Two years hence, 2014, promises to be an eventful year for Scotland. It hosts the Commonwealth Games, the Ryder Cup and celebrates the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, the battle in the first war for Scottish independence in which Robert the Bruce won a significant victory against Edward II. Alex Salmond also intends that, in 2014, the Scots will have a referendum, "made, built and organised in Scotland", that gives the choice of full independence.
The article makes me consider the scenario should a state in USA seek to do the same?
What is the law on this issue, what are the consequences for the state seeking independence and the country as a whole?
It is a very interesting situation which I will be following closely in the coming months and years.
Sorry, I have to do this in two posts:
ReplyDeleteThreat of secession from the union has been thrown around by various political parties since the very beginning of the nation under our present Constitution, even involving the slavery issue during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the drafting of the Constitution. I can't remember off the top of my head right now, but if HBO's John Adams is correct in their depiction of the debates between John Dickinson and John Adams and his "Boston Insurrectionists," as Dickinson is shown to call them in the film, during the Second Continental Congress, John Dickinson threatened to break off from Boston in union and carry on the opposition to the British in their own way. But, I don't remember if Dickinson actually made this claim. If so, then this is the might possibly be the first threat of secession used in the early stages of the Revolution. And then of course there's the united colonies declaring their independence and secession from the English nation and government that spawned the very existence of the U.S. But it must be remembered that the 13 colonies, via the Continental Congress, did not just secede for light reasons or just for the heck of it. They laid out grievances, in the style of Lockean social compact theory and the English Bill of Rights, indicating why they were seceding and declaring independence and why it must be done. Thus, any declaration of independence from any of the states would require these reasons and list of grievances indicating why and justifying their independence. A state just deciding it wanted to secede and declare independence because it felt like it would not fly, in my mind.
Threat of secession was commonly used by the Federalists and Republicans during their disputes in 1790's and early 1800. And of course the Southern states actually did secede from the union and declare independence in the 1860's, thus sparking the Civil War.
But as to whether it is legal or not, according to U.S. constitutional law, no, it is not constitutionally lawful, according to the man-made U.S. Constitution. That was made clear during the Civil War. Lincoln would not allow the union to be broken up. Such an act by a state or states would be an act of rebellion against the U.S. and the Constitution, for it is the supreme law of the land. Such an act would be a revolution, in a way; but since when has any revolution been "lawful" according to the laws and governments of mankind? It remains a last resort, or a first principle, to be sure, when the government fails to take the public good as it's first and primary care, and when it actually begins to undermine the public good, and when no other ways of redressing grievances remain with the people but to rebel; but even in such a situation, when revolution and rebellion is deemed appropriate in the eyes of our Creator, when we appeal to Heaven, as the American colonists did, such a revolution or rebellion still remains illegal according to the current law of the land. What the American colonists did in declaring independence and war on Britain was not condoned by British law, even though the British had had their own revolutions just a mere century before. Revolutions and declarations of independence are never "legal" according to man-made law and government, for they are acts of treason against an established government. But, if guided by correct principles and actually justified and such justifications laid out, then revolutions and declarations of independence are justified according to natural law, the law of our Creator, and according to natural law's "first principles" or "revolution principles," and they can be justified in the eyes Heaven or God, if you will. Thus, in reality, what the Southern Confederacy did, in secession and declaring independence form the U.S., would have been "legal" in terms of natural law, the higher law, if it had been truly justified and reasonable grievances laid out for the separation. But it was not "legal," either by man-made law or natural law because it was not justified and it was done in opposition to the law of nature, to keep a portion of mankind enslaved, when nature has made all mankind free and independent from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteIf a state were to declare independence, it would be illegal according to man-made law and the government would have every right to seek to bring that state back into the union. But, it would also be "legal" according to natural law and its revolution principles, if and only if truly justified and outlined by a reasonable list of grievances explaining why independence was necessary, such as when the government begins to violate the rights of the people in a "long train of abuses" and seeks to destroy rather than uphold the good of the public.
Sorry, this was a long answer to a short question.
Like other cotton-growing and slaveholding states, Texas seceded from the Union in early 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America. We had a Civil War that determined that we have a Union of States. If Texas seceded again, I think Mexico would take back their land, so where would that leave the Federal Government in all that chaos.
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