Do States Have a Right to Seced

[Online Professor]

Whether or not the southern states had a right to secede is a  question of great importance. The powers prohibited to the states are found in 

Article I Section 10 the right of secession is not prohibited and is therefore it is a power that is reserved to the states.

The military clause in Article II gives the President the authority to call out the militia to quell an insurrection. By definition an insurrection is a violent attempt to overthrow one's government. The seven states that seceded were simply exercising their right to peacefully withdraw from the Union.

What was the south fighting for?

On April 15, 1861 Lincoln made a call for 75,000 members of state militias to put down what he considered to be a rebellion. When the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter was fired upon, he used that an excuse to launch an invasion of the southern states,

When seven  southern states walked out of Congress of March 27,1861 Lincoln adjourned Congress and sent them home. Three days after the shelling of Fort Sumter Congress was reconvened on April 15, 1861

It is a undisputed fact that the southern states represented  only 30% of the total  population, but they were paying 80% of the taxes. This was the main reason the southern states wanted to secede.

On September 15, 1863 President Lincoln imposed Congressionally authorized martial law. The authorizing act allowed the President to suspend habeas corpus throughout the entire United States (which he had already done under his own authority on April 27, 1861).

 Once martial law had been declared, the Constitution was suspended, Congress lost its authority and the President became a military dictator.

Strange as it may seen the declaration of martial law was never rescinded and to this very day the Constitution in a state of suspension.

 

A new Constitution of the United States was established in 1871 to replace the original Constitution that was written 1787. Under the original Constitution the states and the people were the masters and the  Federal government was the servant , under the new Constitution of the United States, the Federal government was the master and the states and the people became the servants.

There were 13 senators from the southern states that walked out of Congress on March 27, 1861. There were still 54 senators still available to form a quorum. 28 of the 238 members of the House of Representative walked out leaving 210 representatives to conduct business. 

 

I believe that Lincoln adjourned so that Congress would not interfere with his plans to initiate a war against the southern states. He reconvened Congress just three days after the shelling of  Fort Sumter,

Do states have a right to secede?

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