# Slavery aside: did the Confederate States have a point about secession? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693 "2012-08-16T18:07:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/81 "2012-08-21T00:51:56Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Agreed: the moral scheme that **Little Nemo** taught me is, as **Farmer Jane** said, the after-story. It’s a moral viewpoint we can hold today, not one that I would shove off onto the people of 1860. It is a moral viewpoint that I find convincing. No, I’m pretty sure it was an argument the Lincoln administration made at the time as a legal justification for military action. But being somewhat esoteric, it wasn’t generally used as a public cry for action. Saying the United States was going to war against the southern states in order to protect the rights of southerners might have seemed counter-intuitive. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/82 "2012-08-21T00:57:01Z")
And keep in mind that several states did offer public statements of why they were seceding and what their justifications were - the equivalent of the Declaration of Independence. South Carolina was one of them. They were not seceding in defense of states rights - they explicitly said that the Federal government was allowing states too much sovereignty and should be enforcing slavery in those states that were trying to restrict it. South Carolina was seceding in opposition to state sovereignty. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/83 "2012-08-21T01:09:00Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > The experience of the Revolutionary War might just as well have imparted an understanding that to dissolve political bonds, one had better be prepared to fight. Sure, but it would still have been understood that the moral high ground belonged with self-determination. Would not the most honorable course for Britain to take have been to accept the States’ declared arguments for independence? Was it not better for Britain to let India go–to accept its arguments for independence–without an all-out war? > [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > The people of one state do not have the legal authority to take apart my country. Ohio does not belong only to the people who live there, it also belongs to all Americans. This is a post-War understanding. Before the War, and the Fourteenth Amendment, there was no umbrella American identity which superseded those of the respective states. Even Northerners–even those who held the Union as an unbreakable compact–personally identified _first_ with their own states, as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/84 "2012-08-22T00:38:32Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > . . . This is a post-War understanding. Before the War, and the Fourteenth Amendment, there was no umbrella American identity which superseded those of the respective states. Even Northerners–even those who held the Union as an unbreakable compact–personally identified _first_ with their own states, as far as I can tell. Even today! I once had the joy of meeting an American Charge d’Affairs at a U.S. Embassy in another nation’s capital. He said it was always good to meet a travelling American, and asked where I was from. I said California. He said New York. Then he nodded sagely and said that Americans nearly always (in his experience) identified themselves by their states of origin. I wonder, though, if this is less so today, as people relocate more often than at any point previously in U.S. history. How long does it take a relocated Californian to truly be an Iowan or South Carolinan? ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/85 "2012-08-22T04:39:40Z")
^But you’d already established that you were both American. It would have been rather conversation-stopping had you replied “I already told you. The United States of America.” Had another passing guest inquired, with a thick German accent, “where are you from?” would you have said “California?” Or would you have started with “I’m American?” ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/86 "2012-08-22T05:37:47Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > No, but I would heartily endorse allowing them to leave now. In that case there’d be no Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Al Gore but we’d still have Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, and Mitt Romney. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/87 "2012-08-22T05:56:59Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > ^But you’d already established that you were both American. It would have been rather conversation-stopping had you replied “I already told you. The United States of America.” > > Had another passing guest inquired, with a thick German accent, “where are you from?” would you have said “California?” Or would you have started with “I’m American?” Well, the other useful answer for me might have been “San Diego.” Most Yanks know where that is… (And, y’know, when he said “New York,” I didn’t know until he started philosophizing whether he meant the state or the city…) ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/88 "2012-08-22T06:17:01Z")
Firstly, the states preceded the Union. If not the Declaration of Independence is wrong. > [@](#): > > these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States…and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do Capital letters and all: Free and Independent States. For example, the people of Maryland got together and created a constitution. Before this agreement every individual was completely sovereign. They gave up some of their rights to form a state government with limited sovereignty. This sovereignty included things listed above like levy war, conclude peace, establish commerce; as well as other things like (hypothetically) arrest people for public nudity, create schools, levy taxes on the WillFarnabys of the time. Then came the Articles of Confederation where they states got together and formed a “perpetual union”. But how perpetual could it be if > [@](#): > > Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. With the Articles of Confederation the states got together and gave up some of the sovereignty they had gotten from the citizens, such as levy war, conclude peace, and establish interstate commerce. In this system they remain Independent. If the Constitution was by a group of individuals why didn’t they just put it to a national vote? Instead the states were the signatory parties. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/89 "2012-08-22T06:33:54Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Firstly, the states preceded the Union. If not the Declaration of Independence is wrong. No argument there. In 1776, thirteen separate states jointly declared independence. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Then came the Articles of Confederation where they states got together and formed a “perpetual union”. But how perpetual could it be if The answer is not perpetual at all. So when the states entered into the Articles of Confederation, by the terms of that agreement, they were giving up the right to secede from it. It was a perpetual union. Nationhood was one of the things that were being delegated to the United States. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If the Constitution was by a group of individuals why didn’t they just put it to a national vote? Instead the states were the signatory parties. Once again, this is simply wrong. The states were not the signatory parties to the Constitution and they were never asked to be the signatory parties. The Constitution was not sent to the state legislatures or the state governors for ratification. It was sent to popular conventions. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/90 "2012-08-23T04:08:00Z")
But those conventions were making a decision for that state—and that state only—to ratify the Constitution. A vote \*\*of the people \*\*would have been a very different thing, one with a nationwide total for and against. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/91 "2012-08-23T04:30:49Z")
What percentage of the entire populace would have been sufficient to bring the states in to the new union? How would you even structure such an election? What if it turns out that everyone in Connecticut voted no, but the measure still passed by 95%? Heck, what if all the states except Connecticut had ratified the new Constitution? Would Connecticut be “in” or “out?” Did they have the right and/or power to have said, “Include us out?” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/92 "2012-08-23T06:03:51Z")
The idea that you can’t secede goes against the concept of the social contract and the idea government exists at the will of the governed. It’s actually the most anti-democratic thing about the U.S. I honestly don’t understand how you can argue states shouldn’t have the right to secede. We seceded from the UK–our very foundation depends on the idea that secession is legal. Saying that something is wrong but doing it anyways is called hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/93 "2012-08-23T06:10:20Z")
No, it was not. There were a bunch of sharp lawyers among the founders, and they should have considered an exit clause as a matter of just being professional. They deliberately left it silent so as to get it passed. In my opinion. Jefferson was noted in thinking that there should be a new constitution every generation, but he was a bit of a nut. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693/94 "2012-08-23T06:13:08Z")
The usual argument is that the two revolutions weren’t the same. One was in support of suffrage, representation, and rights; the other was to suppress those. It is no more hypocritical to say that Germany was wrong to bomb Britain, and Britain bombing Germany. One was waging aggressive war and the other was resisting it. This is not an example of hypocrisy, and imagining that it is is a marvelous example of what Emerson called a foolish consistency. Unless one believes that it was justified for the slaves to have been exempted from “the will of the governed.” But nobody today believes that…I hope. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slavery-aside-did-the-confederate-states-have-a-point-about-secession/631693.md?page=4)