The Civil War Didn't 'Settle' The Question Of State Secession
Posted by freedomforall 8 months, 3 weeks ago to Government
Excerpt:
"While the Constitution doesn’t address secession, it does have a provision that implicitly grants that power to the states. According to the 10th Amendment, “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.” Since the Constitution does not expressly deny the states of that power (nor delegate it to the central government), secession is reserved to the states.
Even by itself, the word “delegated” further substantiates states’ right to secede, by underscoring that the United States was formed as a compact of independent states — with “states” used in a sense that puts Pennsylvania on par with Mexico or France. Those sovereign states created the federal government to serve them, only granting the new entity powers that James Madison described as “few and defined,” while the states retained powers that were “numerous and indefinite.”
“Delegated” validates that the states are rightly the masters of the federal government they created, and should therefore be free to voluntarily exit the compact just as they voluntarily entered it. As historian Brion McClanahan argued in a 2015 speech, “Sovereignty can be delegated, but a delegation assumes the ability to rescind that power.”
Speaking on the Constitution’s 50th anniversary, former president and statesman John Quincy Adams said:
“If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred…far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.”"
"While the Constitution doesn’t address secession, it does have a provision that implicitly grants that power to the states. According to the 10th Amendment, “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.” Since the Constitution does not expressly deny the states of that power (nor delegate it to the central government), secession is reserved to the states.
Even by itself, the word “delegated” further substantiates states’ right to secede, by underscoring that the United States was formed as a compact of independent states — with “states” used in a sense that puts Pennsylvania on par with Mexico or France. Those sovereign states created the federal government to serve them, only granting the new entity powers that James Madison described as “few and defined,” while the states retained powers that were “numerous and indefinite.”
“Delegated” validates that the states are rightly the masters of the federal government they created, and should therefore be free to voluntarily exit the compact just as they voluntarily entered it. As historian Brion McClanahan argued in a 2015 speech, “Sovereignty can be delegated, but a delegation assumes the ability to rescind that power.”
Speaking on the Constitution’s 50th anniversary, former president and statesman John Quincy Adams said:
“If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred…far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.”"
