It has been said that the US Constitution did not address the question of secession.
It COULDN’T.
The Article of Confederation, agreed to by all thirteen states, began by stating that this was a “Perpetual Union.”
It also stated that any change in the Articles required a UNANIMOUS vote of ALL thirteen states.
The Constitution decalred that if nine states ratified the new Constitution, the Perpetual Union would end, and those nine states would be the new Union.
On April 30, 1789, when President Washington took the oath of office in New York City and the new Constitution went into operation, there were exactly eleven states in the Union, the same number as the Old Confederacy.
The new Federal Government was in no position to say that eleven states could not seced and form a new Union if they wanted to.
North Carolina joined the Union in 1790. Rhode Island would never have joined it if Congress had not threatened to treat Rhode Island, which depended on the Perpetual Union, as a foreign state.
No, the question of secession from “one Nation, Indivisibe” never came up in the framing of the United States Constitution.
If it had, the Union would have been aborted at birth.
#1 by Mark on 05/15/2006 - 9:31 am
“…there were exactly eleven states in the Union, the same number as the Old Confederacy.”
Minor point here, but dammit man — you’ve done it to Missouri again! There were 13 states in the confederacy, which is why both the Stars and Bars and Southern Cross flags hold 13 stars — one for each admitted state into the Confederacy. In revisionist history, the liberals who control our public schools and universities have tried to re-write Confederate history — and you, Bob, are parroting one of their most amusing tales.
Need I remind you that when Missouri refused to send troops to aid Lincoln in his “unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman, and diabolical” quest to INVADE the southern states (as Missouri Govroner Clayburn Jackson wrote to Lincoln when said former tyrant requested Missouri join the murderous forces of the Union). In fact, on October 30, 1861 the Missouri legislature voted to seccede, and Missouri, my beloved home state, was then accepted into the Confederacy OFFICIALLY on November 28, 1861.
And, to counter any argument claiming illegitamacy, need I remind you, Bob, that Governor Clayborn Jackson was the “duly elected” governor of Missouri — and upon entering the Confederacy the entire “duly elected” legislature was run out of Missouri at gunpoint by Union soldiers and a puppet regime was put in place by one of Lincoln’s henchmen, General Lyon. And of course, for the next four years Missouri Confederate soldiers, upon capture, were hanged or shot as traitors and not given P.O.W. status — which made us fight all the harder.
So there — pffff!!!
#2 by kane on 05/15/2006 - 9:54 pm
Samuel Adams didn’t even want this, he wouldn’t sign the consitution. Though I live in Pa currently, I consider the Confederacy to be the continuation of that mentality and support having a separate CSA and USA.
#3 by kane on 05/15/2006 - 10:39 pm
Update: I was wrong apparantly Adams supported the consitution once the bill of rights was added to it. But he still was one of the leading anti-federalist guys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams