Do
states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the
costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real
Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence
that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed
that states had a right of secession.
Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First
Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to
dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may
be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years
later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson
said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers
separation ... to a continuance in the union ... I have no hesitation in
saying, ‘Let us separate.'"
At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "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." In Federalist Paper 39,
James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the
people" meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to
ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one
entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to
which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign;
the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the
states.
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw
secession as a right of states. Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said,
"Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this
Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican
liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored
allowing the South to secede in peace.
Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of
the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If
tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not
see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons
from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19,
1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if
successful could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in
character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21,
1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of
letting the Gulf States go." DiLorenzo cites other editorials
expressing identical sentiments.
Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L.
Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic;
beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their
lives "to the cause of self-determination -- government of the
people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the
earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything
more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against
self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of
people to govern themselves."
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers
delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few
and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are
numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's
encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on
its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness
and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a
deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as
a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments.
They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington
tyranny.
email Jacq'