Following up on my thoughts about the 13th amendment.
I’m not the only one to ask the question. Someone should ask Mark Levin for his opinion.
First the Constitution – Article IV, Section 3
“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
Virginia claimed all of the land to its West to the Ohio River from before the formation of the United States. That red semicolon is important – does the “Consent” requirement apply only to combining of States or parts of States, or does it also apply to breaking an existing State into two States?
April 4th, 1861, a Secession Convention called by the Virginia legislature voted to oppose succession. April 12th, the US Government fires on Fort Sumter, SC. On April 17th, 1861, the succession convention decided instead to put it to a vote of the people on a referendum. (aka “Democracy”)
May 13th, 1861, a group composed of unelected representatives of what would become West Virginia met on whether they should secede from the State/Commonwealth of Virginia. May 23rd was the date on which the Secession Referendum was declared to have passed (It passed with about a 75% Yes vote)
On June 11-19th, 1861, the second meeting was held in Wheeling, which declared that the government in Richmond was invalid and Alexandria (originally inside Washington D.C.) was now the capital of the state of Virginia – and by July had a government and was recognized by the North as the State of Virginia’s government – which was kind of a problem since the Federal Government said the State of Virginia had not left the United States. The Wheeling Conventions created a government in name only – it had effective control over little of the territory it claimed, other than the panhandle. They ordered anyone who supported the government in Richmond to be rounded up and held in prison camps.
Virginia was of course, a slave state – which meant West Virginia was a slave state. Congressional approval was made conditional on West Virginia amending its constitution to phase our slavery. After they did, President Lincoln issued a proclamation announcing that West Virginia was now a State.
After the war was over, the U.S. Supreme court decided in 1871 to pronounce the process that created the State of West Virginia to be “legal”. Post-war, the state of Virginia then asserted that if West Virginia was Virginia, then it owed at least a portion of the pre-war debts of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
So are governments allowed to secede or not? If the answer is “Not”, then what West Virginia did was illegal – and Congress had no power to create a new State of West Virginia without the consent of all of Virginia.
If portions of governments are allowed to secede from their parent, then what Virginia (and the states that left before Virginia) did was legal.
If you have some time, you can read the opinion of Lincoln’s cabinet here. They decided half that it was Constitutional, half that it was not. Attorney General Edward Bates told Lincoln the act to admit West Virginia was unconsitutional. Secretary of State William Seward’s opinion was basically that it was “necessary” without adressing the legality.
Did you get asked that question in public school history class? I’m guessing not. I grew up in that area and it was another of those parts of history where the teacher would say “Just skip the next 2 pages”…
I think I know where you’re going with this, as a number of states are quietly considering leaving their “parent” government because it’s obviously sinking and there’s no logical reason not to jump in a lifeboat and get as far away from the sinking vortex suction as possible.
But just a small correction: “April 12th, the US Government fires on Fort Sumter, SC. ” Actually, the Confederate forces fired on the US navy ships attempting to resupply the U.S. forces occupying Ft. Sumter. The Confederacy had offered safe passage if the union forces would evacuate the fort which was well within the S.C. coastal limit and controlled all shipping access to Charleston harbor, but Lincoln opted for a fight instead.
You’re correct – and a significant difference. South Carolina claimed that since they were no longer part of the United States, Federal facilities were no longer part of the United States… Similar to say…. If Texas decided to secede, what would happen to Fort Hood?
My understanding (which may be wrong) was that the only occupants of the Fort were a few caretakers and a horse. It was a symbolic attack by Sourh Carolina mostly – there were no deaths – until the Union forces decided to fire their cannon as they were preparing to leave after the surrender and it blew up. But it was necessary because the North had decided it was going to stop the “insurrection”
I’m not sure that I had any one point – the main point was to disabuse Constitutional literalists running around waving their pocket Constitutions as if they are religious tracts that life is more complex than that. When push comes to shove, it is willingness to use force that decides history, not right and wrong. The job of history is to create a narrative for the victor to justify what they did and to hide any facts that don’t support that.
If push comes to shove some day, following the Constitution will quickly fall to “it was an emergency”. Russia has drawn up the map of the pieces of post US North America and who gets what. I would take that map seriously as a blueprint for their future strategy. The national sport of Russia is chess.
Hey Art -could you publish that map? That may wake up a few people.
Or not ….
Also, thanks for these 2 tracts on Constitutional Law.
Very informative. Keep up the good work.
The map is here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
Because it is from the WSJ, it may not come up….
That looks like what I read. I’m not a subscriber, and it came up. The single most important thing on that map is “and Alaska goes to Russia”. Watch how Russia would protect ANWR…
I could see the lines moving a bit – but take that map and sit it beside the US Census map from a few days ago, and the similarity is pretty strong.
The “one state that doesn’t belong to the others” is Florida. Because it became such a retirement magnet, it is more like the German midwest than part of the South. I could see it becoming part of a Spanish speaking Carribean country made up of Cuba and Puerto Rico – however, by then the whole state will be under water anyhow…
This map is also helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Nations_of_North_America
I was poking around in the oil statistics earlier. Those of us in the United States cab be dismissive of Canada – but especially if the middle east keeps fragmenting, our reliance on oil is going to create a stronger friendship. Fortunately, the oil sands are out West, where Canadians are more realistic about the role of government, unlike the European multicultural Collectivists in Ontario, and my sense is they would welcome Quebec going its own way.
Art,
While Virginia did set a referendum for secession on May 23,1861, Virginia’s governor entered into a treaty of alliance with the Confederate States of America on April 24[itself an unconstitutional act [Article I, section 10]), elected delegates to the Confederate Congress on April 29, and formally entered the Confederacy on May 7. The referendum was simply window dressing.
The constitutionality of West Virginia was decided in 1871, like it or not.
Let’s craft a hypothetical… Let’s say at some point in the future the Legislature of California votes that California was stolen from Mexico and votes to join Mexico.
A group of people from Northern California approach the Federal Government and say “we have voted to appoint ourseleves to be the real government of the Entire state of Califrornia and declare that all of the people of the State of California (which we’ve decided we represent) want to split Northern California away from California and make a new State and repudiate the debts owed by the “old” State of California, which we are no longer a part of.
Of course, that would never happen.
Your hypothetical contains the false premise that West Virginia repudiated debts owed by the state of Virginia. West Virginia paid it’s debt off in 1939
It was an actual issue, not a hypothetical. Asking how California would handle its debt if it split up would be a hypothetical issue.
Wikipedia? Haha….
Wikipedia? Haha…. is not a rebuttal.
Virginia v West Virginia is SCOTUS precedent on how to settle the issue (provided we let S. California back in the Union. ;) )