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== The South, which was known as the Confederate States of America, seceded from the North, which was also known as the Union, for many different reasons. The reason they wanted to succeed was the result of four decades of great sectional conflict between the two. Between the North and South there were deep economic, social, and political differences. The Southern states had tried to resolve their problems by becoming their own separate nation. Although these two distinctly contrary regions had been linked together by a common Constitution, they had drastically different perspectives on the reasons for their entrance into war. [] -collin ==

The Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863 **
 * Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. [] Jannely
 * Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. **

Battle of Gettysburg

This most famous and most important Civil War Battle occurred over three hot summer days, July 1 to July 3, 1863, around the small market town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It began as a skirmish but by its end involved 160,000 Americans. Before the battle, major cities in the North such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and even Washington were under threat of attack from General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia which had crossed the Potomac River and marched into Pennsylvania. The Union Army of the Potomac under its very new and untried commander, General [|George G. Meade], marched to intercept Lee. On Tuesday morning, June 30, an infantry brigade of Confederate soldiers searching for shoes headed toward Gettysburg (population 2,400). The Confederate commander looked through his field glasses and spotted a long column of Federal cavalry heading toward the town. He withdrew his brigade and informed his superior, Gen. Henry Heth, who in turn told his superior, [|A.P. Hill], he would go back the following morning and "get those shoes." Wednesday morning, July 1, two divisions of Confederates headed back to Gettysburg. They ran into Federal cavalry west of the town at Willoughby Run and the skirmish began. Events would quickly escalate. Lee rushed 25,000 men to the scene. The Union had less than 20,000. After much fierce fighting and heavy casualties on both sides, the Federals were pushed back through the town of Gettysburg and regrouped south of the town along the high ground near the cemetery. Lee ordered Confederate General R.S. Ewell to seize the high ground from the battle weary Federals "if practicable." Gen. Ewell hesitated to attack thereby giving the Union troops a chance to dig in along Cemetery Ridge and bring in reinforcements with artillery. By the time Lee realized Ewell had not attacked, the opportunity had vanished. Meade arrived at the scene and thought it was an ideal place to do battle with Lee's Army. Meade anticipated reinforcements totaling up to 100,000 men to arrive and strengthen his defensive position. Confederate General [|James Longstreet] saw the Union position as nearly impregnable and told Lee it should be left alone. He argued that Lee's Army should instead move east between the Union Army and Washington and build a defensive position thus forcing the Federals to attack them instead. But Lee believed his own army was invincible and he was also without his much needed cavalry which served as his eyes and ears during troop movements. Cavalry leader [|Jeb Stuart] had gone off with his troops to harass the Federals. Stuart's expedition would turn out to be for the most part a wild goose chase which left Lee at a disadvantage until he returned. Lee decided to attack the Union Army's defensive position at the southern end of Cemetery Ridge which he thought was less well defended. About 10 a.m. the next morning, Thursday, July 2, Gen. Longstreet was ordered by Lee to attack. But Longstreet was quite slow in getting his troops into position and didn't attack until 4 p.m. that afternoon thus giving the Union Army even more time to strengthen its position. When Longstreet attacked, some of the most bitter fighting of the Civil War erupted at places now part of American military folklore such as Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Wheat Field and the Peach Orchard. Longstreet took the Peach Orchard but was driven back at Little Round Top. About 6:30 p.m. Gen. Ewell attacked the Union line from the north and east at Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill. The attack lasted into darkness but was finally unsuccessful at Cemetery Hill, although the Rebels seized some trenches on Culp's Hill. By about 10:30 p.m., the day's fighting came to an end. The Federals had lost some ground during the Rebel onslaught but still held the strong defensive position along Cemetery Ridge. Both sides regrouped and counted their causalities while the moaning and sobbing of thousands of wounded men on the slopes and meadows south of Gettysburg could be heard throughout the night under the blue light of a full moon. Generals from each side gathered in war councils to plan for the coming day. Union commander Meade decided his army would remain in place and wait for Lee to attack. On the Confederate side, Longstreet once again tried to talk Lee out of attacking such a strong position. But Lee thought the battered Union soldiers were nearly beaten and would collapse under one final push. Lee decided to gamble to win the Battle of Gettysburg and in effect win the Civil War by attacking the next day at the center of the Union line along Cemetery Ridge where it would be least expected. To do this he would send in the fresh troops of Gen. George Pickett. Along with this, Gen. Ewell would renew the assault on Culp's hill. But as dawn broke on Friday, July 3, about 4:30 a.m., Lee's timetable was undermined as Union cannons pounded the Rebels on Culp's Hill to drive them from the trenches. The Rebels did not withdraw, but instead attacked the Federals around 8 a.m. Thus began a vicious three hour struggle with the Rebels charging time after time up the hill only to be beaten back. The Federals finally counter attacked and drove the Rebels off the hill and east across Rock Creek. Around 11 a.m. the fighting on Culp's Hill stopped. An eerie quiet settled over the whole battlefield. Once again Lee encountered opposition to his battle plan from Longstreet. Lee estimated about 15,000 men would participate in the Rebel charge on Cemetery Ridge. Longstreet responded, "It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." But Lee was unmoved. The plan would go on as ordered. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon amid 90° heat and stifling humidity the Rebels moved into position in the woods opposite Cemetery Ridge for the coming charge. Interestingly, some Union troops were moved away from Cemetery Ridge on Meade's orders because he thought Lee would attack again in the south. Several hours before, Meade had correctly predicted Lee would attack the center, but now thought otherwise. He left only 5,750 infantrymen stretched out along the half-mile front to initially face the 15,000 man Rebel charge. Lee sent Jeb Stuart's recently returned cavalry to go behind the Union position in order to divert Federal forces from the main battle area. Around noon, Union and Confederate cavalry troops clashed three miles east of Gettysburg but Stuart was eventually repulsed by punishing cannon fire and the Union cavalry led in part by 23 year old Gen. [|George Custer]. The diversion attempt failed. Back at the main battle site, just after 1 p.m. about 170 Confederate cannons opened fire on the Union position on Cemetery Ridge to pave the way for the Rebel charge. This was the heaviest artillery barrage of the war but many of the Rebel shells missed their targets and flew harmlessly overhead. The Federals returned heavy cannon fire and soon big clouds of blinding smoke and dust hung over the battlefield. Around 2:30 p.m. the Federals slowed their rate of fire, then ceased, to conserve ammunition and to fool the Rebels into thinking the cannons were knocked out - exactly what the Rebels did think. Pickett went to see Longstreet and asked, "General, shall I advance?" Longstreet, now overwhelmed with emotion, did not respond, but simply bowed his head and raised his hand. Thus the order was given. "Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" yelled Pickett as 12,000 Rebels formed an orderly line that stretched a mile from flank to flank. In deliberate silence and with military pageantry from days gone by, they slowly headed toward the Union Army a mile away on Cemetery Ridge as the Federals gazed in silent wonder at this spectacular sight. But as the Rebels got within range, Federal cannons using grapeshot (a shell containing iron balls that flew apart when fired) and deadly accurate rifle volleys ripped into the Rebels killing many and tearing holes in the advancing line. What had been, just moments before, a majestic line of Rebel infantry, quickly became a horrible mess of dismembered bodies and dying wounded accompanied by a mournful roar. But the Rebels continued on. As they got very close, the Rebels stopped and fired their rifles once at the Federals then lowered their bayonets and commenced a running charge while screaming the Rebel yell. A fierce battle raged for an hour with much brutal hand to hand fighting, shooting at close range and stabbing with bayonets. For a brief moment, the Rebels nearly had their chosen objective, a small clump of oak trees atop Cemetery Ridge. But Union reinforcements and regrouped infantry units swarmed in and opened fire on the Rebel ranks. The battered, outnumbered Rebels finally began to give way and this great human wave that had been Pickett's Charge began to recede as the men drifted back down the slope. The supreme effort of Lee's army had been beaten back, leaving 7,500 of his men lying on the field of battle. Lee rode out and met the survivors, telling them, "It is all my fault." And to Pickett he said, "Upon my shoulders rests the blame." Later when he got back to headquarters Lee exclaimed, "Too bad. Too bad! Oh, too bad!" The gamble had failed. The tide of the war was now permanently turned against the South. Confederate causalities in dead, wounded and missing were 28,000 out of 75,000. Union casualties were 23,000 out of 88,000. That night and into the next day, Saturday, July 4, Confederate wounded were loaded aboard wagons that began the journey back toward the South. Lee was forced to abandon his dead and begin a long slow withdrawal of his army back to Virginia. Union commander Meade, out of fatigue and caution, did not immediately pursue Lee, infuriating President Lincoln who wrote a bitter [|letter to Meade] (never delivered) saying he missed a "golden opportunity" to end the war right there. On November 19, President Lincoln went to the battlefield to dedicate it as a military cemetery. The main orator, Edward Everett of Massachusetts, delivered a two hour formal address. The president then had his turn. He spoke in his high, penetrating voice and in a little over two minutes delivered the [|Gettysburg Address], surprising many in the audience by its shortness and leaving others quite unimpressed. Over time, however, the speech and its words - government of the People, by the People, for the People - have come to symbolize the definition of democracy itself.

Jannely [] "Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the united States, explicitly or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary, rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said). Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that //"All political power is inherent in the people ... they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper.//" Likewise, each of the united States is "united" with the others explicitly on the principle that //"//governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security//.//"

[] ~Hannah

A backward version of the Texas flag. ~Hannah

[] By: Jannely

1863 middle of the war President Lincoln issued the Emanicipation Proclamation freeing all slaves held in Confederate controlled states. [] By: Jannely

"Sixteen years after Texas joined the United States, in January 1861, the Secession Convention met in Austin and adopted an Ordinance of Secession on February 1 and a Declaration of Causes on February 2. This proposal was approved by the voters, but even before Texas could become "independent" as provided for in the text of the Ordinance, it was accepted by the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America as a state on March 1, 1861. The Secession Convention, reconvened on March 2, approved an ordinance accepting Confederate statehood on March 5. Texas delegates to the Provisional Confederate Government had already been elected, and they were among those who approved the proposed Confederate Constitution. Their action was confirmed by the Secession Convention on March 23. Throughout the Civil War period, Texas existed as a state in the Confederate States of America, its status confirmed by the elected representatives of the Texas citizens. (Sam Houston, although accepting the decision of the electorate to secede, protested the Convention's decision to join the Confederacy since the matter was not submitted to popular vote. His opposition was insufficient to cause either the voters or the members of the state legislature to put aside the actions of the Convention.) John H. Reagan, a Texan, was the Postmaster General of the C.S.A., and other Texans held prominent government posts throughout the period. When the war ended in April 1865, Texas was still considered to be in revolt (the last battle of the Civil War was fought on Texas soil after the surrender at Appomattox). Although a state of peace was declared as existing between the United States and the other Southern States on April 2, 1866, President Andrew Johnson did not issue a similar proclamation of peace between the U.S. and Texas until August 20, 1866, even though the Constitutional Convention of 1866 had approved on March 15, 1866 an ordinance to nullify the actions of the Secession Convention. Southern States remained under military government until their legislatures adopted the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution. Their readmission to full national status varied from state to state (Georgia was readmitted twice). In April 1869, the U.S. Congress passed an Act authorizing voters of Virginia, Mississippi and Texas to vote on their new state constitutions and to elect state officers and Members of Congress. Three months later, President U.S. Grant signed a proclamation submitting the Texas Constitution to the voters of the state. Texans voted on a revised state constitution in November 1869 and elected a state government. Once convened, the legislature voted to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution (the 13th amendment having already been fully ratified) and elected two U.S. Senators, thereby completing the requirements for reinstatement. President Grant signed the act to readmit Texas to Congressional representation on March 30, 1870, and this federal act was promulgated throughout Texas by a general order issued by General Reynolds on April 16, 1870. No requirement exists -- either in the Reconstruction Acts governing the rebel states or in the document readmitting Texas to full statehood -- for the governor of Texas to sign a document reaffirming Texas' position as a state within the United States republic. The only ongoing requirement of Texas government was that no constitutional revision should deny the vote or school rights to any citizen of the United States." [] ~Hannah

(all them texans trying to secede)-Kent Johnson Who's the govenor? Name? just wondering.. ~Semi [] Bix Gaul

[] Bix Gaul

The South Secedes and The Civil War Begins by George When Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in 1860. Southerners thought the government was becoming too strong. They did not think the government had the right to tell them how they should live. Southerners felt if they stayed in the United States, the North would control them. Some southern states decided they had no choice. They decided to secede, or leave, the United States. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union and form a new nation called the Confederate States of America. Four months later, six other states seceded. They were Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Later Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined them. The people of these states elected Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy. The northern states were called the Union. President Lincoln said he would fight to keep the southern states as part of the United States. There were Union forts on Confederate land. The Confederates wanted Union soldiers to leave these forts. In Charleston, South Carolina there was a Union fort called Fort Sumter. The Union soldiers refused to leave this fort, so the Confederates fired cannons at the fort on April 12, l861. This was the beginning of the Civil War. [] -Collin

Historic The Republic of Texas fought and won its independence from Mexico in its war of independence in 1836. Texas remained an independent nation for ten years before entering the union. The Republic of Texas was annexed by the US in 1845. As part of the Cotton Kingdom, planters in parts of Texas depended on slave labor. In 1860, 30% of the population of the state total of 604,215 were enslaved. In the statewide election on the secession ordinance, Texans voted to secede from the Union by a 76% majority. The Secession Convention immediately organized a government, replacing Sam Houston when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Texas seceded from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861. Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war. On August 1, 1862 Confederate troops killed 34 pro-Union German Texans in the "Nueces Massacre" of civilians. The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought in Texas on May 12, 1865. When the news arrived in Galveston, on June 19, 1865, of the Confederate collapse, the freed slaves rejoiced, creating the celebration of Juneteenth. The State had suffered little during the War but trade and finance was disrupted. Angry returning veterans seized state property and Texas went through a period of extensive violence and disorder. Most outrages took place in northern Texas and were committed by outlaws who had their headquarters in the Indian Territory and plundered and murdered without distinction of party. President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General A. J. Hamilton as provisional governor on June 17, 1865. Hamilton had been a prominent politician before the war. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office. On March 30, 1870, although Texas did not meet all the requirements, the United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union. The movement for independence was started by the research of Richard Lance (Rick) McLaren. McLaren found that, in 1861, Texans voted four-to-one to leave the Union. According to McLaren's work, Texas met the qualifications, under international law, of a captive nation of war, since the end of the American Civil War in 1865. McLaren engaged in a protracted series of court and actual battles.

Recent The "Republic of Texas" is a group of individuals that claims that the annexation of Texas by the United States was illegal and that Texas remains an independent nation under occupation. Group activists draw on Tenther political thinking to advocate their ideas.The issue of the Legal status of Texas led the group to claim to reinstate a provisional government on December 13, 1995. Activists within the movement claim over 40,000 active supporters; however, there is no widespread popular support for an independent Texas. The movement split into three factions in 1996, one led by McLaren, one by David Johnson and Jesse Enloe, and the third by Archie Lowe and Daniel Miller. In 1997, McLaren and his followers kidnapped Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe, held them hostage at the Fort Davis Resort, and demanded the release of two movement members in exchange for the Rowes. McLaren's wife, Evelyn, convinced him to surrender peacefully after a week-long standoff with police and Texas Rangers. The McLarens and four other Republic of Texas members were sent to prison. This effectively destroyed the McLaren faction, and the Johnson-Enloe faction was discredited after two of its members, Jack Abbot Grebe Jr. and Johnie Wise, were convicted in 1998 of threatening to assassinate several government officials, including President Bill Clinton. In 2003, what remained of the movement consolidated into one dominant group recognizing the current "interim" government (which replaced the "provisional" government), headed by President Daniel Miller. This interim government claims authority from the original proclamations of 1995 and set up a seat of government in the town of Overton, Texas. Most of the original personalities of the movement have disappeared from public view. Government finances have come from donations and the sale of some items such as a Republic of Texas passport. The Republic of Texas headquarters in Overton burned down on August 31, 2005; one person was moderately injured. A separate movement, called the "Texas Convention Pro-Continuation 1861" (TCPC) claims to be the official authority "recognized by the State of Texas and the United States Government for the contemporary effort to bring to power, by popular vote of the People of Texas, the government of the Republic of Texas.” Yet another Republic of Texas group, sometimes referred to as the 10th Congress, meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Many of these members are splintered from previous RoT groups. Their President is Larry Hughes, and Vice President is V. Dale Ross. Republic of Texas President Miller and Laurence Savage published the Republic of Texas's manifesto //Texan Arise// in 2004. The book outlines the history of Texas, the history and philosophy of the Republic of Texas group, a road map to independence, and some spiritualistic views of Texas. A second important book for the movement is //The Brief by the Republic of Texas//, published in 2003, a comprehensive case against the United States and State of Texas governments. The book is laid out like a court case, and cites approximately 250 exhibits. In January 2004, a man in jail in Aspen, Colorado claimed that the state of Colorado had no jurisdiction to extradite him to California on a probation warrant, on the grounds that he was a citizen of the Republic of Texas. He claimed that the sliver of land which contains Aspen was a part of the original Republic of Texas and, as such, he was not a citizen of the United States. His claim was rejected by the courts.

In April 2009, Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, appeared to endorse a resolution supporting Texan sovereignty at a Tea Party in Austin, Texas, following a question from a reporter.
There's a lot of different scenarios. Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.... My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, will pay attention. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and a pretty independent lot to boot. it seems like he's talking so Texans will like him, not his personal opinion~ Semi
 * Responses  ** On April 19, 2009, the //Amarillo Globe-News// posted an editoria, writing that Perry "uttered some words that take that discussion to a level not heard since, oh, 1861 - when Texas in fact did secede and joined the Confederate States of America. We all know what happened next."

House Concurrent Resolution 50
On February 17, 2009, House Concurrent Resolution 50 was introduced and on May 30, 2009 the resolution passed in the House with amendments. The resolution reads in part: Resolved: That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; and, be it further Resolved: that this serves as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further Resolved: That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed. On April 9, 2009, Governor Perry affirmed his support for the resolution. Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said "We haven't heard as much talk about Texas sovereignty and states' rights in the last 30 years as we have in the last week.

Public opinion among Texas voters
After Perry's comments received considerable attention and news coverage, Rasmussen Reports issued a poll and found that about 1 in 3 of those surveyed believed that Texas has the right to secede from the United States, although only 18% would support secession and 75% would oppose secession. In another poll, 60% of Texans surveyed opposed becoming an independent state. However, 48% of Texas Republicans who were surveyed supported it. -Kent Johnson the cartoonist is showing that the secession in the 1800's was a bad thing and that he doesnt believe in secession. Because of his view on secession, the cartoonist is probably from the North. -collin Is the egg supposed to be rotton? -Dante

Since the annexation of **Texas** by the United States of America, segments of its population have sought independence from the union. While those who have sought to secede from the union have often been a minority of the population, Texan nationalism has been highlighted through history in events such as the American Civil War, where Texas separated from the union to join the Confederate States of America. While not legally recognized by Washington, the Confederate States were considered a belligerent power and were eventually defeated by the Union, thus nullifying the secession of Confederate States and reunifying the country. Texas would eventually re-enter the union by 1870. -kent johnson

this picture shows how some of the southern states may want to secede from the Union. [] -collin Fox News, I wish they would just deliver the news without all the opinions..~Semi Most people think the same as some nicknames for fox are "Fixed News" and "Fox and Friends"

The Constitution could be interpreted in opposite ways. In its clause giving Congress all powers "necessary and proper" for carrying the specified powers into effect, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury found ample authorization for his financial program, including a national bank. In the Tenth Amendment, however, Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state discovered a bar to congressional legislation of that kind: no power to establish a bank having been delegated to Congress, that power must have been reserved to the states. As president, George Washington sided with Hamilton and signed the bills that Congress passed to enact Hamilton's plan. Eventually Jefferson withdrew from the Washington administration and, with Madison, organized an opposition to it. Thus, in the 1790s, originated the two parties, Federalist and Republican, the one willing to exploit the "implied powers" of the Constitution, the other demanding a "strict construction" of the document. [] -Nick G.

"For many southerners, the election of Abraham Lincoln in the fall of 1860 was equivalent to a declaration of war on the South. A few, including Texas' aging Governor [|Sam Houston], argued against secession. They proclaimed the benefits of mediation and compromise. Further, if Texas did separate from the Union, Houston reasoned, she would fare better as an independent republic than as a member of the Confederacy." [] -Sara Glueck

Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the united States, explicitly or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary, rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said).  Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that //"All political power is inherent in the people ... __they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper__." [] -Nick G.//



[] -Sara Glueck

“From the early 1800s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, states' rights played a major role in the U.S. political process. The doctrine was most fully articulated in the writings of South Carolina statesman and political theorist John C. Calhoun. Calhoun contended that if acts of the federal government ran contrary to state or local interests, then states had the right to nullify said acts. Calhoun further proposed that states had the right to dissolve their contractual relationship with the federal government rather than submit to policies they saw as destructive to their local self-interests. Followers of Calhoun linked states' rights to slavery, and thus, protecting slavery became the equivalent of protecting regional Southern interests. In 1860, seven Southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. The constitution of the Confederacy began, ‘We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its own sovereign and independent character…’”

Read more: [] This shows why the southern states felt that this right was a state-decided right, and why they wouldn’t give it up to the federal government. -Julien

Supporters of secession claimed that, through economic legislation such as tariffs passed by a Northern-controlled Congress, the North was essentially trying to turn the South into an agricultural colony. In fact, southerners compared their situation to that of the American colonists who overthrew the British in the American Revolutionary War(1775-83). In both cases, they asserted, a group of people declared their independence from a power that was taxing them heavily; in both cases, the seceding entity was invaded by a power that did not want secession to be successful. In an "Address of the people of South Carolina to the people of the slaveholding states," in which South Carolina urged other Southern states to join it in a confederacy of slave-holding states, secessionists noted that the Southern states were subordinate to the North in Congress. Secessionists also pointed to the Declaration of Independance to bolster their claim that states had a right to secede. South Carolina's secession declaration included wording from the Declaration of Independence stating that the colonies "are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States." The secession declaration further quoted the colonists' declaration that "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." [] -Nick G.
 * The following quote was taken from a website that is for the secession of the South in the Civil War**

"The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, were adopted as a single unit two years after ratification of the Constitution. Dissatisfaction with guarantees of freedom listed in the Constitution led the founding fathers to enumerate personal rights as well as limitations on the federal government in these first 10 amendments. The Magna Carta, the English bill of rights, Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights, and the colonial struggle against tyranny provided inspiration and direction for the Bill of Rights. The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant that had originally bound the states together. The nullification crisis of the 1830s was a dispute over Northern-inspired tariffs that benefited Northern interests and were detrimental to Southern interests. The legal basis for the Southern call for nullification of the tariff laws was firmly rooted in states'-rights principles. Northern proposals to abolish or restrict slavery- an institution firmly protected by the Constitution- escalated the regional differences in the country and rallied the Southern states firmly behind the doctrine of states' rights and the sovereignty of the individual states. Southerners viewed the Constitution as a contractual agreement that was invalidated because its conditions had been breached. The Confederacy that was subsequently formed by the seceded states was patterned on the doctrine of states' rights. That doctrine, ironically, played a large role in the destruction of the country that it had caused to be created." -Myles ([])

Arguements for and against secsession, just an overview of the different views of the time ~ [] ~Semi
 * Bibliography
 * The issue:** Do the Southern states have the right to withdraw from the Union if they decide that being a part of it is no longer in their best interests? Or would secession and the formation of the Confederate States of America constitute a rebellion?
 * //Arguments for Secession:// The federal government is instituting policies that go against the best interests of the South, such as tariffs that disproportionately hurt the South and attempts to free the slaves who work on Southern plantations. Just as the colonists had the right to declare independence from Britain nearly a century ago, the South has the right to seek its independence from the Union.
 * //Arguments against Secession:// When all of the states entered the Union they essentially formed a binding compact; for that compact to be broken, all states must agree to its dissolution, not just a handful of them. Preservation of the Union is far more important than the complaints of individual states; the country would be weaker if it were divided into two.
 * [[image:http://www.magicalcat.com/images-sec/hap00051.gif width="400" height="328" caption="Civil War (Lincoln political envelope, 1861)"]] ||
 * New York Historical Society ||
 * This image is from an envelope issued between 1860 and 1861. Envelopes were a popular means of propagandizing political views during the Civil War era.

Asserting that states had a right to secede, seven states declared their independence from the United States before the inauguration of Abe Lincoln as President on March 4, 1861; four more did so after the Civil War began at the The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 1861). The government of the United States of America regarded seccesion as illegal and refused to recognize the Confederacy. Although British and French commercial interests sold the Confederacy warships and materials, no European or other foreign nation officially recognized the CSA as an independent country. The CSA effectively collapsed when Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston surrendered their armies in April 1865. The last official meeting of the Confederate government took place in Abbeville, SC, on May 2, 1865. Union troops captured the Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Nearly all remaining Confederate forces surrendered by the end of June, with the very last Confederate surrender taking place on November 6, 1865, aboard the CSS Shenendoah. A decade-long process known as Reconstruction expelled ex-Confederate leaders from office, established a legal basis for the civilo rights and the right to vote of the freedmen, and re-admitted the states to representation in Congress.

[] -Greg

"**Secession** (derived from the Latin term secessio) is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals" -Myles ([])

Moreover, opponents argued that there were two clauses in the Constitution that made secession illegal: the supremacy clause and the guarantee clause. The supremacy clause (Article VI, Paragraph 2) stated: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof. shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Antisecessionists interpreted that to mean that the act of secession was in violation of federal mandates against treason. Furthermore, they noted, the guarantee clause (Article IV, Section 4) stated: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." Lincoln referred to that clause to justify the Northern invasion of the South in an attempt to prevent secession. "[I]f a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going out, is an indispensable means, to the end, of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it, are also lawful, and obligatory," he said. [] -Nick G.

This is how a state (Texas) would benefit from secession: "Over the past century-and-a-half the United States government has awarded itself ever more power (but not the lawful authority) to meddle with the lives, liberty, and property of the People of Texas (as well as those of the other States). Sapping Texans' wealth into a myriad of bureaucratic, socialist schemes both in the U.S. and abroad, the **bipartisan despots** in Washington persist in expanding the federal debt and budget deficits every year. Texans would indeed gain much by reclaiming control of their State, their property, their liberty, and their very lives, by refusing to participate further in the fraud perpetrated by the Washington politicians and bureaucrats. By restoring Texas to an independent republic, Texans would truly reclaim a treasure for themselves and their progeny." -Sam * [] *

"AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!" An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt. Perry repeated his running theme that Texas' economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess." Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package. Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that." [] -Sara Glueck  "As early as the 1820s, some southerners raised secession as a last resort to defend slavery and southern rights. The notion that any state could voluntarily leave the Union was based on the state compact theory of the Constitution, articulated first in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. The states existed before the Constitution, this argument ran, came together to create the national government, and therefore were ultimately superior to it. This theory was the basis for nullification and secession, neither of which are mentioned in the Constitution. Southerners sometimes voiced an abstract commitment to the ideal of states' rights, but most regional spokesmen understood it as a means through which they might protect slavery. As the South's share of population, and thus its political power, shrank within the Union, the drastic step of secession became more attractive and likely as the last gamble of an increasingly out numbered minority ( http://www.bookrags.com/research/secession-aaw-02 - Posted by Olivia “’There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their noses at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.’” Read more: [] This is Gov. Perry’s reasoning for Texas’ possible secession, and why he might support it. -Julien

scrapetv.com -Greg haha -Dante

"The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant that had originally bound the states together."

-Sam * [] *

Perry: Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. We got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it, but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that.

These republicans are talking treason in my mind. As soon as a Democratic president is inaugurated after conservatives led the charge and collapsed our economy, these freak show conservatives are now talking sucession. OH, Lord---help us all. -Dante [] During the Civil War, many Southern states left the Union. These Confederate or "Rebel" states wanted their own flag to fly. The first Rebel flag that flew over the Confederacy, was the Bonnie Blue. The Bonnie Blue was never adopted by the confederacy, but it was loved by the people. Officially, the first Rebel flag was the Stars and Bars. The Stars and Bars flew from March 1861 to May of 1863. Unfortunately this Rebel flag looked too much like the Union's Stars and Stripes. The Confederate states decided to look further for a more unique design. The best-known Rebel flag was the Confederate Battle Flag, also known as the "Southern Cross". The Battle flag was carried by Confederate troops during battle. So, on May 1st,1863, the second Confederate flag design was adopted, placing the Battle Flag as the canton on a white field. It was named the Stainless Banner. This Rebel flag was mistaken for a truce flag in calm weather, since it would just hang with mostly white showing. This led the Confederacy to create the third Official Rebel flag. On March 4th,1865, a new pattern was adapted. It was the same as the previous design, but with a wide, red stripe on the fly end. The third flag did not last long, since the war came to an end. It was called the Last Confederate flag. -Dante []

__Seccesion Time Line__ On January 1861, South Carolina,Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all secceded from the Union. On February 1861, Jefferson Davis was named provisional president of the Confederacy until elections could be held. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inagurated president. In June, of the year 1861, Despite their acceptance of slavery, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri did not join the Confederacy. Although divided in their loyalties, a combination of political maneuvering and Union military pressure kept these states from seceding. Soon Lincoln became aware of the threat of a protracted war and that the army needed more orginization and training, Lincoln replaced McDowell with General George B. McClellan. -- Emmett

Perry: Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. We got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it, but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that.

These republicans are talking treason in my mind. As soon as a Democratic president is inaugurated after conservatives led the charge and collapsed our economy, these freak show conservatives are now talking sucession. OH, Lord---help us all. This is an article on Gov. Perry's veiw on Texas' succession. -Dante [] During the Civil War, many Southern states left the Union. These Confederate or "Rebel" states wanted their own flag to fly. The first Rebel flag that flew over the Confederacy, was the Bonnie Blue. The Bonnie Blue was never adopted by the confederacy, but it was loved by the people. Officially, the first Rebel flag was the Stars and Bars. The Stars and Bars flew from March 1861 to May of 1863. Unfortunately this Rebel flag looked too much like the Union's Stars and Stripes. The Confederate states decided to look further for a more unique design. The best-known Rebel flag was the Confederate Battle Flag, also known as the "Southern Cross". The Battle flag was carried by Confederate troops during battle. So, on May 1st,1863, the second Confederate flag design was adopted, placing the Battle Flag as the canton on a white field. It was named the Stainless Banner. This Rebel flag was mistaken for a truce flag in calm weather, since it would just hang with mostly white showing. This led the Confederacy to create the third Official Rebel flag. On March 4th,1865, a new pattern was adapted. It was the same as the previous design, but with a wide, red stripe on the fly end. The third flag did not last long, since the war came to an end. It was called the Last Confederate flag. This is the history of the flags of the confederacy. -Dante []

"From the early 1800s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, states' rights played a major role in the U.S. political process. The doctrine was most fully articulated in the writings of South Carolina statesman and political theorist **JOHN C. CALHOUN** . Calhoun contended that if acts of the federal government ran contrary to state or local interests, then states had the right to nullify said acts. Calhoun further proposed that states had the right to dissolve their contractual relationship with the federal government rather than submit to policies they saw as destructive to their local self-interests." || [] -Amanda

Reasons For Secession Today: " 1. Lack of border protection thus allowing swarms of illegal immigrants to come and live off the good graces of the people. Damaging our culture, language and lowering our security as sovereign citizens of our respective States and of America. 2. Creating new offices and appointing new officers with out the consent of the people to come and harass the Sovereign citizens and deprive them of liberty and other properties without due cause or process. This has chiefly come from the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security. 3. A judicial system that has overstepped its boundaries and disregarded the demands of the people and both Houses of Congress. 4. The Supreme Court passing laws that not only are unconstitutional but taking and ruling on case which have no Constitutional grounds what so ever. 5. By allowing imminent domain and taking by force private property to be given to corporation and individuals with large financial resources. 6. The Congress has acted on fear and not on law with regards to war. 7. The President engaging in an unconstitutional war and sending over 2,000 Sovereign citizens to their death. 8. By allowing convicted murders and molesters to walk free from justice after serving only a few years in prison. 9. By passing resolutions against the Judeo-Christian foundation of our country and demanding the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings despite the outrage of the citizenry. 10. By forcefully removing judges from office because they refused to disobey their oath to uphold the laws of their State. 11. The federal government has placed the military in a separate and superior position to the citizen armies and militia and placed them over the populace. 12. The federal government has allowed incorrect facts about history to be taught thus lowering and removing our children’s pride in their heritage and culture. 13. The federal government has allowed special interest groups to govern local policies. 14. The federal government has failed to act quickly in times of natural disasters locally yet they rapidly send 10s of millions of dollars to nations thousands of miles away. 15. By allowing the American Indian populations to continue to live in substandard housing and forcing them to remain on reservations. 16. By depriving many Sovereign citizens the right to trial and jury in effort to speed up the governments own agenda. 17. The federal government has kept many medical drugs from being available to the public due to the bureaucracy and greed of the FDA and large companies. 18. By not placing restrictions on oil companies thus forcing the people to pay record prices and the companies receive record profits. 19. The federal government has violated the 1st Amendment by placing restrictions on the private citizen’s ability to worship, by placing regulations on the free press, by implementing large fines in order for the people to peaceably assemble. 20. The federal government has violated the 2nd Amendment by placing fines and restrictions on gun ownership and in several cases denying that right to law abiding citizens all together. 21. The federal government has violated the 4th Amendment by searching and seizing the properties of Sovereign citizens without probable cause or due process and in some cases without a warrant issued by a judge. 22. The federal government has violated the 8th Amendment by imposing bails of over 1 million dollars in many cases. 23. The federal government has violated the 9th Amendment in using far fetched laws and rulings to deny the rights of the Sovereign citizen. 24. The federal government has violated the 10th Amendment by refusing the right of the people to secede peacefully in 1860, and by passing rulings and resolutions with no bases in Constitutional Law. 25. The federal government has in timesauthorized the suspension of Corpus and passed ex post facto laws in direct violation of the Constitution. 26. The federal government has numerous times usurped the Constitutions of the several States. 27. The federal government has given partial sovereignty to the United Nations thus lessening our ability to rule ourselves as we see fit. 28. The federal government not only has violated its own laws but the international laws of which the government has aligned its self, to wit; Article 2 Declaration of Human Rights - denied rights to Sovereign citizens based on their political opinion. Article 3 - Allowing the mass murder of children. Article 12 - Interfering with the private lives of individuals and their families without cause. Article 17 - Violating the right of the individual to own property, and having it arbitrarily removed. Article 23 - The federal government has allowed corporations to deny the citizens right to join a union. Article 25 - Denying the rights of the Sovereign citizens and the American Indians to have a standard of living adequate to maintain good health and well being. 29. The Southern States never surrendered and thus according to law are still an independent sovereign nation. 30. The federal government refused the rights of some 2 million Southerners after the War forSouthern Independence. 31. The federal government has violated and broken the rights and regulation set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights thus nullifying them and rendering the union between governments and State ineffective." (http://southernsovereignty.tripod.com/id35.html) - Posted by Olivia This picture describes the Secession Movement http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YGLQQZTHoU0/SZrIw_00uDI/AAAAAAAAHc4/3It5GvP3Rec/s400/the_secessionist_movement.jpg - Posted by Olivia

In 2005, Vermont discussed its possible secession from the United States. http://images.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/25/secession/story.jpg - Posted by Olivia

1525–35; < L // sēcessiōn- // (s. of // sēcessiō // ) withdrawal, equiv. to //sēcess// ( // us // ) (ptp. of // sēcēdere // to secede; see cession) + //-iōn-// -ion' -Nick G. []
 * // Origin of Secession: //**

 http://img.sparknotes.com/content/testprep/bookimgs/sat2/history/0001/SecededStates.gif ​ - Posted by Olivia

Flag Bulletin 150 [vol. xxxiii:1; Jan/Feb 1993] had an article on the flag of The State of Jefferson [pp. 22-30]. Apparently, the locals thought they were "double-crossed" by the state authorities (I think it was to do with highways not being built in their area), hence the two saltires in their symbol. They first declared their "statehood" in November or early December 1941. After Pearl Harbor, they decided there were other things to worry about and that they had made their point with their protests.

Traveling through the area in 1999, I saw several signs and bumper stickers proclaiming "State of Jefferson." Their website includes their flag, with the typical Gold Seal on Blue Bedsheet, and the history of their "secession". //Dean McGee//, 9 October 2002

The "Republic of Jefferson" was an American state that existed for about 10 months in 1941. Essentially, northern counties in California, and southern counties in Oregon felt betrayed and abandoned by their respective state governments, so they seceded from their states, but *not* the union, and formed their own state, which they called "The Republic of Jefferson."

This kind of thing has been tried before (The State of Franklin, from 1783-1787 springs to mind) and it's expressly forbidden by the constitution *unless* all states which are a party to it, *and* congress agree to allow the subdivision, in which case it's ok. California and Oregon were opposed to it, but were dumbfounded, and congress flatly refused to get involved. It was the biggest story of 1941... until the 1st week of december, of course.

WWII killed the "Jefferson" movement (It seemed pitiful and disloyal, in retrospect), but the fact remains that for nearly a year, the region was completely self-governed with no input from outside.

//Randy Schanze//, 13 February 2003

An earlier attempt, in the late 1850's prior to the American Civil War, was made to split California into two sections. The Southern part, filled with pro-South residents due to migration patterns before the war, were to become the Republic of the Pacific.

This even made it to Congress, where the decision was voted down. With the coming of the Civil War, pro-South groups in Southern California were hoisting the "bear" flag, which had dated to the 1840's. I would suspect that had the Republic of the Pacific come to pass that the bear flag might well have been its banner. -Nick G. []

 The Seccessionist Theory "As early as the 1820s, some southerners raised secession as a last resort to defend slavery and southern rights. The notion that any state could voluntarily leave the Union was based on the state compact theory of the Constitution, articulated first in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. The states existed before the Constitution, this argument ran, came together to create the national government, and therefore were ultimately superior to it. This theory was the basis for nullification and secession, neither of which are mentioned in the Constitution. Southerners sometimes voiced an abstract commitment to the ideal of states' rights, but most regional spokesmen understood it as a means through which they might protect slavery. As the South's share of population, and thus its political power, shrank within the Union, the drastic step of secession became more attractive and likely as the last gamble of an increasingly out numbered minority (http://www.bookrags.com/research/secession-aaw-02/ )" - Posted by Olivia //

States want to secede from the United States
This past week "People Who Want To Secede From United States Hold a Convention" in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Don't blame Tennessee, we're just holding the convention, doesn't mean we're whackos too. OK, maybe we've all thought about it at one time, but not seriously. The [|Middlebury Institute, based in Cold Spring, N.Y met with with The League of the south] in a two day convention targeting how to peacefully, and legally, secede from the union. It's called the second annual North American Secessionist Convention: (all emphasis mine)

If this sounds like what happened 150 years ago leading up the the Civil War, it is, kind of, but without the violence. It's the second annual North American Secessionist Convention and it __includes people from all walks of life from many states.__ From Alaska to Alabama, from Vermont to the West Coast, organizations have sprung up with people who say __they are fed up with corrupt politicians and politics.__ They hold __differing political views, from the far left to the far right. But one thing they agree on is that they say Washington has too much control.__ Dr. Micheal Hill of the League of the South said __"from a political standpoint we all agree that the whole political system has been compromised by big money.__ The candidates are bought and paid for and they work in the interest of those who pay them. __They don't work for the interest of the common people." "Congress, like the presidency, is corporate run and owned.__ You can't make any headway there so you have to absent yourself from it," according to Kirkpatrick Sale who leads The Middlebury Institute. That organization is the co-sponsor of the convention.

[] -Greg

[] -Dante


 * The slavery issue was not a factor in the Civil War until the Emancipation Proclamation. The Confederate states seceded from the union over the issue of states rights and the power of state governments to totally rule over its land and decide its own issues.
 * For one reason and one reason only, to protect the institution of slavery which they perceived as being threatened by the Republican Party and the Lincoln administration.
 * The south broke away for a number of reasons, one of them was not slavery. This is fact because of the use of common sense. Tell me how the north can fight for the emancipation of slaves in the south when this peculiar institution still existed in the north. Slavery wasn't abolished until 1868, 3 years after the war. Thus Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware still had slaves. (Union States)
 * This struggle was over the power in government. The south was rich in the agriculture industry and traded with Europe, the
 * north was industry and had no trading partner whatsoever. So when Lincoln was elected president, he taxed all southern goods and bankrupted many. Thus the south broke away because of balance of power. Hmmmm this sounds like the original 13 colonies ehh? Well they wont ever teach you that in our kids history books. Slavery was not an issue, Lincoln even asked president Davis that slavery would be intact if they came back into the union. Davis' response was no because slavery is not the struggle we fight in this war.

[]

-Emmett Walsh

Texas Secession? Perry, One Third of Texans Are Wrong: Texas Can't Secede

By Robert Schlestinger

Two points to consider. First, there's this brief history of the Lone Star State's 1845 entry into the Union, emphasis added:

When all attempts to arrive at a formal annexation treaty failed, the United States Congress passed—after much debate and only a simple majority—a Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States. Under these terms, Texas would keep both its public lands and its public debt, it would have the power to divide into four additional states "of convenient size" in the future if it so desired, and it would deliver all military, postal, and customs facilities and authority to the United States government. (**Neither this joint resolution or the ordinance passed by the** **Republic** **of** **Texas** **' Annexation Convention gave** **Texas** **the right to secede**.)

-Anthony F.

Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty. Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments - Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE. In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States. The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority. If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were - separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation. By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken. Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences. In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety. On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief. We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. Adopted December 24, 1860 [|Back to top] Jefferson Davis is shown at the top and center of the illustration. This newspaper also carried a very complimentary article and biography on Jefferson Davis. They describe Jefferson Davis as "A finished scholar, a high-minded gentleman, an easy, yet vigorous and effective speaker, a devoted father, a true friend. Keep in mind that Harper's Weekly was a Northern newspaper, and this was written after secession and his resignation from Congress. The article goes on to predict, "He is emphatically one of those "Born to Command", and is doubtless destined to occupy a high position either in the Southern Confederacy or in the United States." It is clear from reading the articles at this period that few if any fully realized the implications of secession. The impression is left that no one anticipated a war of the magnitude that resulted. To dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America." The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit: > Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.
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 * December 20, 1860 in Charleston, South carolina** - AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America." We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.
 * South Carolina Declaration Of Secession:**
 * ARTICLE 1** - His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."
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 * January 9, 1861 in Jackson, Mississippi** - Mississippi was the second state to secede from the union. Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861. The story was reported in the February 2, 1861 edition of Harper's Weekly, which carried the front page illustration at right, entitled "The Seceding Mississippi Delegation in Congress". The image was sketched by famed artist Winslow Homer, from a Mathew Brady photograph. At this time, Homer was relatively unknown, and was utilized by Harper's Weekly to sketch illustrations.
 * January 9, 1861 in Jackson, Mississippi** - Mississippi was the second state to secede from the union. Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861. The story was reported in the February 2, 1861 edition of Harper's Weekly, which carried the front page illustration at right, entitled "The Seceding Mississippi Delegation in Congress". The image was sketched by famed artist Winslow Homer, from a Mathew Brady photograph. At this time, Homer was relatively unknown, and was utilized by Harper's Weekly to sketch illustrations.
 * Mississippi Ordinance Of Seccession:**
 * **Section 1**: That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free, sovereign, and independent State.
 * **Section 2**: That so much of the first section of the seventh article of the constitution of this State as requires members of the Legislature and all officers, executive and judicial, to take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same is hereby, abrogated and annulled.
 * **Section 3**: That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed, or treaty made, in pursuance thereof, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.
 * **Section** 4: That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union: In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory. The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France. The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico. It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. It tramples the original equality of the South under foot. It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact, which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain. It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice. It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists. It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives. It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security. It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system. It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause. It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood. Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England. Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it. [|Back to top] [|Back to top] Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore: Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as "the United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State. Section 2. Be it further declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled, That all powers over the Territory of said State, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the State of Alabama. And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States, Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A.D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security. And be it further resolved, That the President of this Convention, be and is hereby instructed to transmit forthwith a copy of the foregoing Preamble, Ordinance, and Resolutions to the Governors of the several States named in said resolutions. Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, at Montgomery, on this, the eleventh day of January, A.D. 1861. [|Back to top] The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. 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 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 for the support of these objects. Theses 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, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country. But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all. All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections - of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice. The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves. Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation. The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery and to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers. With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization. For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it. The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations. A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slaveholding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensable for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility. The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slaveholding State in the Union. We have their covenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren. The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations. These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates. These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved. Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquility. Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861 [|Back to top] [|Back to top] Ratified 23 Feb 1861 by a vote of 46,153 for and 14,747 against.
 * Mississippi Declaration Of Secession**
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 * January 10, 1861 in Florida** - ?
 * January 10, 1861 in Florida** - ?
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 * January 11, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama** - AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled "The Constitution of the United States of America"
 * January 11, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama** - AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled "The Constitution of the United States of America"
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 * January 19, 1861 in Atlanta, Georgia** - We the people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.We do further declare and ordain that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. **Passed January 19, 1861**
 * Georgia Declaration Of Secession:**
 * Georgia Declaration Of Secession:**
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 * January 29, 1861 in Louisiana** -
 * January 29, 1861 in Louisiana** -
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 * February 1, 1861 in City, Texas** - AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled "the Constitution of the United States of America."
 * WHEREAS**, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and
 * WHEREAS**, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,
 * WHEREAS**, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; **THEREFORE**,
 * SECTION 1**. We, the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in convention assembled, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by our convention of delegates on the 4th day of July, A.D. 1845, and afterwards ratified by us, under which the Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union with other States, and became a party to the compact styled "The Constitution of the United States of America," be, and is hereby, repealed and annulled; that all the powers which, by the said compact, were delegated by Texas to the Federal Government are revoked and resumed; that Texas is of right absolved from all restraints and obligations incurred by said compact, and is a separate sovereign State, and that her citizens and people are absolved from all allegiance to the United States or the government thereof.
 * SECTION 2**. This ordinance shall be submitted to the people of Texas for their ratification or rejection, by the qualified voters, on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and unless rejected by a majority of the votes cast, shall take effect and be in force on and after the 2d day of March, A.D. 1861.
 * PROVIDED**, that in the Representative District of El Paso said election may be held on the 18th day of February, 1861. Done by the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, at Austin, this 1st day of February, A.D. 1861.
 * PROVIDED**, that in the Representative District of El Paso said election may be held on the 18th day of February, 1861. Done by the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, at Austin, this 1st day of February, A.D. 1861.

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof, The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union. Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits - a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slaveholding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them? The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States. By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States. The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefore, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas. These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration. When we advert to the course of individual non-slaveholding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude. The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions - a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith. In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color - a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slaveholding States. By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights. They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition. They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved. They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides. They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose. They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance. They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State. And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slaveholding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States. In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed. We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states. By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South. For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month. Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.
 * Texas Declaration Of Secession:**

http://www.mycivilwar.com/battles/secede.htm

--Emmett Secession in The United States- Attempts at or aspirations of **secession from the United States** have been a feature of the country's politics since its birth. Some have argued for a constitutional right of secession and others for a natural right of revolution. The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional while commenting that revolution or consent of the states could lead to a successful secession. Except for the American Revolution which created the United States, no such movement, revolution or secession, has succeeded. In 1861, the Confederate States of America attempted, and failed, to achieve secession by force of arms in the American Civil War. A 2008 Zogby International poll revealed that 22% of Americans believed that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede and become an independent republic." ([]) - Posted by Olivia

Why Did the South Secede In 1860?

"The seeds of secession had been sown early in American history; quite literally with the fundamental differences in agriculture and resultant adoption of slavery in the South. From early days, the thirteen states had grown up separately, and each had their own culture and beliefs, which were often incompatible with those held in other states. The geographical and cultural differences between north and south would manifest themselves at regular and alarming intervals throughout the hundred years following the drafting of the constitution. Tension reached a peak during the 1850s, over the right to hold slaves in new territories. The Wilmot Proviso of 1846, roused bitter hostilities, and vehement debate turned to physical violence during the period of 'Bleeding Kansas'. The election of Lincoln, who the South perceived to be an abolitionist, in 1860 was the final straw, and the secession of seven Southern states followed soon after.

Geographically, North and South were very different places. The pastures of New England were similar to those found in England, suitable for a variety of uses. Hot Southern prairie lands were perfect for cotton growing, a lucrative business at this time. Following the invention of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, the South became increasingly dependent on this crop, and an entire society grew out of it. The society was one of wealthy planters, who led a life similar to the landed gentry of England, controlling politics and society of the day. In the fields laboured Negro slaves, usually only a handful per plantation, though larger farms were occasionally seen. In addition, there lived poor whites, tenant farmers or smallholders, who eked out a living from the land. This contrasted sharply with Northern society, where industrialisation flourished, creating wealthy entrepreneurs and employing cheap immigrant labour. Given the localised nature of media, and difficulties of transport two cultures grew up in the same nation, remarkably different and often suspicious of one another.

Crisis struck in 1820, when the North/South balance in the Senate was threatened by the application of Missouri to join the Union as a slave state. Southerners, aware of their numerical inferiority in the House of Representatives, were keen to maintain their political sway, in the Senate. The North feared that if Southerners were to take control of the Senate, political deadlock would ensue. Compromise was found in 1820 when Maine applied to join as a free state, maintaining the balance. It was agreed that slavery would not be allowed north of 36'30, except in Missouri, and set the precedent of free and slave state admission in pairs.

Sectional conflict flared again during the era of Andrew Jackson, when South Carolina threatened to secede over the Nullification Controversy, and tensions heightened following the heated Webster-Hayne debates in 1830 over states' rights. This proved to he an ongoing theme of the sectional crisis, and some historians have claimed that this was a fundamental reason for the breakdown of North/South relations and ultimately the Civil War itself. By 1833 the Nullification Controversy had petered out, with neither side yet prepared to use force. However, sectional differences were again been brought to the fore, and secession itself had been threatened for the first time.

The implementation of the strengthened Fugitive Slave Law was vital to keep southern states content. However, following the costly and unpopular return of an escaped slave, Anthony Bums, from Massachusetts, many northern states were reluctant to comply with this law. The cost of Bums removal was estimated at anything between $14,000 and $100,000, and Amos Lawrence, a Boston textile magnate, said of the event, "we went to bed conservative, unionist Whigs, and woke up stark mad abolitionists". This indicates the heightening tension and feelings of usually placid and moderate people, which typified public opinion at this time.

The volatile political situation of this period was not helped by the Southern, and vehemently pro-slavery, Chief Justice Taney. In the 1857 Dred Scott case he ruled not only that Negroes were not citizens and therefore had no right to bring a case to court, but that the Missouri Compromise had denied slaveholders their property, thus compromising the Fifth Amendment. This implicit declaration that an act of Congress was unconstitutional was rare and provoked bitter dissent in Northern quarters. However, if northerners were angry over the Dred Scott case, southerners were livid following John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. Not only had Brown attempted to incite a slave revolt, and capture the federal arsenal, but he was treated as a martyr by many northerners following his execution. Despite his crackpot scheme being a total failure, the sympathy Brown received from some northerners was too much for many southerners, whose anti-northern feeling was now beyond control.

The final straw for the South was the election of Abraham Lincoln who, despite his protestations to the contrary, could not convince the South that he was not a firebrand abolitionist. The prospect of a federal government controlled by the 'Black' Republican Party was too much for some, and South Carolina was the first state to secede, followed quickly by six others. This did not necessarily have to mean Civil War, but few in the north were prepared to readily see the Union dismembered. Perhaps they remembered Madison's words at the drafting of the constitution; "great as the evil (slavery) is, a dismemberment of the union would be worse". Lincoln's election was the last in a string of events which had heightened sectional feeling to beyond the realms of reason or constraint. Emerson's warning that 'Mexico will poison us' seemed prophetically true, given the bitter struggle over bondage in the captured territories. When Clay, Calhoun and Webster died, realistic hopes of a peaceful solution to the sectional conflict died with them. Bloodshed in Kansas, weak Presidents, extraordinary goings on in Congress, a Chief Justice who was anything but impartial, extremists such as John Brown, and finally the United States' first sectional party all served to highlight the fundamental differences between north and south. Lincoln's election was the spark that ignited the tinder of secessionist feeling, blowing apart the Union." [] -Sara Glueck

Secession in the Civil War By United states history In the seven states that had seceded, the people responded promptly to the appeal of the new president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. Both sides now tensely awaited the action of the slave states that thus far had remained loyal. In response to the shelling of Fort Sumter, Virginia seceded on April 17, and Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina followed quickly. No state left the Union with greater reluctance than Virginia. Her statesmen had a leading part in the winning of the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution, and she had provided the nation with five presidents. With Virginia went Colonel Robert E. Lee, who declined the command of the Union Army out of loyalty to his state. Between the enlarged Confederacy and the free-soil North lay the border states, of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri which, despite some sympathies with the South, remained loyal to the Union.

The State of South Carolina "At a Convention of the People of the State of South Carolina, begun and holden at Columbia on the Seventeenth day of December in the year or our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty and thence continued by adjournment to Charleston, and there by divers adjournments to the Twentieth day of December in the same year – An Ordinance To dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.” We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled do declare and ordain, and it is herby declared and ordained, That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and eight eight, whereby the Constitution of the United State of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendment of the said Constitution, are here by repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of “The United States of America,” is hereby dissolved. Done at Charleston, the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty." [] -Sara Glueck

State's Rights Definition: All rights not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution nor denied by it to the states. - Sam Pitti texas wanting to leave the U.S. [] -Amanda

“From the early 1800s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, states' rights played a major role in the U.S. political process. The doctrine was most fully articulated in the writings of South Carolina statesman and political theorist John C. Calhoun contended that if acts of the federal government ran contrary to state or local interests, then states had the right to nullify said acts. Calhoun further proposed that states had the right to dissolve their contractual relationship with the federal government rather than submit to policies they saw as destructive to their local self-interests. Followers of Calhoun linked states' rights to slavery, and thus, protecting slavery became the equivalent of protecting regional Southern interests. In 1860, seven Southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. The constitution of the Confederacy began, ‘We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its own sovereign and independent character …’” Read more: http://law.jrank.org/pages/10488/States-Rights.html This is why the Southern states felt they could choose slavery laws and how John C. Calhoun influenced this way of thinking. -Julien

The Lone Star State

-Greg

"It is curious how indifferent historians have been to the South's complaint about the tariff, often dismissing it as a scapegoat for the section's own economic shortcomings or as a disguised form of slavery conflict," writes historian Clyde N. Wilson (in his section of "Slavery, Secession, and Southern History"//). "But the plain truth is that [John C.] Calhoun was entirely correct in his opposition to the tariff. Debates about the actual macro- and micro-economic effects of antebellum protection are beside the point. The South, providing the bulk of the Union's exports, sold in an unprotected world market, while all American consumers bought in a highly protected one. And this was to the benefit of one class, no matter how plausibly disguised as a public boon. "Such exactions are hard to justify at any time, but especially so in a federal Union in which economic interests are regionalized in such a way that the exploitive effect is concentrated. Americans had fought a revolution for smaller grievances. Not to mention, as Calhoun pointed out in the//South Carolina Exposition, //to the agreement of free traders, that the tariff's 'tendency is, to make the poor poorer and the rich richer.' "But the tariff, like abolition, was also a question of honor. The disingenuous arguments of the protectionists tended, like those of the abolitionists, to dwell upon the moral inferiority and stupidity of southerners in comparison with wise, righteous, industrious New Englanders. Calhoun did not engage in that type of polemic, but he replied to it, again in the// Exposition//: 'We are told, by those who pretend to understand our interest better than we do, that the excess of production and not the Tariff, is the evil which afflicts us. ... We would feel more disposed to respect the spirit in which the advice is offered, if those from whom it comes accompanied it with the weight of their example.// They// also, occasionally, complain of low prices; but instead of diminishing the supply, as a remedy for the evil, demand an enlargement of the market, by the exclusion of all competition.' "[1] The commercial and industrial rise of New England in the early 19th century was not an accident. It was a deliberate scheme, in which the South at first willingly participated. All was outlined at the inception of the republic by Alexander Hamilton, and the goal was to increase the prosperity and independence of the whole nation. But the result, from the South's point of view, turned out rather differently. http://www.etymonline.com/cw/economics.htm -avery stray

The threat of a State, such as Montana, breaking away from the united States is a valid way for States to keep the Federal Government in check. Our more local Government, like State and City, are just as responsible for protecting our basic self-evident Rights like Life and Liberty as the Federal Government is, and our local Governments have been asleep at the wheel. We are suffering the consequences of this today. If a Federal Judge rules that the Federal Government can FORCE you to PAY somebody else's bill via a Food Stamp Program, then that Federal Judge is WRONG, and the States need to act on our behalf because this ruling violates the SELF-EVIDENT truth that you have a Right to Liberty. Being forced to work for somebody else, is NOT Liberty. The Declaration of Independence basically told the Government of England that it lost jurisdiction of the Colonies by failing to uphold the people's God given Human Rights.

When the __[|Democratic Party]__ in the South seceded during the 1800s, it was because the 3rd party Republican candidate for president, President Lincoln, won the election on a Slavery Abolitionist Platform. After the Democrats walked out, they formed a 'New Nation on the Cornerstone of Slavery', that is a quote using their own words from their own documents. See the following PDF document for proof about how it is a matter of historic FACT that the Democrats are the Party of Slavery, the __[|KKK]__, and other Human Rights violations such as lynching. http://conservatismexplained.blogspot.com/2009/01/state-secession-to-be-or-not-to-be.html -avery stray

. Lack of border protection thus allowing swarms of illegal immigrants to come and live off the good graces of the people. Damaging our culture, language and lowering our security as sovereign citizens of our respective States and of America. 2. Creating new offices and appointing new officers with out the consent of the people to come and harass the Sovereign citizens and deprive them of liberty and other properties without due cause or process. This has chiefly come from the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security. 3. A judicial system that has overstepped its boundaries and disregarded the demands of the people and both Houses of Congress. 4. The Supreme Court passing laws that not only are unconstitutional but taking and ruling on case which have no Constitutional grounds what so ever. 5. By allowing imminent domain and taking by force private property to be given to corporation and individuals with large financial resources. 6. The Congress has acted on fear and not on law with regards to war. 7. The President engaging in an unconstitutional war and sending over 2,000 Sovereign citizens to their death. 8. By allowing convicted murders and molesters to walk free from justice after serving only a few years in prison. 9. By passing resolutions against the Judeo-Christian foundation of our country and demanding the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings despite the outrage of the citizenry. 10. By forcefully removing judges from office because they refused to disobey their oath to uphold the laws of their State. 11. The federal government has placed the military in a separate and superior position to the citizen armies and militia and placed them over the populace. 12. The federal government has allowed incorrect facts about history to be taught thus lowering and removing our children’s pride in their heritage and culture. 13. The federal government has allowed special interest groups to govern local policies. 14. The federal government has failed to act quickly in times of natural disasters locally yet they rapidly send 10s of millions of dollars to nations thousands of miles away. http://southernsovereignty.tripod.com/id35.html -avery stray

This picture describes the states becoming free. http://blog.silive.com/latest_news/2007/11/1103secede.jpg -avery