Could you justify secession?

Set aside the politics of the moment. This is a purely hypothetical question.

Can you articulate a justification for a state seceding from the United States? What types of issues/grievances might justify a state withdrawing from the United States?

If you say there is no justification ever, what absolute guarantee can you articulate that state issues/grievances will achieve satisfactory resolution?

Personally, I'm of the mind that if the residents of the State feel sufficiently alienated from the government in Washington DC and the residents of other States-- including their neighbors-- then they should seek to secede.

Secession obviously should be a last resort, I think the threat or even mention of such is more of a clear message to D.C. that states are tired of overly intrusive federal regulation. Personally, I would hate to see it come to a point in this country where states feel the need to pursue a real secession, that would mean that we are at a crucial point in our history and that Washington representatives simply have too much control and are not listening, plus, the civil war was the federal incorrectly asserting it's right to preserve the union at all costs(even though they won that one.) Justification of secession is certainly easy, with the numerous federal encroachments upon states rights, such as the EPA, ATF, national gun laws, the legal drinking age set at a national level, ditto for open container laws, and the other monitarily coercive tactics used to sidestep states rights, eventually, the states do get tired of being pushed around.

Anyone who feels that they can't see secession as being ever justified, needs to take a long hard look at that position. Opposing secession under all circumstances implies that the 13 Colonies had no right to seperate from Britain.

In point of fact they had no legal right, but believed they had a moral/ethical right based on the abuses and mistreatment going on.

Like others, I'd hate to see it happen. But I will be straight up here: we've become so "diverse", as a people, in our viewpoints, values, norms, hopes, intentions, views of the role of government, and so on that I have little hope this nation can endure as-is for another generation.

Splitting into a loose Federation or Alliance, along regional and/or ideological grounds, may be the only thing that can keep us from civil war.
As I mentioned once before, we can divide into:
A liberalized social-welfare nation;
A middle-road republic;
A libertarian minimalist state;
and a traditionalist/conservative republic;
...each with internal autonomy, its own laws and constitution, and maybe we could get along well enough to avoid bloodshed.

BUT, with the current trend towards an ever-expanding government in size, cost, scope, intrusiveness and so on, and the struggle over who will control that government...we're heading for bloodshed some day, imho.

I hope I'm wrong. I think I'm right.

G.

celticlord said:

Can you articulate a justification for a state seceding from the United States?

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Absolutely.

First of all, there is the Constitution itself. The Tenth Amendment reads thus: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Given that the Feds are not Constitutionally granted the power to keep the union together by any means necessary, and the States are not Constitutionally denied the right to secede, it stands to reason that they inherently have the right to do so.

If you accept that they inherently have the right to do so, then this part of the argument is over; exercise of a right in a way which does not deny another person or group of people of their Constitutional rights never needs to be justified.

celticlord said:

What types of issues/grievances might justify a state withdrawing from the United States?

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The House of Representatives, which was intended to proportionally represent the population of the nation at large, now has a fixed membership, the result being that one Representative is now beholden to a larger and larger number of people every day. The options left to a member of the House wishing to keep their position are to either sell out for the campaign dollars needed to canvass their district every 2 years, or spend most of their time grassroots campaigning.

Whichever course is chosen, the fact that the reelection rate in the House is so high serves as proof that one of those options is being chosen so often that the people themselves are not being served.

The Senate, which was intended to answer directly to the governments of the States (which in terms answers much more directly to the people than the Feds do), is now popularly elected. Senators are faced with the same choices that Representatives are face and have more territory to cover -- the only differences are they have a longer term and are responsible for representing even more people.

In short, the people who claim to represent us are physically incapable of hearing more than a fraction of our voices, taking more than a fraction of our phone calls, or reading more than a fraction of our letters, so they can't possibly know what our interests or concerns are. They can't even represent what they believe to be our interests if they want more than one term in office, because their choices are to either do their job or get reelected.

While a genuinely proportional scheme in the House of Representatives would mean a lot more people jockeying to be heard and an exponential rise in inefficiency, efficiency was never a part of the design -- in fact, a certain amount of inefficiency was built in as a natural hand-brake on the government, since the founders believed (quite correctly) that a government will always move from less to more power in the long run.


With this in mind, go back and read the Declaration of Independence. WHen you do, keep in mind that this nation was structured, under the Constition, to be a collection of strong state governments held together by a federal government -- answerable both to the people and state governments -- with a moderate amount of power.

A great many of the grievances which were given voice by that document can be spoken again -- this time against our own federal government.

If that doesn't justify a move for secession, I don't know what does.

The questions of whether a state has an available legal, peaceful mechanism for secession and whether or not secession may be "justified" are two entirely different things.

Goshin said:

Splitting into a loose Federation or Alliance, along regional and/or ideological grounds, may be the only thing that can keep us from civil war.
As I mentioned once before, we can divide into:
A liberalized social-welfare nation;
A middle-road republic;
A libertarian minimalist state;
and a traditionalist/conservative republic;
...each with internal autonomy, its own laws and constitution, and maybe we could get along well enough to avoid bloodshed.

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What you are describing is essentially the federal form of government provided by the Constitution. In theory, we have always been divided as you describe here. Perhaps we would be better served to make the practice more in conformance with the theory.

Harshaw said:

The questions of whether a state has an available legal, peaceful mechanism for secession and whether or not secession may be "justified" are two entirely different things.

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For this thread, let's leave the legality or illegality aside. That is a meaningful question, but it is outside the scope of the question posed in the poll.

celticlord said:

For this thread, let's leave the legality or illegality aside. That is a meaningful question, but it is outside the scope of the question posed in the poll.

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I don't think it is. Because the questions of legal, peaceful separation,and separation by force of arms are two different calculi.

Harshaw said:

I don't think it is. Because the questions of legal, peaceful separation,and separation by force of arms are two different calculi.

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The question is can separation be justified. That is different from questioning whether a justified separation is legal or extralegal (or even illegal).

Legality is meaningful, but it is subsequent to justification, not antecedent.

Of course separation could be "justified." Not sure how anyone could argue there is no circumstance under which it could be.

But the mechanism for doing so is pretty important to whether said justification is actually worth the cost of doing so.

Some sections of cities are able to split off into their own municipalities legally -- but the reasons for doing so might not be so compelling if they had to fight their way out.

Harshaw said:

But the mechanism for doing so is pretty important to whether said justification is actually worth the cost of doing so.

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That's a tawdry sort of illogic....if the "justification" is not worth the cost, then how would it be justified?

Hence my polite request that the legal aspects of secession be set aside for this thread. My curiosity is focused on how people might articulate a valid justification for secession--to seek some definition, if you will of what might constitute a sufficiently long "train of abuses and usurpations" (borrowing from the Declaration) as to warrant secession.

Of course there are some circumstances that could justify it.

A law requiring all citizens of a particular state to be put to death is one example.

Do I think we will ever see circumstances that would justify it? Probably not.

celticlord said:

That's a tawdry sort of illogic....if the "justification" is not worth the cost, then how would it be justified?

Hence my polite request that the legal aspects of secession be set aside for this thread. My curiosity is focused on how people might articulate a valid justification for secession--to seek some definition, if you will of what might constitute a sufficiently long "train of abuses and usurpations" (borrowing from the Declaration) as to warrant secession.

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OK, then this is a pretty pointless poll. I highly doubt anyone would seriously argue that secession is never, ever, under no circumstance, justified. If all you want is a yes or a no, it's a gigantic waste of time.

Remember the Roman Empire fell due to too much diversity? Well that may very well happen here in the states. If a whole state (or majority of one state) totally opposes how our federal government is running our country or it's methods of forcing states to pass laws that they don't want passed then we have a problem.
I don't believe our federal government should be using blackmail techniques in order to get any state to pass certain laws or creating certain programs within it's borders that the citizens in that state don't want. The states are suppose to govern themselves for the most part. The powers of the federal government as a whole are limited by the Constitution (or suppose to be).

The Tenth Amendment restates that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I realize the reasons for not wanting a state to secede. You want to keep the nation together. But isn’t it somewhat against our national character, our focus on freedom and all that, to not allow a state to jump ship if they want to?

Regarding secession of a state, there is a theory about how Texas could “secede” from the United States. In the agreement with the U.S. when it became a state Texas has the right, through a vote, to divide into five separate states. It’s theorized that if this was to happen it would be challenged in the courts by the U. S., making it to the Supreme Court. It’s then theorized that they would not allow Texas to become five states, because it would give them so many seats in the Senate (ten versus two). Therefore the Supreme Court would have to deny this, which would then nullify and void the agreement that brought Texas into the union. This would allow Texas to be a separate nation.


This from the Montana Constitution which overrides the US Constitution.
Section 2. Self-government. The people have the exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent state. They may alter or abolish the constitution and form of government whenever they deem it necessary.

These are just some examples. All states have their own constitution and laws. Within those laws you will usually find something that refers to seceding in some form or another.

[The Montana section came from my sisters friend that lives there and I haven't confirmed the information but she was insistent that it was correct. All other facts were looked up and confirmed by me.]

Gojo said:

Regarding secession of a state, there is a theory about how Texas could “secede” from the United States. In the agreement with the U.S. when it became a state Texas has the right, through a vote, to divide into five separate states. It’s theorized that if this was to happen it would be challenged in the courts by the U. S., making it to the Supreme Court. It’s then theorized that they would not allow Texas to become five states, because it would give them so many seats in the Senate (ten versus two). Therefore the Supreme Court would have to deny this, which would then nullify and void the agreement that brought Texas into the union. This would allow Texas to be a separate nation.

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Who exactly has theorized this?

This from the Montana Constitution which overrides the US Constitution.

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State constitutions do not override the US Constitution.

Just about anything is possible/justifiable. Feasibility significantly limits these possibilities.

I'm not sure what you are trying to get at, here.

Of course it is justifiable in some circumstances as has been noted by most.

Personally I'd say it depends on the context but I'd set the bar pretty low, as I'm a decentralist, and probably recommend a splitting up of the US as it is. It is far too big, 300 million people makes democracy or much accountable gov't meaningless, and bloated and although there would be danger from Russia/China that perhaps could be solved easily enough through a loose confederation.

But really it is not succession itself that matters too much in such situations, one's where a reasonably stable nationality exists as autonomy. This could be secured without full separation, at least if the libs play ball.

But utlimately it is not really my business, I'm more interested in stopping the forming of a parallel United state of Europe, or at least one that includes Britain.

RightinNYC said:

Who exactly has theorized this?



State constitutions do not override the US Constitution.

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Tom DeLay, to answer your first question and here is one link for that story:

DeLay Offers New Theory of Texas Secession | TPM

Governer Rick Perry read it himself before opening his mouth on National TV. You can find that story on Fox, CNN, MSMBC and just about everywhere else on the internet.
I did go to the states website and read it myself because I don't trust Wikipedia to be 100% accurate.

As for your last statement, I figured that to be inaccurate myself. It was a direct quote from someone that lives there and I wasn't about to stand behind it as a fact when I couldn't confirm or deny any part of the lady's story so I added that foot note instead.

The problem with this poll is that "always wrong" part.

The reason I voted "no" was that it's not allowed by the Constitution.

There are definitely circumstances where it would be justifiable...mostly involving widespread abuses of human rights, a federal government that routinely favored one region of the country over others to a large degree, or complete cultural alienation from the rest of the country. None of those situations seem likely to occur in the US anytime soon.

As for the legality of secession...I've always thought that that question is kind of meaningless. By definition, if a part of the country wishes to secede, it no longer wants to recognize the legal authority of the federal government, so whether or not secession is "legal" is a moot point. Let's not forget that the American Revolution was illegal, and that our Constitution was passed in a very unconstitutional manner.

In my opinion, secession should be illegal, unless the seceding state/area once had it's own independent country that was forcefully incorporated into the conquering country.

Since most of the States in the Union haven't been independent before, if they were independent, they weren't independent for long, so in my view, none of the states can justify their secession.

Korimyr the Rat said:

Personally, I'm of the mind that if the residents of the State feel sufficiently alienated from the government in Washington DC and the residents of other States-- including their neighbors-- then they should seek to secede.

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Alternately, if the support for secession across the several states is sufficient, the Union could simply be dissolved.

States do have the right to secede if they want. I don't know if conditions now really warrant it currently, but should the government act against the rights and liberties of the People for too long, we can leave the Republic or scrap the federal government. Either or. If a State feels it isn't properly represented or that the federal government has for a long time worked against the State's sovereignty and against its People, then it has the right to secede from the government. They'll have to fight though, no way the federal government would let some of its States just go.

Goobieman said:

Alternately, if the support for secession across the several states is sufficient, the Union could simply be dissolved.

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Considering this "Red State, Blue State" nonsense and where they're all located... well, I think if the Union were to split again there would be far more than a single fault line. But there's no doubt in my mind that such a dissolution could never occur without civil war.

Wouldn't mind seeing it myself, though I'd probably have to relocate.