THE SOUTHERN
SIDE OF THE CIVIL WAR:
FACTS YOUR
HISTORY TEACHER MAY NOT HAVE MENTIONED
ABOUT THE
WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
Fourth
Edition
Michael T.
Griffith
2007
@All Rights
Reserved
Soon after I began to study the Civil War,
I realized that much of what I had been taught about it in school was either
wrong or incomplete. It has been said that history is written by the victors.
This is especially true when it comes to the Civil War. The Southern viewpoint
is rarely presented fairly in our public schools and textbooks today. I believe it is important that we as
Americans know the whole truth about the Civil War. The purpose of this article
is to present the Southern side of the story.
The following basic facts are undisputed:
The seven states of the
The version of the Civil War that’s taught in nearly all textbooks goes something like this: “The only reason the South wanted to leave the
We will consider twelve issues relating to
the Civil War: Why Did the South Secede?
Did the South Have the Right to Secede?
What Caused the War? Who Started
the War? The Emancipation Proclamation.
Republicans, the North, and Racism. Was
the War Fought Over Slavery? What
Happened at
Why Did the South Secede?
Before we examine why the South seceded,
perhaps we should first consider why a majority of Northern leaders opposed
secession to the point of using force against the South. In other words, why did Lincoln and most other
Republican leaders refuse to allow the South to go in peace? Did they oppose secession because of
slavery? No, they did not. In fact, most people aren’t aware that, even as president,
Most Republicans who opposed secession
said they opposed it because they believed it was unconstitutional. In their view, no state had the right to
leave the
There is considerable evidence that many
Republican leaders opposed secession and eventually supported waging war on the
South in large part because of economic considerations. Numerous Republicans, including
Without the strong support from the Wall
Street class and the merchants and men of commerce, especially in
Most of the merchants were not for
provoking war, and many admitted that the government had no right to coerce a
state to remain in the
By the end of March, the whole Northern
world had changed, with the businessmen and newspapers leading the way. Whenever the historian reads Northern
newspapers and articles that favor secession, or just tolerate it as a
constitutional right, it is important to look at the date on the article. For by late March the business circles saw
clearly that slavery was a nonissue for them—the tariff was the issue. . . .
In early March, even before
On 18 March 1861, the Philadelphia
Press demanded war: “Blockade Southern Ports,” said the
Press. If not, “a series of custom houses will be required on the vast inland
border from the Atlantic to
The economic editor of the New York
Times changed his tune in late March.
For months he had written that secession would not injure Northern
commerce and prosperity. . . . But on
22-23 March 1861, he reversed himself with a vengeance: “At once shut down every
Southern port, destroy its commerce and
bring utter ruin on the Confederate States”. . . .
Perhaps the most intriguing development
occurred in late March when the two tariffs stood side by side. Over a hundred leading commercial importers
in
At the very end of March, at the very
time
Rather than lower the high federal tariff
and embrace free trade, most Republican leaders decided they could not allow
the South to go in peace. It seems
apparent that economic concerns played a major role, if not the decisive role, in
their decision to violently oppose secession.
Now that we’ve considered why Republican leaders opposed secession, let’s discuss why the South
seceded.
Nearly all textbooks give the impression that the South withdrew from
the
But secession,
As mentioned previously, even as
president,
Most Southern leaders who advocated
secession in order to protect slavery did so because they feared that
Republican leaders would try to abolish slavery by unconstitutional means and
that Southern slaveholders would not receive any compensation for their
slaves. Southern spokesmen felt this
would be unfair, since Northern slaveholders had been able to receive various
forms of compensation for their slaves when most Northern states had abolished
slavery several decades earlier. They
knew that emancipation without compensation would do great damage to the
Southern economy.
Critics note that many Southern statesmen
voiced the view that slavery was a “positive good.” Yet, even the “positive good” advocates acknowledged that slavery had its evils and
abuses. In fact, most Southerners rejected
the arguments of the extreme defenders of slavery (John Garraty, The
American Nation, Volume 1: A History of the United States to 1877, Third
Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1975, p. 363). There were plenty of Southerners who were
willing to see slavery abolished in a fair, gradual manner, as had been done in
most Northern states. After all, 69-75 percent
of Southern families did not own slaves.
However, few Southerners believed the Republicans were interested in a
fair, gradual emancipation program. The
more extreme Republicans, who were known as “Radical Republicans,” certainly weren’t
interested in such a program.
Few people today understand why the South
distrusted the Republican Party. Not
only was the Republican Party a new party, it was also the first purely
regional (or sectional) party in the country’s history. Republican leaders frequently
gave inflammatory anti-Southern speeches, some of which included egregious falsehoods
and even threats (Susan-Mary Grant, North
Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era,
Southerners were alarmed when dozens of
Republican congressmen endorsed an advertisement for Hinton Helper’s book The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke
approvingly of a potential slave revolt that would kill untold numbers of
Southern citizens in a “barbarous massacre.” The
Republican Party even distributed an abridged edition of the book as a campaign
document, and Republican editors added captions like “The Stupid Masses of the
South” and “Revolution . . .
Violently If We Must.”
Southerners also noticed that the
Republicans broke the long-established tradition of having a sectionally
balanced presidential ticket. For
decades, the major political parties had almost always nominated tickets that
consisted of one candidate from the North and one from the South. If nothing else, the major parties had always
nominated tickets that appealed to more than just one part of the country. Each of the three other parties in the 1860
election nominated sectionally diverse tickets, but not the Republican
Party. Another reason that Southerners
were worried about the Republicans was that the party’s leaders made it clear
they would push for several policies that
the South believed were harmful and unconstitutional, such as a high
protectionist tariff that favored Northern commerce, federal spending on “internal improvements,”
and a significant expansion of the size
and power of the federal government.
Many Southerners feared that Republican leaders were determined to
subjugate and exploit the South by any means.
With these facts in mind, perhaps it’s not
hard to understand why the election of
One factor that led many Southern citizens
to support secession was the fear that some abolitionists were determined to
carry out armed attempts to incite slave insurrections in the Southern
states. This fear became widespread when
a violent Northern abolitionist named John Brown led an armed raid on the
arsenal at Harper’s Ferry,
A solid majority of Northern citizens
condemned Brown’s
actions, but a vocal minority did not. When Brown was put on trial after his
capture, some predominantly Republican towns in the North held public meetings
to glorify him and to defend his conduct.
When Brown was executed, numerous abolitionist churches across the North
rang their bells and held memorial ceremonies in Brown’s honor. Most
Americans, in all parts of the country, disapproved of what Brown had
done. However, Southerners
understandably were alarmed by the support that was expressed for Brown by a
vocal and influential minority in the North.
They were also disturbed by the fact that virtually nothing was done to
Brown’s
Northern backers. As a result of Brown’s raid, many Southerners began to fear that Northern abolitionists were going
to carry out more armed attempts to incite slave insurrections in the
South. Brown’s attack caused a good
number of Southern citizens who had
previously opposed secession to change their minds.
As stated above, slavery was not the only
factor that led to secession. If one
reads the Declarations of Causes of Secession and the Ordinances of Secession
that were issued by the first seven states of the Confederacy, one finds that
there were several reasons these states wanted to be independent, and that some
of the reasons had nothing to do with slavery.
For example, the Georgia and Texas Declarations of Causes of Secession
included economic complaints, in addition to concerns relating to slavery. The
They [the Northern states] have
impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation,
thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
The
The material prosperity of the North was
greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In
the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing
interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense
of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and
obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and
$500,000 [about $8.5 million in today’s dollars] is
now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for
protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting
trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute
monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without
diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages,
they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as
possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of
light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and
the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually [about $34 million today] for
the support of these objects. These interests, in connection with the
commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of
subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their
business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually [about $119 million
today], throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal
deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early,
and have clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors.
Eleven years earlier, Senator John Calhoun
of
Had this destruction [of the balance
between the Northern and Southern states] been the operation of time without
the interference of government, the South would have had no reason to complain;
but such was not the fact. It was caused by the legislation of this government,
which was appointed as the common agent of all and charged with the protection
of the interests and security of all.
The legislation by which it has been
effected may be classed under three heads: The first is that series of acts by
which the South has been excluded from the common territory belonging to all
the States as members of the federal Union--which have had the effect of
extending vastly the portion allotted to the Northern section, and restricting
within narrow limits the portion left the South. The next consists in adopting
a system of revenue and disbursements by which an undue proportion of the burden
of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its
proceeds appropriated to the North. And the last is a system of political
measures by which the original character of the government has been radically
changed. . . .
I have not included the territory
recently acquired by the treaty with
The next is the system of revenue and
disbursements which has been adopted by the government. It is well known that
the government has derived its revenue mainly from duties on imports. I shall
not undertake to show that such duties must necessarily fall mainly on the
exporting States, and that the South, as the great exporting portion of the
Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue;
because I deem it unnecessary, as the subject has on so many occasions been
fully discussed. Nor shall I, for the same reason, undertake to show that a far
greater portion of the revenue has been disbursed in the North, than its due
share; and that the joint effect of these causes has been to transfer a vast
amount from South to North, which, under an equal system of revenue and
disbursements, would not have been lost to her. If to this be added that many
of the duties were imposed, not for revenue but for protection--that is,
intended to put money, not in the Treasury, but directly into the pocket of the
manufacturers--some conception may be formed of the immense amount which in the
long course of sixty years has been transferred from South to North. (Calhoun,
speech to the U.S. Senate on the Henry Clay compromise measures, March 4, 1850)
The South’s long-standing opposition to the federal tariff was a factor that led to
secession. The South’s concern over the tariff
was nothing new.
The South had valid complaints about the
tariff.
The high tariff in the North compelled
the Southern states to pay tribute to the North, either in taxes to fatten
Republican coffers or in the inflated prices that had to be paid for Northern
goods. Besides being unfair, this
violated the uniformity command of the Constitution by having the South pay an
undue proportion of the national revenue, which was expended more in the North
than in the South. . . . (When In the
Course of Human Events, p. 26)
Economist Frank Taussig, one of the foremost
authorities on the tariff, acknowledged that the tariff fell “with particular weight” on the South:
The Southern members, who were almost to
a man supporters of
Steven Weisman, in his study of the role
that taxation has played in American history, notes that Northern economic
exploitation of the South, particularly in the form of the tariff, was a major
concern to Southerners:
The tariff would effectively raise prices
on clothing, farm equipment and many other everyday necessities. Farmers in the South . . . squeezed by these
high prices and struggling to sell their own farm products abroad, protested
the high tariff. . . .
These were some of the factors that
thrust
The new [Confederate] president,
Jefferson Davis, had been a hero of the Mexican War, a former Secretary of War
to President Franklin Pierce, and a respected champion of the South as senator
from
There was a great deal of evidence to
support
From the perspective of the South, the
North’s
economy rested on a kind of state
capitalism of trade barriers, government-sponsored railroads, coddling of
trusts, suppression of labor and public investment in canals, roads and other
infrastructures. Southern slave owners
sought . . . to secure free trade, overseas markets and cheaper imports. Southern resentment of the tariff system
propelled the Democratic Party to define itself as the main challenger to the
primacy of the industrialist and capitalist overlords of the system. (The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to
Wilson--The Fierce Battles Over Money and Power that Transformed the Nation,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, pp. 21-22, 52)
Weisman notes that even when
As
Weisman also points out that the
Confederate Constitution’s prohibition against protective
tariffs and government favoritism toward particular businesses was based on the
South’s
desire to avoid the Union practice of
favoring certain industries. Under the
Confederate Constitution, says Weisman,
State legislatures were given the right
to overrule . . . [officials of the national Confederate government] on certain
issues, and taxes and tariffs “designed to promote or foster
any branch of industry” were barred, as were public expenditures to benefit a particular section of the populace. These clauses were a residue of the South’s desire to avoid the
Union practice of showering largesse on
certain industries. (The Great Tax Wars, p. 65)
Jeffrey R. Hummel, a professor of
economics and history, notes the negative impact of the tariff on the Southern
states and concedes that Southern complaints about the tariff were justified:
Despite a steady decline in import
duties, tariffs fell disproportionately on Southerners, reducing their income
from cotton production by at least 10 percent just before the Civil War. . . .
At least with respect to the tariff’s adverse impact,
Southerners were not only absolutely
correct but displayed a sophisticated understanding of economics. . . . The tariff was inefficient; it not only
redistributed wealth from farmers and planters to manufacturers and laborers
but overall made the country poorer. (Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free
Men: A History of the American Civil War, Chicago: Open Court, 1996, pp.
39-40, 73)
Economists Mark Thornton and Robert
Ekelund explain why the tariff was such an important issue to the South:
The South was basically an agrarian
economy. This input-producing region’s major crops were
tobacco, rice, and cotton, with much of
the latter intended for export or for the textile mills of the North. Southerners had to earn their revenue to buy
finished goods from the North and from abroad through the export of raw
materials. Since tariffs on finished
goods, such as textiles and luxuries, and on capital goods, such as machinery,
raised the prices paid by Southerners, they believed correctly that the “terms of trade” were set against them by high protectionist
tariffs.
Thus, from the earliest days of the nation, the tariff issue was
paramount to Southerners. (Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics
of the Civil War, Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2004, p.
16)
Civil War scholar Webb Garrison, a former
associate dean of
Long before Charlestonians began taking
over forts, the U.S. Customs Service and the tariff system had angered the
South. Tariffs on imported goods served
to protect the industrialized North and boosted the cost of manufactured goods
in the agricultural South.
Such sectional differences had surfaced
while the
When the seceded states merged to form
the Confederate States of
Historians William and Bruce Catton
summarized the economic case that Southern leaders put forth in favor of
secession:
On the economic front, long-standing Southern
grievances against Northern financial and commercial exploitation, Northern
high-tariff policies, Northern monopoly of the coastwise trade, and similar
items, were contrasted to the bright future that awaited an independent South,
secure and prosperous on a foundation of cotton, free trade, and an
inexhaustible European market with no Northern middlemen to siphon off the
profits. (Two Roads to Sumter: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and the
March to Civil War, Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 2004, reprint of
original edition, p. 251)
A major point of contention between the
North and the South was the issue of the size and power of the federal
government as defined by the Constitution.
As mentioned earlier, Republican leaders supported a loose reading of
the Constitution and wanted to expand the size and scope of the federal
government, even if that meant giving the government powers that were not
authorized by the Constitution. Among
other things, they advocated government subsidies for certain big businesses,
federal control of the banking system, a high protectionist tariff, and massive
public works projects (called “internal improvements”). Most Southern statesmen opposed these
policies and instead favored a strict reading of the Constitution. They believed the federal government should
perform only those functions that were expressly delegated to it by the
Constitution. From the earliest days of
the republic, Southern and Northern leaders frequently battled over this
issue. A recent study that abundantly
documents this fact is John Ferling’s book Adams
vs.
Four of the eleven Southern states did not
join in the first wave of secession and did not secede over slavery. Those four states—Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia—only seceded months later
when Lincoln made it clear he was going
to launch an invasion. In fact, those
states initially voted against secession by fairly sizable
majorities. However, they believed the
Virtually no history textbooks mention the
fact that each Confederate state retained the right to abolish slavery within
its borders, and that the Confederate Constitution permitted the admission of
All states reserved the right to abolish
slavery in their domains, and new states could be admitted without slavery if
two-thirds of the existing states agreed—the idea being that the tier of
Before we move on to the issue of the
right of secession, it should be noted that Southern fears about Republican
policies were soon proven valid. When
the Republicans gained control of the federal government, they started
Tariffs were the centerpiece of
Republican policy. They . . .
implemented the Morrill Tariff Bill in 1862, which raised the level of the tax
on imports from roughly 20 percent to 50 percent, where it remained for the rest
of the century. . . .
Banking, particularly in the South, was
harmed as a result of the war. The
imperfect system of free banking and state-chartered banking was replaced with
a system of national banks. As Robert
Sharkey noted, “the
seeds of decay had been planted. The National Banking System, with its yet
unsuspected exploitative potentialities, had been established.” As a result,
big business had better access to the money market, and small business was
virtually shut out. Sharkey lamented, “Is it any wonder that the true advocates of free non-corporate
enterprise such as Henry Carey screamed so unrestrainedly at what they called
the ‘money
monopolists’ of
The defeat of the Confederacy was an
ideological downfall for the cause of anti-Federalist, Jeffersonian, and
Jacksonian traditions of small, limited government. . . . (Tariffs,
Blockades, and Inflation, pp. 87, 89, 98-99)
Ekelund comments on the Republicans’ big-government policies in an article he wrote for
the Ludwig Von Mises Institute’s website:
The Republican
Party that emerged in the 1850s was an amalgamation of historical influences,
third parties, and interest groups. One group that entered the Republican Party
was the Free Soil Party, whose primary platform was free land and subsidies for
farmers. In contrast, most Democrats favored selling off the public lands to
finance government expenditures, keep tariff rates low, and prevent deficit
spending. . . .
The ambitious economic agenda of the
Republican Party had its roots in the economic platforms of Federalist icon
Alexander Hamilton and Whig leader Henry Clay. They advocated protective
tariffs for industry, a national bank, and plenty of public works and patronage.
The flurry of new laws, regulations, and bureaucracies created by Lincoln and
the Republican Party during the early 1860s foreshadowed Franklin Roosevelt's
"New Deal" for the volume, scope and questionable constitutionality
of its legislative output.
In fact, the term "New Deal"
was actually coined in March of 1865 by a newspaper editor in
Protectionism was a high priority of the early
Republican Party. They quickly enacted the Morrill Tariff, which raised tariff
rates to extremely high levels, and their extreme protectionism continued
throughout the era of Republican dominance.
There is really little debate that these
Republicans were the primary proponents of protectionism, particularly in the
areas of steel and textiles. . . .
In the area of deficit spending and the
national debt, the early Republicans . . . produced large deficits and national
debt. Pre-Civil War Democrats had worked effectively to eliminate the national
debt and to close the national banks. (“The Awful Truth About Republicans,” Ludwig Von Mises Institute, March 25, 2004, http://www.mises.org/story/1476)
Ekelund goes on to discuss some of the
harmful results of the Republicans’ banking and monetary policies:
In their early
years they [the Republicans] nationalized money and banking, a policy that
helped big-city banks at the expense of the common citizen, particularly in the
South and West. As Robert Sharkey noted:
“As the National Banking System took shape after
the war, it was apparent that human ingenuity would have had difficulty
contriving a more perfect engine for class and sectional exploitation:
Creditors finally obtaining the upper hand as opposed to debtors, and the
developed East holding the whip over the undeveloped West and South. This
tipping of the class and sectional balance of power was, in my opinion, the
momentous change over the twenty-three-year period, 1850-1873.” ["Commercial
Banking," in Economic Change in the
Civil War Era: Proceedings of a Conference on American Economic Institutional
Change, 1850-1873, and the Impact of the Civil War, Greenville, Delaware: Eleutherian
Mills-Hagley Foundation, 1965, p. 27, original emphasis.]
Looking at the
consequences of this legislation, leading monetary economists concluded:
“The provision of the Acts of 1863 and 1865 that
established the national banking system were designed to remedy two perceived
defects of the antebellum state banking system. . . . Unfortunately, the
remedies did not work as intended by the architects of the national banking
system. Instead, the system was characterized by monetary and cyclical
instability, four banking panics, frequent stock market crashes, and other
financial disturbances." [Michael D. Bordo, Peter Rappoport, and Anna J.
Schwartz, "Money versus Credit Rationing: Evidence for the National
Banking Era, 1880-1914," in Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century
American Economic Growth, edited by Claudia Goldin and Hugh Rockoff,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 189-223.] (Ekelund, “The
Awful Truth
About Republicans”)
Did the South Have the Right to Secede?
I believe the evidence is clear that the
South had the right to secede. None
other than Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Union army for much
of the Civil War and later a president of the United States, admitted he
believed that if any of the original thirteen states had wanted to secede in
the early days of the Union, it was unlikely the other states would have
challenged that state’s “right” to do so. Grant also conceded that he believed the
founding fathers would have sanctioned the right of secession rather than see a
war “between brothers.” Said Grant,
If there had been a desire on the part of
any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of
States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have
been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have
been regretted. . . .
If they [the founding fathers] had
foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a
State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between
brothers. (The Personal Memoirs Of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook,
Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint of original edition, pp.
130-131)
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of
When the Constitution was adopted by the
votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular
conventions, it is safe to say there was no man in this country, from
Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on
the other, who regarded our system of Government, when first adopted, as
anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and
every State had the right to peaceably withdraw, a right which was very likely
to be exercised. (Henry Cabot Lodge, Daniel Webster, Boston,
Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1899, p. 176)
Union general Thomas Ewing acknowledged
that the founding fathers did not address the issue of secession in the
Constitution--he believed the war settled the question:
The North . . .
recognizes the fact that the proximate cause of the war was the constitutional
question of the right of secession -- a question which, until it was settled by
the war, had neither a right side nor a wrong side to it. Our forefathers in framing the Constitution
purposely left the question unsettled; to have settled it distinctly in the
Constitution would have been to prevent the formation of the
British historian Goldwin Smith argued that
the history of the
Few who have
looked into the history can doubt that the Union originally was, and was generally
taken by the parties to it to be, a compact; dissoluble, perhaps most of them
would have said, at pleasure, dissoluble certainly on breach of the articles of
There is nothing in the Constitution that
prohibits a state from peacefully and democratically separating from the
The powers
not delegated to the
The Constitution does not give the federal
government the power to force a state to remain in the
This view is strengthened by the fact that
several of the states specified in their constitution or in their ratification
ordinance that they should retain all rights and powers that were not expressly
granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. For example,
We, the
delegates of the people of the state of
That the
powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become
necessary to their happiness. That the rights of the states respectively to
nominate and appoint all state officers, and every other power, jurisdiction,
and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the
Congress of the United States, or to the departments of government thereof,
remain to the people of the several states, or their respective state
governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in
the Constitution which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain
powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the
said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed as exceptions to
certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution. . . . The
. . . all
powers not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to
the several states, to be by them exercised. (
The people of this commonwealth have the sole
and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and
independent State, and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy
every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by
them expressly delegated to the United States of America in Congress assembled.
(Constitution of the
We, the
delegates of the people of the state of
That the
powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become
necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which
is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United
States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of
the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may
have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which
declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply
that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but
such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified
powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution. (
In
Convention of the people of the state of
This
Convention doth also 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
We the
Delegates 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 not granted thereby remains
with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination, can
be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified, by the Congress, by the Senate
or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President or any
department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which
power is given by the Constitution for those purposes. . . .
That each
state in the union shall respectively retain every power, jurisdiction and
right, which is not by this constitution delegated to the Congress of the
United States, or to the departments of the Foederal Government. (
If the founding fathers had intended
ratification to be irrevocable, surely they would have said so at least once in
the Constitution. If they had intended
the federal government to have the power to use force to compel a state to
remain in the
Critics of the Confederacy maintain that
certain clauses in the Constitution prohibit secession, even though not one of
those clauses mentions the subject. They
point out, for example, that the Constitution prohibits states from entering
into treaties with foreign powers. They
place particular emphasis on the Supremacy Clause, which reads as follows:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the
United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made,
or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the
supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding. (Article 6, Paragraph 2)
However, it goes without saying that this
clause and the clauses regarding state relations with foreign governments only
apply to states that are in the
Imagine the following scenario: Suppose
you joined an association. The association’s constitution said that when you became a member,
you agreed to be bound by the association’s constitution and by all association rules that did not
violate that constitution. But, the
constitution did not say you could never leave the association. Nor did it say your membership was
irrevocable or permanent. Nor did it say
you needed the permission of other members before you could leave. It didn’t even say the association itself was permanent. After belonging to the association for a
time, you decided you no longer wanted to be a member. You were willing to pay your share of the
association’s debt and
wanted to maintain good relations with it.
How would you feel if the association attempted to force you to remain a
member against your will, with the argument, "Sorry, you can't leave the
association because then you'll no longer be bound by our constitution and
rules"? Most people would view that argument as specious and unfair,
if not dictatorial.
If the
Lincoln and previous nationalists, such as
Joseph Story, John Marshall, and Daniel Webster, argued that the Constitution
was ratified by “We the people” acting as “one people,” i.e., by the people acting as a whole, and that therefore no state or
group of states could leave the Union.
But the Constitution was not ratified in this manner. In the original understanding of the
sovereignty of the people, the people were sovereign only as citizens of their
respective states, not as a whole. This
original understanding of the people’s
sovereignty can be seen in the fact that the Constitution was ratified by the
people in their capacity as citizens of their respective states. It was not ratified by the people acting as “one people.” The
ratification decision of one state’s citizens was not binding on the citizens of other states. The citizens of each state were free to
accept or reject the Constitution, regardless of the decision of the citizens
in other states. Founding father James
Madison, often called “the father of the Constitution,” repeatedly explained that the people were sovereign, not as one
mass, but as citizens of the various states:
. . . this assent and ratification is to
be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as
composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively
belong. (Federalist Paper Number 39)
In arguing for
Give me leave
to say something of the nature of the government. . . .
Who are the
parties to it? The people--not the people as composing one great body,
but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
Were it, as the
gentleman asserts, a consolidated government, the assent of a majority of the
people would be sufficient for its establishment: and as a majority have
adopted it already, the remaining States would be bound by the act of the
majority, even if they unanimously reprobated it. (Speech to the Convention of
In his old age,
It is fortunate when disputed theories,
can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the
Constitution was made by the people, but as embodied into the several States,
who were parties to it; and therefore made by the States in their highest
authoritative capacity. (Letter from James Madison to Daniel Webster, March 15,
1833)
In his highly acclaimed book on the
formation of the federal Union, E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the
In an ultimate sense, the Constitution
confirmed the proposition that original power resided in the people—not, however, in the
people as a whole, but in them in their
capacity as people of the several states.
In 1787 the people were so divided because, having created or acquiesced
in the creation of state governments, they were bound by prior contracts. They could create more local or more general
governments, but only by agreeing, in their capacity as people of the several
states, to relocate power previously lodged with the state governments. All powers not thus relocated, and not
reserved by the people in explicit state constitutional limitations, remained
in the state governments. In short,
national or local governments, being the creatures of the states, could
exercise only those powers explicitly or implicitly given them by the states;
each state government could exercise all powers unless it was forbidden from
doing so by the people of the state. But
in the Constitution the states went a step further, and expressly denied to
themselves the exercise of certain powers, such as those of interfering with
the obligations of private contracts, passing ex post facto laws, and refusing
to honor the laws of other states. This
is the essence of the American federal system. . . .
There was . . . one cardinal difference
between
In other words, “the people” were not, in
any part of the multilevel government, allowed to act as the whole people.
Instead, for purposes of expressing their will they were separated from
themselves both in space and in time.
This was accomplished by separating the people, both in space and in
time, from those they elected. . . .
The division of every voter into many
artificial parts of himself was one of three aspects of the genius of the
American constitutional system. (E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the
American Republic 1776-1790, Second Edition, Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty
Press, 1979, pp. 312, 314, 315)
This original understanding of the people’s sovereignty can also be seen in the system that the
founding fathers established for the election of the president, namely, the
Electoral College. “We the people” elect the president as citizens of our respective states, but
not as one people. We vote in our
respective states, and the candidate who wins in our state receives our state’s Electoral College votes. Thus,
a president can be elected without a majority of the nationwide popular vote as
long as he has won in enough states to give him a majority in the Electoral
College. The last thing the framers
wanted was pure majority rule. They
understood that a purely majority-rule system often results in a tyranny of the
majority.
Since the citizens of each state were the
ultimate sovereign in deciding whether or not their state would join the Union,
the citizens of each state should have been the ultimate sovereign in deciding
whether or not their state would remain in the
As part of his denial of the right of
secession,
Our States have neither more nor less
power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of
them ever having been a State out of the
There is so much error and sophistry
packed into these statements that it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s difficult to imagine
what founding documents