No because it is treason and more practically humilitates the United States and reduces its power.
Probably the same thing that would happen if I decided to secede from the US and declare the independent republic of Dissonancistan and petitioned the UN for recognition.
You’ve got it backwards. The Federal Government wouldn’t have to send the tanks in; the states would have to kick the tanks out. Somehow I don’t think California or Texas would look good on the evening news or fare well trying to storm 29 Palms or Fort Hood. You might recall that the Civil War didn’t start with the Federal Government sending in the troops, it started with the rebels attacking Fort Sumter.
That was an ongoing debate in my college history class. The subject being you could simply pass an admendment to nullify that portion of the constitution. The same way the 18th Amendment was repealed and other sections of the constitution were done away with.
This doesn’t address the question of whether a state could secede (legally or practically), but IMHO, a major driver of the North’s determination to overturn secession in 1861 was the realization that the states in question had been willing to stay in the Union as long as they got their way all the time, but opted out when it became apparent the “other side” was going to get its way. Looked at that way, the seceding power bloc was never participating in democracy – it’s not really compromise and majority rule if you only participate when your side is winning, then leave when it’s not.
In my perception of what I’ve read, the feeling that such was the case made many of the Northerners righteously angry. The South had been disproportionately politically influential for the entire existence of the republic up to that point, and had always managed to keep its pet issue (slavery) as some kind of specially-protected topic, while not really allowing the North to have a particular specially protected topic. In fact, the South vigorously fought what it perceived as “Northern interests” while insisting no one could talk about its own special interest, and had always ultimately had its way until the election of 1860.
I don’t know how exactly much weight to give to this “feeling that the South had not been playing fair and was making a complete mockery of majority rule” vs all the other things that went into the start of the war, but my gut sense is that it made secession a lot harder for the remaining states to stomach. And set a precedent that affects us to this day. We’ll never know what a cool-headed, rational argument for secession might have achieved.
It’s hard to imagine such an argument for the 1861 secession.
True Dat. By the time of the 1860 election the lines were drawn. It was a supersaturated solution just waiting for the ‘bump’ that would go it to blow.
However…
If you started making the pitch around 1810 or so there might have been a way to make the narrative thusly:
“This ain’t working. The whole ‘United States’ thing was a good idea but it’s just not going to work. Let’s all go our separate ways and stay friends.”
Might’ve worked. Or at least stayed peaceful.
I don’t think you can make that argument in 1810, or even 1820, for outside reasons: a divided America would have become another battleground for the European powers. The War of 1812 was interesting enough with a unified U.S., and it would have been a few years before people forgot the implications of that war. Maybe by 1830, but at that point the “United States thing” did seem to be working out for everyone: the nation was expanding westward, the industrial capacity and inventiveness of the North was making it into a powerhouse, the South was doing well by its landed gentry, the South was in a position to keep slavery a non-issue politically, and the abolitionist movement was barely getting started.
And by the time the abolitionist movement becomes a force in the last couple of decades before the war, it starts mattering politically that what secession would really have been about would have been maintaining Negro slavery.
Finally, the Southern landed gentry really did want to expand the reach of slavery, and they’d have had a harder time doing that if they seceded. There were reasons they didn’t secede until Lincoln.
Honestly, I don’t think there are very many people anywhere in the country that would secede from the union, even if given the option. Even peacefully founding a new country is hard, expensive, lengthy work.
I think there are a lot of people who think the union would be better off if people or regions who were undesirable in the their own eyes could be ‘seceded’ by their choice.
But it doesn’t work that way.
Probably not, if push came to shove. But it would be fun to call their bluff. They might have to acknowledge that living in the U.S. under a Clinton or Obama presidency is really not all that terrible.
I’d be happy if just those who make lots of noise about wanting to secede, seceded. I have no interest in showing the door to people who want to continue to be Americans even when the other party controls all three branches of government.
Kinda the way that I think God would be doing the rest of us a huge favor if he Raptured everybody who believes in a Rapture.
The founding of the United States was treason, and more practically humiliated Great Britain and reduced it’s power.
Don’t worry about it, you can hand over the keys whenever you’re ready.
Sure, but not to speak for Qin, but I’m not British, so I don’t really give a damn if Britain is humiliated and reduced in power. I am American, though, so I care about that.
Well, I am British, and I would tend to give a damn whether the U.S. was humiliated and reduced in power, given their relative importance and that you’re allied with us (though only the latter of those works in reverse). Also i’d have a certain amount of empathy anyway.
But it’s a fair point. Qin suggests treason as bad in and of itself, but he might well reasonably consider the UK being reduced to be not a problem.
Treason never prospers; what’s the reason? Why if it do prosper, none dare call it treason.
I have a hard time believing that the independence of Puerto Rico, to take a random example, would require a Constitutional amendment–despite the fact that citizens of the island are citizens of the U.S.
I do agree with anyone who says that secession of a state would be a very complicated process and that it won’t happen.
I’d probably give a damn about Britain being reduced in power now. I don’t really care about the fact that Britain was reduced in power 228 years ago. And yeah, I think treason is bad when it’s against the United States because I like the United States, I care about it, and I think people who betray it should be shot, or hanged, or whatever the death penalty is at the time. I certainly don’t think, like some people in this thread apparently do, that the US would be better off if we just had let the Confederacy secede.
Sorry, but the reference to Puerto Rico is inapposite. It’s residents are citizens of the US by statute only; they have no constitutional status requiring that they be considered citizens. Therefore, their status as citizens, granted by the Congress, could be abolished by the Congress.
The status of the citizens of Texas being citizens of the United States is granted directly by the Constitution, as amended. Their status cannot simply be removed through act of Congress.
Didn’t New England make such rumblings around that time?
Yeah, pretty much starting immediately after the formation of the union there were movements for the ‘what the hell did we do’ brigade. But none of them got sufficient traction to go independent. And I’m pretty sure that early in the game they’d have pulled it off if they’d tried.
Commander in Chief George Washington himself led the US Military that put down The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Actually, I think Washington was just along for the ride and didn’t actually command any troops, but the US Army took rebellions seriously. I’m not at all sure that rebellions are that easy to accomplish.