[On a couple of clips I've added since starting the post: the one above includes the Haley flip-flop on secession which sparked the rant. Yes, Ms. Bush did reference a GOP-sponsored referendum on Texas secession. Second, Brian McClanahan just released a relevant video on Haley and secession that doesn't seem to reference this recent clip. I think our comments are compatible, but we approached the topic differently.]
I was watching CNN when the host (Dana Bush?) asked GOP Presidential candidate Nikki Haley about secession. The context wasn't clear: there have been occasional recent discussions of California and Texas separatist movements and referendums, West Coast counties and the greater Idaho movement. Or maybe Bush wanted another bite of of the apple involving the cause of the so-called Civil War kerfuffle at a townhall for the former South Carolina governor.
Haley quickly responded to the effect that the Constitution was very clear on this, that secession wasn't constitutional. No, it wasn't. Judge Napolitano makes that point in his opening discussion in the first clip below which I've also emedded in a scheduled daily post, as well as historians like Brion McClanahan and Tom Woods.
It's not as clear as Haley seems to think. Secession is not mentioned in the Constitution. She may be referring to the post-Civil War Texas vs White decision. The context was the State of Texas had received US Treasury certificates in exchange for boundary concessions pre-war. The subsequent secessionist government exchanged some Treasury notes with a broker (Existing state law required endorsement by the former governor, and Lincoln's Treasury would not redeem said endorsed certificates, which would depreciate their market values. Texas liberalized the endorsement requirement.)The post-war Texas state government wanted its old certificates back. The majority court held Texas had remained a state in perpetual union (save certain privileges) and the broker owed Texas the certificates or their value. Chief Justice Chase wrote:
The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual". And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union". It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?
The 1777 Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union included this excerpt from Article XIII:
And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards con-firmed by the legislatures of every state.
[Note the latter part of the quote probably is the basis for those who argue those who argue secession cannot be made unilaterally but requires the consent of other states.]
Chief Justice Chase is also quoting from the preamble to the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,..
Of course, the Articles of Confederation were superceded by the Constitution and "perpetuity" is not cited from the Constitution itself for obvious reason. ("When the United States Constitution replaced the Articles, nothing in it expressly stated that the Union is perpetual.") Moreover, we know initially at least 3 states conditioned ratification on a right to secede:
During the ratification of the Constitution, ratifications by New York, Virginia and Rhode Island included language that reserved the right of those states to exit the U.S. federal system if they felt "harmed" by the arrangement. In Virginia's ratification the reservation is stated thus; "…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 …"
The fact that one form of government was abdandoned for another in favor of another, as St. George Tucker argued, it provided a context for jusifying state secession. In fact, the Articles were ratified unanonimously, while the Constitution was ratified before RI and NC's adoption.
From first principles, we have the consent of the governed construct in the Declaration of Independence, which justified secession from Britain, If you had the freedom to consent, when did you lose it? The First Amendment underscores the right of voluntary association. Secession is not prohibited under Article 1 Section 10, and as McClanahan mentions below, there are no relevant restrictions in the Tenth Amendment. States maintain virtually unenumerated rights, arguably including the right to secede, while the general government has strictly enumerated powers..
And while we normally think of secession in terms of the War Between the States, the issue had surfaced long before then, including and not restricted to:
- the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts
- the 1814 Federalists' objections to the "Virginia dynasty", Jefferson's policies and embargo, the War of 1812, etc.
- northern abolitionists in the 1840s.
So Haley once again flipped in the face of political correctness over the Confederate flag display on state grounds, cause of the "Civil War", and now secession. It is intellectually dishonest and leads me to be skeptical of her principles and leadership.
