On Secession and Southern Independence
By Dr. Michael Hill
President, The League of the South
The voluntary union (or confederacy) of States known as the United
States was born of a secessionist movement against Great Britain,
and our Declaration of Independence is, at base, a secessionist
document. How, then, can secession legitimately be called "un-American?"
When our Founding Fathers broke the bonds of political association
with the British Empire in 1776, the former colonies became free
and independent States constituting thirteen separate communities,
each asserting its sovereignty. This state of affairs received confirmation
by both the Articles of Confederation (1778) and the Treaty of Paris
(1783). Thus Americans themselves, as well as their British foe,
acknowledged that each State was a separate and sovereign entity.
The sovereignty of the separate States is an important issue in
understanding exactly how the United States was formed under its
Constitution of 1787-88. When delegates from the States met in Philadelphia
in May 1787, they came as representatives selected by the people
(i.e. citizens) of their respective States. These delegates were
not given authority by the people of their States to make any binding
agreements, rather, they were only to discuss proposed changes to
the Articles of Confederation. Any changes to the Articles might
become effective only if they were ratified in convention by the
citizens of the separate States.
The result of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was , of course,
the U.S. Constitution. However, that document did not become binding
until nine of the thirteen States had ratified it for themselves.
That happened in 1788, and thus these nine States entered into a
compact (or contract) with each other. By doing so, they created
the political union known as the United States. The four States
that remained outside of this union for a time were not bound by
the compact. Eventually, though, all thirteen States united under
the Constitution.
It is important to note here that no State (or States ) could answer
for another State. Each State acceded to the compact by its own
sovereign will. Moreover, all of them understood that they might
secede from the compact by the same means by which they had acceded
to it, and that is by a convention of the citizens or their representatives.
Nowhere in the Constitution is it forbidden for a State to secede
from this voluntary union. In fact, the Tenth Amendment (contained
in the Bill of Rights of 1791) expressly confirms that "the
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constituition nor
prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people." The power to force a State against its will
to remain in the union is absent among the powers delegated to the
general (or federal ) government, therefore, the right of secession
is reserved to the States, or more precisely, to the people of the
States.
Some of the New England States actually threatened to secede several
times before 1860 (e.g. 1803, 1807, 1814, and 1844-45). At no time
did the Southern States deny them this right. However, when a number
of Southern States seceded in 1860-61, Lincoln and the Republican
Party went to war to prevent the South from exercising its Constitutional
right to secede. Simply put, Lincoln placed the forced unity of
the States above the Constitution itself, and this action set him
in opposition to the principles of the American Founders.
Lincoln’s "victory" in 1865 thus marked the end of true
Constitutional government in America. In its place he created an
"American Empire" that now defines the limits of its own
power without serious regard to the Constitution. Formerly free
and sovereign States have become little more than administrative
provinces of an all-powerful central government in Washington, DC.
Without the right of secession (which, by the way, the people of
the States still possess) we have no remedy for encroaching tyranny
on either a national or global scale. The New World Order is, after
all, the logical outworking of Lincoln’s assault on the South and
its guiding principle of State sovereignty. No people can be truly
free without the means of withdrawing from an illicit regime that
is destructive of life, liberty, and property. Our forebears in
1787-88 understood that at some time in the future their descendants
might find it necessary and profitable to dissolve the political
bonds that joined the States together in voluntary union. That time
came in 1860-61, and indeed it may be prudent again in the twenty-first
century if we are to be a free people.
Secession is nothing more than the assertion of the inalienable
right of a people to change their form of government whenever it
ceases to fulfill the purposes for which it was created. Under our
Constitution this should be a peaceful remedy. The decision of a
State or States to withdraw from a confederacy or league (and not
to overthrow it by rebellion) ought not be seen as a revolutionary
or insurrectionary act. To call the secession of a sovereign State
from a voluntary union an act of "treason" or "rebellion"
is sheer folly. Yet this is what most Americans –especially Southerners–have
been taught.
One of the most common criticisms that the League of the South
receives is that "secession is impractical and/or unattainable."
We agree that it certainly is both as long as the people of the
States remain ignorant of or apathetic toward the very practical
remedy to tyranny bequeathed us by our forefathers. The League’s
primary goal is to counter the lies and distortions that have lulled
people into a fatal misunderstanding of their condition and to bring
hope and encouragement in place of their despair. In doing so we
lay the foundation for a new Southern Confederacy. The people of
the States, though long languishing, indeed hold the weapon and
the legitimate power (sovereignty) to wield it against the current
tyranny. The only ingredient lacking is the will of the people to
wield it.
The League of the South, therefore, insists on the legitimacy of
the right of secession. May it be the will of God to favour our
honourable Cause.
© 2000 The League of the South
(800) 888-3163
