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                                   ESSAY NUMBER 3

                      The Constitution and Secession


                                        By Kenith Andry

The federal government is a creation of the states that formed the union. 
The(se) states were sovereign powers and each joined the new federal 
union, created by the Constitution, by way of ratifying conventions. 
The member states in the Federal union did not forfeit their sovereignty 
when they joined the new confederated republic. They joined as states 
and did not become provinces of the federal system they created. This 
was universally understood by the founders and the generation to follow.
State sovereignty was not challenged until the 1830's. It was about that 
time that a debate began as to the nature of the American system we 
received with the constitutional union. 

The South remained true to the founding principles. Her leaders were 
strict constructionists. Men such as Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph 
of Roanoake, John C. Calhoun, and Jefferson Davis had a clear 
understanding of the founding principles of the United States Constitution. 
Massachusetts' politicians began to deny those aspects of American 
political history that had been so widely and clearly understood. In our 
day the political leaders from Massachusetts are still at the forefront of 
distorting what little remains of true constitutional government in the 
United States, and they have plenty of help from all regions of the U.S. 

In 1776 thirteen colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia, seceded from 
the British Empire. There is a great misunderstanding about the reason 
for this important act of secession. The several colonies, in America, were 
related to Great Britain by a mutual king. The colonies were not subjects 
of Parliament and they were not governed internally by the legislature in 
London. They had their own legislative bodies and had governed 
themselves from the first half of the seventeenth century. The king was 
chief executive of each colony and he appointed the governors in them. 
He also had a veto over their legislation. George III was king of England, 
Scotland, Ireland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Delaware etc. The King had a 
compact with each of the individual colonies; no such agreement existed 
between the colonies and parliament. The Parliament in London had no 
sovereignty in the colonies; the colonists were subject to the king and 
elected their own representatives to the colonial governments. For the
British Parliament to tax any of the American colonies would not be much 
different than for New York to pass a tax on the people of Louisiana. They 
have no legal right to do so, and only cowards and fools would submit to 
such abuse of authority. 

For more than ten years there had been an on going dispute, because the 
legislature in London was trying to tax the people of the colonies. The 
Americans and several of Great Britain's leaders had over and over denied 
that body had the right or the authority to do such a thing. The cry "no 
taxation without representation" didn't mean the Americans wanted seats 
in the Parliament. Nothing could be further from the truth. It meant they 
had their own representatives in their own legislatures at home, and didn't 
want a foreign body trying to govern them in their own land. George III 
sided with the government in London, and by so doing broke his compact 
with the colonies. By acting in an arbitrary, despotic and illegal manner, he 
forfeited his right to rule over them. This first American secession was 
conservative. It was an attempt to preserve lawful government. Virginia
declared independence in June of 1776, then all thirteen colonies declared 
independence on the same day July 4, 1776. The Declaration Of Independence 
would have been issued two days earlier, but it had to wait on a couple of 
state delegations. They had not yet received authorization from their 
respective governments to go ahead with the act of secession. 

Though they acted together, each state acted as a sovereign nation. The 
Declaration is very clear at this point. It states that they had to "alter their 
former systems of government" because of the king's usurpation. The 
document continues: 

[T]hat these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND 
INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the 
British Crown, and that all political connections between them and the state 
of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and 
Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,
which Independent States may of right do. 

Notice that these are independent states. Each saw itself as a separate 
nation allied with its sister states in a struggle with a common enemy. The 
colonies were only united in their desire to be free of a king that was 
attempting to destroy their constitutional liberties. The Articles of 
Confederation, which was agreed to by the thirteen states, created the first 
United States government. It existed from 1781 until 1789. 

The states as nations did not disappear; they were jealous to maintain their 
individual identities. The Articles put it this way: 

Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every 
Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly 
delegated to the United States, in congress assembled. 

A confederation is when nations unite together in a common purpose. Mutual 
defense and trade are common reasons for the creation of such systems. The 
nations in confederation agree to delegate some of their authority to the 
confederated or federal government to do its limited task. The nations involved 
retain all of their sovereignty that they have not delegated. 

The end of hostilities with Great Britain came after the United States had been 
formed, yet in the treaty, the United States is recognized as being comprised of 
independent governments. It reads like this: 

His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, vis. New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia to be free, sovereign and independent states, that he 
treats them as such. 

Again it's very important that the British crown did not make peace with a single 
nation called the United States, but with the thirteen states, negotiating for peace 
with a common enemy, through their confederation government. The treaty 
recognizes each state as free, sovereign, and independent. Each is acknowledged 
to be a nation in its own right. This is an important point to remember because 
the sophist, like Joseph Story and Abe Lincoln, would later claim that the United 
States existed as a single nation from as early as the Declaration of Independence 
and even before. 

This claim is the foundation stone of their argument and it is in absolute contrast 
to documented history. A convention of the states was called to revise the 
Articles Of Confederation, because of problems in the confederacy. At the 
convention in Philadelphia, George Washington was elected to preside over the 
assembly. After a very long and difficult period the men meeting in Philadelphia 
proposed that a new government be formed under the Constitution they had 
formulated. This Constitution was sent to the United States congress and they 
passed it on to the states for their approval or rejection. Each state called its own 
convention to decide if it would accept the new Constitution or not. 

Today most Americans see the Constitution as one of the greatest political 
documents ever produced. This was not the case when it was sent to the states 
for their consideration. The people in the states split over the matter, and a great 
debate ensued. The debate over the Constitution is well documented. It took place 
in the newspapers and at the several conventions. Those urging approval of the 
new federal system were called Federalists. They believed that the Constitution 
would produce a better union than the Articles of Confederation had. The new 
confederate or federal (the two words are interchangeable) union was so
constructed that, while it did produce a more vigorous federal government, it 
could not usurp the power and sovereignty from the states. The new government 
would pose only "expressed powers" spelled out in a written document. It could 
be, and would be, safely contained within those constitutional limits. 

The new Government would be, as James Madison said, "bound by the chains of 
the Constitution". 

Their were great men supporting the new constitution; George Washington, 
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Light Horse Harry Lee (Gen. Robert E. Lee's 
father); are some of its champions. 

Their rivals tagged the opponents of the new proposed government as 
"antifederalists". This group also includes many great Americans. It includes men 
like Patrick Henry, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Richard Henry 
Lee, and James Mason. These men had much in common with the Federalists. Most 
of the contenders on both sides wanted to maintain a confederated union of sovereign 
states. Each side argued their position was the best way to sustain such a union and 
that the opponent's position was flawed and would be, in the long run, destructive to 
the union. The antifederalists charged that the proposed Constitution would lead to 
a strong central ("consolidated") government that would steal the sovereignty of the 
states. They believed that the new government would grow into a monster that would 
destroy freedom and Independence of the states.

The Antifederalists had the upper hand. The Federalists proposed a compromise, 
which won over just enough of their adversaries to get ratification in eleven states. 
The compromise was to amend the new constitution with a bill of rights. The Bill
Of Rights would further bind the federal government from trampling the rights of the 
people and the states. The Bill Of Rights was understood to grant individuals and 
states nothing; its purpose was to further bind and control a very small and limited
federal government. 

The people were concerned for their state sovereignty and had a strong, and I would 
add healthy, distrust of large or remote governments. Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, 
was one of the Antifederalists won over by the compromise. He said this of the new 
union "That each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every 
power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to 
the United States " The People of South Carolina clarified what they understood when 
they ratified the Constitution. This is part of their declaration "This Convention doth 
declare that no section or paragraph of the said Constitution warrants a construction 
that the states do not retain every power not expressly relinquished by them and vested 
in the general government of the Union." Virginia, when she reluctantly, and narrowly, 
approved the new government, made clear that secession was an option if the central 
government misused its power. 

We, the Delegates of the people of Virginia Do, in the name and behalf of the people of 
Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, 
being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them,
whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every 
power granted thereby remains with them, and at their will. 

Each state as it adopted the new system of government left the old Union and joined 
the new one. Adoption of the Constitution meant secession from the United States 
under the Articles of Confederation. The old Union was made up of thirteen states; the
new Union began with eleven states. North Carolina had not voted to ratify, and Rhode 
Island had not even bothered to call a convention. These two states were foreign 
countries when George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the
United States on 30 April 1789 and were treated as such by the new government. Those 
who try to prove that the United States was formed as a single nation, at an earlier date, 
tend to ignore this fact. 

North Carolina ratified the Constitution and joined the union six months after 
Washington had taken the oath of office. Rhode Island joined the union a full thirteen 
months after Washington had become president. She was accepted into the union, 
though her ratifying convention made clear that she too believed she retained her 
sovereignty, and could recall all powers delegated to the federal government. The 
folks in Rhode Island believed they could secede from the new union if they chose to. 
The United States accepted those states that held to they had the right to secede 
from the "new Confederacy". Their view of secession was not challenged when they 
joined the union. Another very important part of the Articles of Confederation was 
dropped from the Constitution. The United States union that began and ended in the 
1780's had been declared a "perpetual union" in the Articles of Confederation. Though 
many aspects of the Articles had been carried over into the new union, the words 
"perpetual union" are conspicuous by their absence from the new union's covenant 
document. Thomas Jefferson was fearful that there might be a "separation" as early as 
1790. He, like every American believed the union vital, but he did not doubt a state's 
right to leave the union if it decided to do so. Jefferson said in a letter written in 1802
that he believed that the United States, in and of itself, had no inherent sovereign 
power. That power was retained by the states. He was not alone in this view. In 
Lonsdale versus Brown, an 1821 Pennsylvania court case, the following verdict was 
rendered. "[F]or though they form a Confederated Government, yet the several states 
retain their individual sovereignties, and with respect to their municipal laws, are to 
each other foreign." 

William Rawle, who was appointed United States attorney for Pennsylvania in 1791 
by George Washington, wrote an important study on United States government. His 
book was in use at West Point when men such as Robert E. Lee attended the U. S. 
military academy. The Rawle's textbook says this about secession: "The secession 
of a state from the union depends on the will of the people of such state." He adds, 
"It depends on the State itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To 
deny this right, would be inconsistent with the principles on which all our political 
systems are founded; which is, the people have, in all cases, a right to determine 
how they will be governed." Rawle does not treat secession lightly; he says "To 
withdraw from the union is a solemn and serious act", yet states retain the right to 
do so. 

The hot bed of anti Southern feelings in the North was New England, and it was 
this region that attacked Southern secession so vehemently. It is ironic that this 
very region had threatened secession over and over again, and had done so as late 
as the 1840's. There were calls for New England to secede in 1803 because of the 
Louisiana Purchase, 1814 because of the War of 1812 (which was unpopular in 
that region), and 1843 because of the acceptance of the Republic of Texas into 
the union. The New Englanders that made war on the South during the War for 
Southern Independence had a very short and selective memory. 

Abraham Lincoln, who had supported the right of secession while in congress, 
took the oath of office, as president, determined to do all that was necessary to 
nullify the secession of South Carolina, Georgia and the gulf states. The question 
of legality and constitutionality would not play a part in his decision to make war 
on the seceded states. Lincoln's willingness to totally disregard the Covenant 
document of the "sacred union" drove four of the border states to the side of the 
Southern Confederacy. He prevented the secession of other border states by the 
use of martial law, which he had no legal authority to impose. Lincoln's utter 
disregard for the provisions of the Constitution are well documented, but little 
known today. His despotic acts not only overthrew the constitutional governments 
of the South, he overthrew the constitutional republic of republics of the North and
South. It's for this reason that Washington D.C. is now an imperial capitol and no 
longer the seat of federal government handed down by the founding fathers. 

We must remember the constitutional liberties {that} our ancestors fought for in 
two wars for independence. Alexander H. Stevens, who had been vice president 
of the Confederacy, spoke wisely and his words need to be remembered by a new
generation of Southerners. He said "The Cause which was lost by the surrender 
of the Confederates, was only the maintenance of this Principle by arms. It was not 
the Principle itself that they abandoned." We too must remember the principle for 
which our ancestors spilt so much of their blood. We need a return to limited 
constitutional government. A confederacy of sovereign states is what we were 
given by the first act of secession. A confederacy of sovereign states is what was 
lost in both North and South when the Southern states were forced back into the 
union by grapeshot and the bayonet.