers have anything to say about the right to secession? I honestly do not know.
I just realized I have no idea of the sequence of events that led to the Civil War. Did the southern states meet and ratify secession before hostilities erupted? Who did they petition to secede, Congress? Did Congress vote on it? Did they try to bring the issue before the SC? What was it that caused the first shots to be fired?
They didn’t petition anyone–State legislatures passed resolutions like this one Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union declaring that
.
Congress didn’t vote on it, and neither did the supreme court. The states seceded individually, and then met to form their own union.
Some states (seven) seceded before the attack on Fort Sumter, generally understood to be the start of the civil war–four seceded afterward.
That may be true–but that says nothing about whether that right is one of constitutional secession or extra-constitutional revolution (an act “illegal” under the then-existing constitutional framework). As in my last response to you, of course states have the “right” to revolution–they just have to win the war. That’s not a question of constitutional law–that’s a ‘debate’ between Grant and Lee.
That’s entirely different from whether states have the right to unilaterally secede from the Union, under the terms of the U.S. constitution (under which the states gave up some of their sovereign power to form a new nation).
James Buchanan, commonly held to be one of the worst presidents in American history (but the president right before the civil war) was careful to make such a distinction in his 1860 State of the Union Address:
If one looks past his plea to uphold the fugitive slave act, I think he very clearly sets out why unilateral secession is simply inconsistent with the constitution–the constitution was not drafted, and did not create a loose association-but a framework in which states gave up their sovereign power in part to the federal government.