Is It Morale To Oppose Secession From the Union?

[HemlockGrey]

In any Civil War-style debates I have always been very strongly pro-Union. However, recently I sat down and thought, and I uncovered a question I'm unable to recouncile with my pro-Union stance. Now, I submit it to you, so that you may all discuss it if you wish.

Now, during the Civil War, the South seceded almost unanimously. Obviously, there was West Virigina, and Winn Parish, and the anti-Confederate guerrillas in North Texas, but for the most part the vast, vast majority of Southerners desired independent nationhood.

So what right do the federals have to force them to remain part of the Union? If a vast body of people wish to be independent, is it morally right to try and prevent them from becoming so through force? Now, in the case of the South, there are two mitigating factors as I see it:

A) The South owned slaves. However, even if the South wasn't slaveholding, the Union would still have attempted to forcefully reintegrate them.
B) The South could actively campaign to change laws through Congress and elections through the system. However, they clearly no longer wanted to be part of that system.

What, then, is the morale basis for the reintegration of the South via force?

[Gunhead]

I think there is no moral grounds for forcing south to be part of the union.
It was pure power politics from the union. They wouldn't allow south to break away because if they did, it could cause splits in the nothern states too.
Also to stand on equal terms with Europe they'd have to have a unfied face to present. Can't do that if you're nation is split into multiple little states, that individually cannot compete with Europe's superpowers.

-Gunhead

[2000AD]

If the SOuth had won the war would they have seceeded or would they have taken control of all the USA?

[Lancer]

The South never had the resources to invade and hold the North. The best they could ever hope for was to draw it out until the Union lost interest and gave up.

[Broomstick]

Quite some time ago, I heard that the American Civil War was fought over a point of grammer - which is more correct, "The United States is.... " or the "The United States are...."

The truth is, the CSA probably had the right of it, legally speaking. The original 13 colonies were, after the Revolution, set up as 13 separate nations joined by the Articles of Confederation... which didn't work too well. After which the states sent delegates to a meeting to draft our current Constitution... which, if you read the actual document (which few people actually seem to bother to do) can be interpreted to be a union of independent states. Supposedly, the states joined the union voluntarially, and one would think the states could also choose to leave such a union.

Obviously, some folks disagreed. Hence, we had a war over it.

If the secession had been allowed to stand I don't think anyone can really say what would have happened. It's entirely possible the Union would have become a superpower in the end - the UK is much smaller and managed to be one for quite some time, after all. The South probably would have been an agricultural exporter and source of cheap labor rather than a military powerhouse, but who really knows? Once you have machinery to do the work who needs slaves anymore? The cotton gin alone significantly reduced the amout of hand labor required for cotton, and one large gin was cheaper than the slaves it replaced. I think you can construct a lot of interesting "what-if's" from having the secession stand, either with or without a war.

As for the south taking over the Union - wasn't going to happen. They just didn't have the means to do so. Attack yes, conquer, no. And I'm not sure they wanted to. Everything I've learned about the Civil War leads me to think that if the South had won they would have just drawn a line across the continent and stayed on their side.

[Chris OFarrell]

First lets look at why the people chose to break away, the normal people, not the Governments themselves. Frankly I think it was an unhealthy mix of:

Young hotheads who didn't have any idea what a war was truely like between two massive states. So they thought they would go and 'whip some Yankey' and be home soon

Pier preasure, no-one is going to vote against breaking away if they think they will be declared traitors to their country / state.

And a strong belief that the United States was more of a loose group that they could come and go from, that they had no obligation to stay at all.


Frankly, morals and ethics are hard to debate.

But IMO, I would have LET them break away.

Provided of course that every house, house, ship, stone, factory, currency, ANYTHING that belonged to the United States prior to their breakaway was returned, including the land which belonged to the United States. If THEY don't like it, tell them to leave. Go and find another landmass like the Brits did when they settled the United States originaly, tell them to start from scratch.

Oh wait, they don't want to do that? Then they will bloody well be a part of the United States. If they refused to do so, then they shall be and were pulled right back into the Union, peacefuly or kicking and screaming is up to them.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

So what right do the federals have to force them to remain part of the Union? If a vast body of people wish to be independent, is it morally right to try and prevent them from becoming so through force?

If they're succeeding to avoid tyranny then they have every right to (1776 does have meaning in the US afterall).

The South owned slaves. However, even if the South wasn't slaveholding, the Union would still have attempted to forcefully reintegrate them.

Not really as much of a mitigating factor as one might think; slavery was still practiced in many of the Northern states during the Civil War and the war did not really become about slavery until the emancipation proclimation. Linclon himself said, before the war, that he would sign a constitutional amendment guaranteeing slavery in the states where it existed.

[Darth P44]

As a foreigner I recognize I might not be aware of all the inplications of the time, and of the Constitution of the USA.
However I recall reading that the American Costitution was based in the in VOLUNTARY UNION of each State (therefore the expression "UNITED STATES", which means the STATES held/hold some independent sovereignity...)
Therefore, if for any reason they choosed to seceed, they would have the right to do so.

As for the Slavery issue, I leave 2 phrases to your consideration:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Abraham Lincoln - First Inaugural Address - March 4, 1861

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side"
General U.S. Grant, 1862

and as a colleague mentioned previously, the original 13 colonies indeed SECEEDED from the British Empire.

[Tommy J]

A) The South owned slaves. However, even if the South wasn't slaveholding, the Union would still have attempted to forcefully reintegrate them.
B) The South could actively campaign to change laws through Congress and elections through the system. However, they clearly no longer wanted to be part of that system.

What, then, is the morale basis for the reintegration of the South via force?

A) If you take the slave equation out of it, it isn't moral. But as history stands it was.

B) They didn't want to be part of that system because of the slave equation. W/o it the drive to succeed evaporates.


I think to have this discussion you have to give us an example w/o the moral issues related to slavery. Lets say the State of CA wanted to succeed today because they were unhappy with our current tax codes, supreme court decisions etc.

Would it be moral for them to succeed based on disagreements: maybe, reason I say that that in our Republic one works to make changes as opposed to taking the easy way out and dumping the baby with the bath water.

Would the US fight such a decision: Absolutely. CA would never be allowed to leave the US and even most likely go to war for such.

[Darth P44]

Lets say the State of CA wanted to succeed today because they were unhappy with our current tax codes, supreme court decisions etc.

huuuuuh...maybe they want to be annexed by Austria?????

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

well, I think one major issue the Union had with State Secession was that it would have sent a powerful message to the other remaining members of the Union as a whole.

If some states can leave for shady, ill-justified reasons, then any state could do it at any time. If that were allowed on behalf of "state's rights," there would be no United States or Union. It would mean that the states could override the Federal Government almost at will.

The only time that a people or government has the right to create a new government is when the parent government is so oppressive, but the Union was hardly oppressive to the South. They just had their panties in a twist cause they were afraid they were going to lose votes in congress due to the lack of slavery expansion into the terroritories. They tried to construe that as being "oppressive."

As well, in the Contitution, there is nothing that states they can succeed, unlike the Articles of Confederation, which did provide a mechanism for secession. The Constitution had no such clause. However, the Constitution also states that any right not expressly given to the federals is given to the states/people. A problem with this, I believe the Federal pro-union'ers also saw: The National Government not only has express powerss, but inherent powers.

Unlike the Confederation of old, the Union was a real "nation." It was a government in which power was held within a central body, and that power was sometimes shared with the state bodies. The confederation was merely an alliance of totally independent states. As far as I can see, there was no inherent power, since the central government was naturally nerfed, and each State took on inherent national powers.

As per Inherent Powers, the Federall Government established by the Union had the natural powers of: Protection from internal and external enemies and foreign involvemen/ treaty issues. These are powers that are possed by any nation. The Union was a centralized nation, while the Confederacy was more a league of mini-nations.

Now, since the Federal Government of the Union had these inherent powers, and that power is protection from internal/external enemies, according to the Supremacy Clause, all federal powers and laws supercede State laws, which was just the opposite of the Confederation.

The Sates might have had an undisclosed right to seceede, but this was, in my view, trumped by Federal Inherent rights and powers.

As well, the states were conspiring against the nation, so they were a lot like internal enemies, and conspiring to leave the government and fight if need be would seem to me like overt actions against the federal government, especially since the South was ready to and did confiscate federal property within the States.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Edit: seceede is not succeed. That's a brain fart.

[Durandal]

So what right do the federals have to force them to remain part of the Union? If a vast body of people wish to be independent, is it morally right to try and prevent them from becoming so through force?

States are not sovereign nations. They fall under the jurisdictions of the federal government. The land they live on belongs to the federal government. So if they wish to be independent, they can emigrate to some island. The land is not theirs to claim.

[Tommy J]

So what right do the federals have to force them to remain part of the Union? If a vast body of people wish to be independent, is it morally right to try and prevent them from becoming so through force?

States are not sovereign nations. They fall under the jurisdictions of the federal government. The land they live on belongs to the federal government. So if they wish to be independent, they can emigrate to some island. The land is not theirs to claim.

What if the US passed a bunch of laws in both taxation as well as the Supreme Court. Lets say extreme things happened:

*Abortion was made illegal

*All gay rights were revoked and sodomy laws re-insituted.

*Free trial rights were revoked

etc.

And say CA and her population fundamentally disagreed with these changes. In this scenario I don't think it would be necessarily immoral for CA to succeed, provided they had exhausted every legal method to prevent such from happening.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Durandal is right in this case. In a Federal Union, States are not sovereign bodies who give power to the central government. That's a confederacy, which is mostly what the confederation was ike as well.

[Xenophobe3691]

States are not sovereign nations. They fall under the jurisdictions of the federal government. The land they live on belongs to the federal government. So if they wish to be independent, they can emigrate to some island. The land is not theirs to claim.

Legally, that's not true. The only land in a state that belongs to the government is that marked as Federal Land. All other property belongs to the state. A legacy of the fact that states actually were nation-states in between their independence and the ratification of the Constitution.

[Xenophobe3691]

Durandal is right in this case. In a Federal Union, States are not sovereign bodies who give power to the central government. That's a confederacy, which is mostly what the confederation was ike as well.

Actually, that's exactly what a Federal union is. A Confederacy is more a bunch of nations that act together in common cause, or act as "confederates."

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Actually, that's exactly what a Federal union is. A Confederacy is more a bunch of nations that act together in common cause, or act as "confederates."

That's exactly what I mean. A federal Union is different from a Confederacy. In a confederacy, the Sovereign States give a limited central government almost no power at all. They are the final say, not the central government.

THis is opposed to both Unitarian and Federal Systems. In A federal system, the states are not near-soveriegn. They share power with the Central Government, but central laws that are in conflict with state laws override state laws, unless those powers weren't given to federal government in the first place.

in a unitarian system, most of the power is only in the hands of the Central Government.

The articles of confederation I think were a lot like the Confederacy.

[Durandal]

Legally, that's not true. The only land in a state that belongs to the government is that marked as Federal Land. All other property belongs to the state. A legacy of the fact that states actually were nation-states in between their independence and the ratification of the Constitution.

But the states are not sovereign nations. The states conduct certain operations without interference from the federal government, but ultimately, they are under that federal government.

[Xenophobe3691]

But the states are not sovereign nations. The states conduct certain operations without interference from the federal government, but ultimately, they are under that federal government.

I never said anything about sovereignty. All I commented on was the misconception that the land is all federally owned.

[Durandal]

But the states are not sovereign nations. The states conduct certain operations without interference from the federal government, but ultimately, they are under that federal government.

I never said anything about sovereignty. All I commented on was the misconception that the land is all federally owned.

I know all land isn't federally owned, but that doesn't mean that residents of a given state have the right to just take their land and leave any time they want. Were this true, we'd have to allow anyone with a deed to property the same right to secede and form his own nation on his land.

[HemlockGrey]

States are not sovereign nations. They fall under the jurisdictions of the federal government. The land they live on belongs to the federal government. So if they wish to be independent, they can emigrate to some island. The land is not theirs to claim.

Well, technically, couldn't you say the same thing about the 13 Colonies, or the african nations who broke away from European imperialism?

[Petrosjko]

States are not sovereign nations. They fall under the jurisdictions of the federal government. The land they live on belongs to the federal government. So if they wish to be independent, they can emigrate to some island. The land is not theirs to claim.

Well, technically, couldn't you say the same thing about the 13 Colonies, or the african nations who broke away from European imperialism?

"If it prospers, none dare call it treason."

[HemlockGrey]

But that doesn't address the question of whether or not it's morale to oppose the desire of an entire people to live in an independent state. As far as I can see it there is little to differentiate between the rebellion of the 13 Colonies and the rebellion of the Confederacy; the only difference being that the Confederate states had access to a representative system...which they no longer desired to be part of.

[Petrosjko]

It is a gray area. If you're going to go that route, what do you determine to be a worthy quorum that could so declare itself independent? Can one state say 'Fuck off' and walk away? Does it have to be a body of states?

Not to Slippery Slope the argument, but if secession is a morally legitimate affair, boundaries have to be drawn as to what sort of bodies can secede.

The distinction between the American Revolution and the War Between the States* is a very fine one, agreed.

We can split the hairs over the worthiness of the causes, but in the end it's force that settles the issue. Hence the 'None dare call it treason' reference.

*Point of semantics. A civil war is defined as two factions vying for control of a single government. As such, the 'American Civil War' was no such beast.