Requesting some advice on a question
I’m not sure if this is the right place to put this, but there’s a problem I can tell I’m biased on so I’m requesting some advice from people unlikely to be biased on it.
Legally, circa the time of the actual secessions leading to the creation of the C.S.A, was secession legal? As far as I can tell it was (the Supreme Court may have practical control but they aren’t infallible, and because of the Tenth Amendment), but I can tell I have biased emotions on the subject so I’m checking with people less likely to.
Would you mind explaining why you have biased emotions on the subject? It seems strange to me. Aside from being a 150-year-old conflict, the moral questions revolving around the Civil War seem like they pretty much swamp the legal questions. From the C.S.A’s perspective even if secession was illegal I would still expect them to do it given what they believed and would consider them justified if their beliefs and values were mine. Same goes for the North. The law seems like a minor player here.
Because I’m used to the idea from a lot of Internet arguments that such a secession was legal, and because I have a strong dislike for the Supreme Court for often (sometimes admittedly!) going so far from both the original intent and original wording of the Constitution.
These are admittedly both emotional biases, but they’re the truth of the matter.
Why?
An emotional dislike, which is itself irrational, for anybody breaking the rules. The root of that is most likely Aspergers Syndrome.
(Admittedly upon thought I realise there’s another influence I’m not sure if I can accurately asess of the fact my parents don’t like the Supreme Court because of Roe v.s Wade)
Questions of the form “Is it legal?” that appear hard are usually meaningless.
Even when they appear easy, they often conflate questions that have different answers.
Taboo “legal.” Why do you care?
More because I was in an argument on another website on the matter- I wanted to win, but it was more important I wasn’t deluding myself.
A bit of a side note, but “C.S.A.” isn’t an obvious acronym for a Frenchman like me, though I guessed what you were talking about from the context.
I’m an American and I had to pick that up from the context.
The U.S. Constitution says nothing at all about the issue of secession, and the question was controversial in the years before the Civil War. In retrospect, it seems crazy that states should form a union without specifying whether they’ll be allowed to secede from it, but this is what actually happened, with the worst imaginable consequences following eventually. (Though it should be noted that the main focal point of the antebellum constitutional controversies was the issue of nullification) rather than secession.)
Needless to say, the seceding Confederate states considered that the states’ right to secession was implicit in the U.S. Constitution, which was according to them an arrangement between sovereign states from which they reserved the right to withdraw at will. It’s notable that the Confederate Constitution was largely a literal copy of the U.S. one, and the Confederate secessionists made a point by refusing to add anything more about the issue of secession into it.
On the other hand, the ruling precedent in the U.S. constitutional law was set by the post-Civil War Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White. Unsurprisingly, the court ruled that the states have no right to secession, so that the Confederate States had legally remained part of the U.S. throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction, and all the acts of secession and the subsequent legal acts of the Confederacy were thus null and void.
Note that the EU had the comparable problems recently with the PIGS countries: “hmm, they’re on the Euro now and there’s no way to get them off it.” Much more amicable than the US’s experience (and the situation was reversed: wanting to eject someone rather than wanting to secede), but still unpleasant.
Citation needed, I think. I’m not aware that anyone wanted to eject any country, either from the euro or the EU. There were suggestions that it was in Greece’s interests to withdraw from the euro, devalue its currency, and then re-join at a later date, at a different exchange rate. But that would have been a de-facto default so that step, once taken, would have damaged the reputation of other eurozone sovereign debt.
German poll showing more than half of Germans wanted Greece kicked out of the EU, British editorial suggesting to kick them out. Sufficient?
Thanks. The unspoken model I had in mind was that there was no desire among member-state governments or in the EU commission to have Greece removed. I think this is a little closer to the original intent (the CSA secession was carried out by governments, after all). But apologies for not being clear and now, I suppose, moving the goalposts somewhat.
An act is illegal if the government punishes you for doing it.
In terms of what’s written down on paper, I don’t think it was mentioned at all, which implies legality. But, practically speaking, are governments really ever okay with part of their territory claiming they don’t have to pay taxes anymore? I suspect people in the southern states were aware of the answer.
Yes. The real answer turned out to be “right is whoever wins the war.”
Wikipedia:Secession in the UnitedStates has a pretty good overview for the uninformed (like me).
Interesting bit; Madison saying, at the time of the constitution:
… so the intent of the founders seemed to be, revolution ok (what they were doing), secession not ok.
Interesting stuff, if quite complex.
(edit) More, on how the actual secession of the southern states fit in :
I’m an American and I had to pick it up from context.