Is There a Right to Secession- Intro

I noticed my South Louisiana blogging friend Cajun Huguenot responded to my post Regarding the Myth of the Right of State Secession . I was sort of hoping he would. This was a topic I wanted to go into last year but I got caught up in the election. So I thought as a change of pace I would put some of my thoughts on this subject on the blog today.

Despite us having a costly Civil war and having a Supreme Court case in 1869 which declared there was no right to secede this topic still comes up.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of this argument I think it is important to point out a huge practical problem that people face as to this issue that the South did not in 1860. That is the country has very much changed. Many people on all sides of the aisle point to the Electoral map of 1860 and recent electoral maps and say there is a major divide. Look it is happening again they say. This is misleading. For instance in 1860 it was very much the norm that if you were in the South you knew no one that voted for Lincoln or supported him. If you were in the North you knew no one that supported the Southern Democrat.

That is not the case today. Even in the reddest of red states of Louisiana in the last election we had in Louisiana 782,989 voted for Obama and 1,148,275 voted for McCain . In the most blue of blue states we had substantial numbers vote for McCain. This is not 1860.

As I point out on this threads where this comes up if lets say the South (or their State or region) wished to secede again there would be huge practical problems for those leading the movement. While there was varying degrees of Pro-Union Sentiment in the South it could be managed. This is a whole new kettle of fish. There is in essence a diversity of opinion on issues from a to z that we see in the States that were not present for the most part back in prior history of secession movements. So if the Louisiana legislature decided it had the right to secede and in fact did it there would be a substantial number of people I propose that would demand the Federal Government to come to their assistance so they would not be divested of their U.S Citizenship and it's protections by a local majority. It would be truly brother against brother.

Let us take an example that does not deal a Presidential election. Let us propose that through some miracle in twelve years time the Human life amendment passed. The much more liberal State of California horrified at this infringement in their view of individual liberty decides to secede!!! Now I find very unlikely that the American people would just say goodbye to the worlds' 7 th largest economy without a fight. But what about the people in California that are not thrilled there shall be under this liberal regime in Sacramento with no protection of the Federal Govt? On the flip side would largely African Americans in Mississippi that have seen time and time again that their State Citizenship did not protect them be all ok with the State of Mississippi seceding?

So the real practical question that never seems to get addressed on the various forums where this topic is the rage is what do you do with the dissenters? Will State leaders of the new regime take their property away, put them in camps, send them by force into foreseeable exile, kill them till they relent? It has happened before to the British Loyalists I suppose but note we do not talk about that too much in history. It is all sort of messy.

So the basic issue that a majority would be divesting quite a substantial minority of their rights and Citizenship against their will should not be papered over by terms such as State rights.

Regardless of the issue how much dissent there would be we come to the basic question -Does a State have a right to do this? Does a State have the right to separate you and your U.S. Citizenship.

I say no that such a legal right to secession is not present in the Constitution. It is as if the Gas Company suddenly said you did not have to pay the water company.

There are two issues that often get blurred but are separate. That is the legal right to secession by a State and the natural law right to revolution. It should be noted that for the large part Southern Leaders were hesitant to base their revolt in the natural law right of revolution. Especially in areas that had large black populations.

They are two different things. So I will try to examine those coming up also.

Part I of my post coming up today.