A House Divided

I am reading A Short History of the Confederate States of America by Jefferson Davis giving me an understanding of what prompted the secession of states and the ensuing war. Especially interesting in the account is the legality of secession derived from the United States constitution.

The governments of the States were instituted to secure certain unalienable rights of the citizens with which they were endowed by their Creator. Where must the American citizen look for the security of these rights? To his State Government.

The powers which a State Government possesses for the security of his life, his liberty, his property, his safety, and his happiness are “just powers.” They have been derived from the unconstrained consent of the governed, and they have been organized in such form as seems most likely to effect these objects.

The entire order of the State Government is founded on the free consent of the governed. From this it springs; from this, it receives its force and life. It is this consent alone from which “just powers” are derived. They can come from no other source, and their exercise secures a true republican government. All else are usurpations, their exercise is a tyranny, and their end is the safety and security of the usurper, to obtain which the safety and security of the people are sacrificed. The “just powers” thus derived are organized in such form as seems most likely to effect safety and happiness. It is the governed who determine the form of the government, and not the ruler or his military force, unless he comes as a conqueror to make the subjugated do his will.

What, then, is the Government of the United States? It is an organization of a few years’ duration. It might cease to exist and yet the States and the people continue prosperous, peaceful, and happy. Unlike the governments of the States, which find their origin deep in the nature of man, it sprang from certain circumstances which existed in the course of human affairs. Unlike the governments of the States and of separate nations, which have a divine sanction, it has no warrant for its authority but the ratification of the sovereign States. Unlike the governments of the States, which were instituted to secure generally the unalienable rights of man, it has only the enumerated objects, and is restrained from passing beyond them by the express reservation of all undelegated functions. It keeps no record of property, and guarantees to no one the possession of his estate. Marriage, it can neither confirm nor annul. It is an anomaly among governments, and arose out of the articles of agreement made by certain friendly States which proposed to form a society of States, and invest a common agent with specified functions of sovereignty. Its duration was intended to be permanent, as it was hoped thus to promote the peaceful ends for which it was established; but to have declared it perpetual would have been to deny the right of the people to alter or abolish their government when it should cease to answer the ends for which it was instituted.

The objects which its creation was designed to secure to the States and their people were of a truly peaceful nature, and commended themselves to the approbation of men: “To form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Notice the flow of authority: first, the state, then the federal. This is how our constitution was conceived and written. As years went by, the federal government took for itself increasing authority over the states, yet states could leave the union if they determined that the decisions or actions of the federal government had overstepped enumerated powers. The most well-known occasion being in 1861 when several southern states seceded for multiple reasons. To thwart this independent action, the federal government took an elitist stance with the guise of national unity in order to force Southern subjugation. Davis describes it this way concerning the state of Tennesse:

Mankind must contemplate with horror the fact that an organization established for such peaceful and benign ends did, within the first century of its existence, lead the assault in a civil war that brought nearly four million soldiers into the field, and destroyed thousands and thousands of millions of treasure, trampled the unalienable rights of the people underfoot, subverted the governments of the States, and ended by establishing itself as supreme and sovereign over all. Now let us proceed to notice the acts of the Federal Government which subjugated the State Governments. In the case of Tennessee, already noted, the Government of the State — which derived its powers from the consent of the governed, so that they were “just powers” — found, in the discharge of its duty to protect the institutions of its people, that there were no means by which it could fulfill that duty but by a withdrawal from the Union, so as to be rid of the Government of the United States, and thus escape the threatened dangers of usurpation and sectional hostility. It, therefore, resolved to withdraw from the Union, and the people gave their assent to that resolution; so that the State no longer considered itself a member of the Union, nor recognized the laws and authority of its Government.

The Government of the United States then, with a powerful military force, planted itself at Nashville, the State capital. It refused to recognize the laws and authority of its Government, or any organization under it, as having any existence, or to recognize the people otherwise than as a hostile community. It said to them, in effect, “I am the sovereign, and you are the subjects. If you are stronger than I am, then drive me out of the State; if I am stronger than you are, then I command an unconditioned surrender to my sovereignty.” It is evident that the Government of the United States was not there by the consent of those who were to be governed. It had not, therefore, any “just powers” of government within the State of Tennessee. “For,” says the Declaration of Independence of our fathers, “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” By this action, therefore, the Federal Government not only subverted the State Government but annihilated it. It proceeded to establish a new order of affairs, founded on the assumption of Federal sovereignty. It appointed its military governor to be the head of the new order, and recognized no civil or political existence in any man except some of its notorious adherents, until, by betraying the State, he had taken an oath of allegiance to the sovereignty of the United States. Then unalienable rights were systematically denied, freedom of speech was suppressed, freedom of the press was suspended, personal liberty was destroyed. Citizens were arrested, imprisoned, and exiled without the process of law.

I mention the above because the current national rancor is similarly fueled as elitist politicians, media, and corporate executives demonstrate the same attitude of sovereignty trying to build oligarchal structures. As a result, discussions of secession have been fueled—most notably in Texas.

Many have asked if secession is now legal. Those espousing the negative cite Chief Justice Salmon Chase who wrote in his 1869 Texas v. White decision: “The union between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.” Should a state, or group of states, secede anyway? I fear that the federal response would result in carnage sufficient to pale that of the Civil War. But if this drastic action is not seriously attempted, I fear that Washington, D.C., etc. will run roughshod over our civil rights in their desire to be overlords of the masses. Let’s hope neither will come about.

The best solution is to recognize state sovereignty as originally intended, but I will not hold my breath waiting for the federal government to cede back what has been taken.