Tag: secession

The Issue of Secession

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We just had an election. Once it was over some people began talking about seceding. This is not the first time the United States has faced such a situation. I was reminded of that after seeing Lincoln. As we talked after the movie Laura asked why we fought rather than just letting the southern states leave. We talked about some of the implications of secession – it is certainly not a simple topic – but as I have been thinking about it I came to the conclusion that the fact that there is no provision for secession in the Constitution might need to be changed at some point. With that in mind I decided to draft such a provision to further explore the nuances of the concept of secession.

I would like to make it clear that I am not in favor of seceding at this time nor do I foresee a time when I would favor it but I think that creating a clear path for secession might be useful in making the possibility more understandable for those who might wish to consider it. In fact, if crafted correctly it might even serve as a deterrent to some who might pursue the idea without due consideration.

I based my draft on the concepts embodied in the provisions for the admission of new states (Article IV Section 3). Specifically I wanted to promote self determination, a deliberate process, and continued order. Here it is:

States may petition the Congress to secede from the Union. The Congress must vote on a treaty of secession within two years of the petition or else the petitioning state may offer its own treaty of secession which the Congress must vote on within 10 days. The President may not veto a treaty of secession unless he is a resident of the petitioning state or the treaty was drafted by Congress within the two years allowed. Secession shall not be completed until after a one year waiting period which begins after the Congress and the Legislature of the petitioning state have ratified a treaty of secession and after the Legislature and the people of the petitioning state have each voted in favor of secession in separate votes conducted at least 350 and no more than 400 days apart. If the treaty of secession is ratified more than four years after the vote of the residents of the seceding state, the residents of the seceding state must approve the treaty of secession in a popular vote during the one year waiting period.

During the one year waiting period the seceding state shall have all the rights and obligations of all other states in the Union. If the President is a resident of a seceding state the vice president shall assume the office of president at the beginning of the waiting period for the duration of the term.

Seceding states may be readmitted to the Union in the same manner as new states at any time but must remain independent from other political unions for a period of five years following their formal secession.

Parts of states may secede from the Union by first following the procedures to become a new state. In cases of a partial state secession a treaty of secession must be ratified by the Congress and the Legislature of the newly approved state and the one year waiting period must be observed but the people of the new state may vote in favor of secession prior to the creation of the new state and the legislature of the new state may vote in favor of secession anytime within the first 400 days after the creation of the new state regardless of when the people of the newly created state voted in favor of secession.

It was interesting to see what details came to my mind as I tried crafting this provision. I would love to hear from others if there are issues I have failed to address or if there are things you would change about this draft.

I’d also be interested in hearing any other thoughts about secession that anyone would care to share.

Tags Constitution, secession, states rights, thoughts

General

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

Post author By David
Post date July 13, 2009
No Comments on Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

Context is everything so I thought it very appropriate that today was the time for me to review Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address right after reading State Sovereignty and the Senate with its review of the damage to federalism that was a result of the passage of the 17th amendment. The casket of federalism was virtually sealed by the 17th amendment but a major step in weakening this important structure in our system of government came because of the Civil War which many people blame more or less on the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Lincoln was very much aware of how his election was viewed among the Southern states as seven of the then thirty-six states had announced their secession before his inauguration. It was because of those secessions that so much of this address was given for the purpose of calming their fears while asserting his intention to not recognize their secession. It failed to calm or reclaim any states, but it contains some valuable food for thought as we try to restore the foundations of the liberty that was protected by the Constitution. I’d like to review some of his statements from the speech with a view to our present circumstances.[quote]

Quoting from the party platform:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend;

Today we have a federal government that dictates in large measure how and where to build roads and other forms of transit (I’m not just talking about the interstate system here), what kind of medical care should be provided at government expense (and who should be aligible to receive it), what forms of energy should be pursued, and they hope to define what kind of identification states should issue for official purposes. That’s just a short list of federal intrusions upon state control over state domestic institutions off the top of my head.

All members of Congress swear their support to the whole constitution

This is still true today. Sadly it would seem that the majority of the members of Congress should be fired (replaced in elections) and charged with perjury based on their implementation of their oath of office.

Lincoln makes a compelling argument for the perpetual nature of the nation which we should consider today anytime we hear or engage in speculation on the subject of secession:

if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

. . .

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, — that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void

This is not to say that curcumstances could never warrant the breaking of the perpatual union, but to do so peacably and legally would require the consent of the whole government as well as the desire of the seceeding state(s). Lincoln put it this way:

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government, is acquiescence on one side or the other.

This absolute truth is the reason that we can predict the coming of a crisis on some issues – we are able to see instances where neither the majority nor the minority are willing to compromise of acquiesce. Whether we find ourselves in the majority or the minority on any given issue we must remember that:

A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that rejecting the majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in some form, is all that is left. (emphasis added)

I think that Lincoln captured the essence of what the Constitution was designed by the founding fathers to ensure:

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years. (emphasis added)

The question will always remain for each succeeding generation – do the people today retain both their virtue and their vigilance?

Tags amendments, documents, history, secession

General

Considering Secession

An intriguing discussion erupted after a recent post by Connor. I was soon asking what history would have looked like if the South had been allowed to secede rather than fight the Civil War. Later another commenter asked an even better question:

By allowing the South to secede, wouldn’t that be setting up a dangerous precedent? If any state decided to leave just because Congress passed a law they didn’t like, what would have happened to the nation?

Under such an interpretation, what security did the nation have beyond what the Articles of Confederation provided? The Articles weren’t working. That’s why they created a Constitution that gave more expanded powers to a central government.

Considering recent comments regarding Texas choosing to secede and polls that a surprising number of Texans seem open to the concept I’d like to take a crack at answering what might have happened in those circumstances and I would be very interested to know what others think of the question or of my answer. For the sake of this supposition let’s assume that we are talking about an alternate history where the people of the United States accepted the premise that secession was a legal option and not a cause for war. We are also not talking specifically about secession by the southern states – just about a nation in which any state could decide to leave just because Congress passed a law they didn’t like and that the remaining states would not resort to violence to keep them in the union. In other words there might be arguments against secession in general or in specific cases, but no military action. With that background, here is what I believe would happen.

Any state that chose to secede would immediately relegate themselves to a position with all the disadvantages they had faced under the Articles of Confederation as well as the disadvantage of not having between 12 and 49 (depending on when in history this happened) other states upon which to lean for support. They would be required to provide for their own protections (economic and military) without assistance from their neighbor states. In all likelyhood they would very quickly be looking to form alliances with other states and other nations. In some cases they would likely begin very soon to consider the possibility of rejoining the United States. In such cases they would find themselves facing the requirements for joining the union. Having antagonized the other states in the union they would have to convince the congress to allow them back into membership within the United States. That and their experience under the Articles of Confederation would act as a deterrent to states that wanted to secede for light or transient reasons.

Assuming that there are no major holes in my reasoning above I think it is safe to say that there would be few if any cases of individual states seceding. That leaves us to consider the potential of blocks of states seceding such as the southern states in 1860. In this case we can easily see that a block of states seceding together would be inclined to form a union not unlike the one they were leaving. If two similarly structured nations composed of soverign states were to exist in close proximity to each other and to unsettled land waiting for expansion I think it is safe to assume that the two nations would be driven to compete with each other to become more politically and economically powerful and attractive to the settlers of new lands so that new political entities would chose them over their counterpart when they decided to become a member of a larger political entity. I don’t suppose that the nations would exist entirely without animosity, but they could peacefully coexist as the United States and Canada have done for nearly two centuries.

If legal secession were a political reality any number of possibilities might exist. A single state residing outside any other union would be highly unlikely, but North America could be divided into any number of unions made of sovereign states. In fact a policy allowing for legal secession could leave the door open for Canadian provinces or Mexican states joining a union as sovereign states. I believe that eventually legally accepted secession would have resulted in one or two strong unions of states in which the central government was limited more closely to what our Constitution outlined – focusing on foreign relations, military defense, and interstate issues and leaving states to independently tackle other issues and learn from each other. In the case of two stable unions existing I would give better that 50% odds that their relations with each other would be fundamentally peaceful.

The short answer is that I do not believe allowing the secession of the south would have been setting a dangerous precedent (at least from the angle of how viable the central government would remain). That leaves the question – have I missed something?

Tags Articles of Confederation, connections, Constitution, history, questions, secession