Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century movement that opposed
the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later
opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, gave state governments more authority. Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia, Anti-Federalists worried, among other things, that the position of president, then a novelty, might evolve into a monarchy.
Though the Constitution was ratified and supplanted the Articles of
Confederation, Anti-Federalist influence helped lead to the passage of
the United States Bill of Rights.
They believed the Constitution created a presidency so powerful that it would become a monarchy.
They believed the Constitution provided insufficient rights in the
courts (e.g., no guarantee of juries in civil cases, nor that criminal
case juries be local) and would create an out-of-control judiciary.
They believed that the national government would be too far away
from the people and thus unresponsive to the needs of localities.
They believed the Constitution would abrogate, at least in part, the power of the states.
History
During the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath, the term federal was applied to any person who supported the colonial union and the government formed under the Articles of Confederation. After the war, the group that felt the national government under the Articles was too weak appropriated the name Federalist
for themselves. Historian Jackson Turner Main wrote, "to them, the man
of 'federal principles' approved of 'federal measures,' which meant
those that increased the weight and authority or extended the influence
of the Confederation Congress."
As the Federalists moved to amend the Articles, eventually leading to the Constitutional Convention,
they applied the term anti-federalist to their opposition. The term
implied, correctly or not, both opposition to Congress and unpatriotic
motives. The Anti-Federalists rejected the term, arguing that they were
the true Federalists. In both their correspondence and their local
groups, they tried to capture the term. For example, an unknown
anti-federalist signed his public correspondence as "A Federal Farmer"
and the New York committee opposing the Constitution was called the
"Federal Republican Committee." However the Federalists carried the day
and the name Anti-Federalist forever stuck.
The Anti-Federalists were composed of diverse elements, including
those opposed to the Constitution because they thought that a stronger
government threatened the sovereignty and prestige of the states,
localities, or individuals; those that saw in the proposed government a
new centralized, disguised "monarchic" power that would only replace the
cast-off despotism of Great Britain;
and those who simply feared that the new government threatened their
personal liberties. Some of the opposition believed that the central
government under the Articles of Confederation was sufficient. Still
others believed that while the national government under the Articles
was too weak, the national government under the Constitution would be
too strong. Another complaint of the Anti-Federalists was that the
Constitution provided for a centralized rather than federal government
(and in The Federalist Papers, James Madison
admits that the new Constitution has the characteristics of both a
centralized and federal form of the government) and that a truly federal
form of government was a leaguing of states as under the Articles of
Confederation.
During the period of debate over the ratification of the
Constitution, numerous independent local speeches and articles were
published all across the country. Initially, many of the articles in
opposition were written under pseudonyms, such as "Brutus" (likely Melancton Smith), "Centinel" (likely Samuel Bryan), and "Federal Farmer." Eventually, famous revolutionary figures such as Patrick Henry
came out publicly against the Constitution. They argued that the strong
national government proposed by the Federalists was a threat to the
rights of individuals and that the president
would become a king. They objected to the federal court system created
by the proposed constitution. This produced a phenomenal body of
political writing; the best and most influential of these articles and
speeches were gathered by historians into a collection known as the Anti-Federalist Papers in allusion to the Federalist Papers.
In many states the opposition to the Constitution was strong
(although Delaware, Georgia, and New Jersey ratified quickly with little
controversy), and in two states—North Carolina and Rhode Island—it
prevented ratification until the definite establishment of the new
government practically forced their adherence. Individualism was the
strongest element of opposition; the necessity, or at least the
desirability, of a bill of rights was almost universally felt. In Rhode Island,
resistance against the Constitution was so strong that civil war almost
broke out on July 4, 1788, when anti-federalist members of the Country Party led by Judge William West marched into Providence with over 1,000 armed protesters.
The Anti-Federalists played upon these feelings in the ratification convention in Massachusetts.
By this point, five of the states had ratified the Constitution with
relative ease, but the Massachusetts convention was far more disputed
and contentious. After a long debate, a compromise (known as the "Massachusetts compromise")
was reached. Massachusetts would ratify the Constitution with
recommended provisions in the ratifying instrument that the Constitution
be amended with a bill of rights. (The Federalists contended that a
conditional ratification would be void, so the recommendation was the
strongest support that the ratifying convention could give to a bill of
rights short of rejecting the Constitution.)
Four of the next five states to ratify, including New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York,
included similar language in their ratification instruments. As a
result, once the Constitution became operative in 1789, Congress sent a
set of twelve amendments to the states. Ten of these amendments were
immediately ratified and became known as the Bill of Rights, with one of the other two becoming the 27th Amendment—almost
200 years later. Thus, while the Anti-Federalists were unsuccessful in
their quest to prevent the adoption of the Constitution, their efforts
were not totally in vain. The Anti-Federalists thus became recognized as
an influential group among the Founding Fathers of the United States.
With the passage of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the
Anti-Federalist movement was exhausted. Some activists joined the Anti-Administration Party that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were forming about 1790–91 to oppose the policies of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton; this group soon became the Democratic-Republican Party.
When Jefferson took office as the third president in 1801, he replaced
Federalist appointees with Democratic-Republicans and sought to focus on
issues that allowed the states to make more of their own decisions in
matters. He also repealed the whiskey excise and other federal taxes,
shut down some federal offices and broadly sought to change the fiscal
system that Hamilton had created.
From the independence of the United States until today, various movements within Canada have campaigned in favour of U.S. annexation
of parts or all of Canada. Historical studies have focused on numerous
small-scale movements which are helpful in comparisons of Canadian and
American politics.
In the early years of the United States, many American political
figures were in favour of invading and annexing Canada, and even
pre-approved Canada's admission to the U.S. in the Articles of Confederation in 1777. The defeat of American attempts to achieve this goal, both in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, gradually led to the abandonment in the U.S. of any serious push toward annexation. As historian Joseph Levitt notes:
Since the Treaty of Washington in 1871, when it first de facto
recognized the new Dominion of Canada, the United States has never
suggested or promoted an annexationist movement in Canada. No serious
force has appeared on the American political scene that aimed to
persuade or coerce Canadians into joining the United States. And, in
fact, no serious initiative for any move in this direction has come from
the Canadian side either.
Surveys have suggested that a minority of Canadians would potentially
support annexation, ranging from as many as 20 percent in a survey by Léger Marketing in 2001 to as few as seven percent in another survey by the same company in 2004.
No elected member of any federal or provincial assembly in
Canada, nor any mainstream politician in the United States, openly
advocates annexation. Two minor provincial political parties in Canada
promoted the concept in the 1980s, but neither attracted widespread
support or attention.
Historical annexationist groups
1837
Historical
annexationist movements inside Canada were usually inspired by
dissatisfaction with Britain's colonial government of Canada. Groups of
Irish immigrants took the route of armed struggle, attempting to annex
the peninsula between the Detroit and Niagara Rivers to the U.S. by force in the minor and short-lived Patriot War in 1837–1838.
Although the Rebellions of 1837
were motivated in part by this type of dissatisfaction, Canadian
resentment of British rule never reached the degree that led to the American Revolution in 1775. Notably, Canada's population growth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was spurred largely by United Empire Loyalists,
who left the American colonies during the Revolution because of their
loyalty to Great Britain. In the period from 1790 to 1837, imperial
officials repeatedly denounced American-style republicanism and tried to
suppress it. The Rebellions themselves were not fought with the goal of
annexation, however, but were launched in pursuit of political
independence from Britain and liberal social reforms.
Between 1848 and 1854, a significant and articulate minority of conservatives in Upper Canada advocated constitutional changes modelled on the American federal-state system and the US Constitution. They critiqued Canada's imitation of British parliamentary government
as both too democratic and too tyrannical. It destroyed the
independence of the appointed governor and Legislative Council and
further concentrated power in the Cabinet. This critique led many
conservatives to argue that the American model of checks and balances
offered Canada a more balanced and conservative form of democracy than
did British parliamentary government. These "republican conservatives"
debated a series of constitutional changes, including annexation to the
United States, an elected governor, an elected Legislative Council, a
federal union of British North America, and imperial federation,
within this framework. These conservatives had accepted "government by
discussion" as the appropriate basis for political order.
1850s
Around 1850 there was a serious annexationist movement on the border region of Quebec's Eastern Townships,
where the American-descended majority felt that union with the United
States would end their economic isolation and stagnation as well as
remove them from the growing threat of French Canadian
political domination. Leading proponents of this genuinely bipartisan
movement were careful not to appear disloyal to Britain, however, and
they actively discouraged popular protest at the local level. Fearful of
American-style democracy, the local elite also expressed revulsion
toward American slavery
and militaristic expansionism. Consequently, the movement died as
quickly in the Eastern Townships as it did in Montreal after Britain
expressed its official disapproval and trade with the United States
began to increase.
In Montreal at midcentury, with little immigration and complaints that the repeal of the Corn Laws
had cut the region off from its British trade links, a small but
organized group supported integrating the colonies into the United
States. The leading organization advocating merger was the Annexation Association, founded in 1849 by an alliance of French Canadian nationalists and Anglophone businessmen in Montreal who had a common interest in the republic. Many of its members, including Louis-Joseph Papineau, were participants in the 1837-38 rebellions.
The Montreal Annexation Manifesto
was published in 1849. It was hoped a merger with the United States
would give Canada markets for its goods, ensure national security, and
provide the finances to develop the west. A half measure was the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 that linked the two areas economically.
However, the movement died out in 1854. Annexation was never a
very popular choice. Many Canadians were loyal to the Crown and Great
Britain, especially the descendants of the United Empire Loyalists. French Canadians worried about being an even smaller minority in a larger union, and were concerned about American anti-Catholicism. The American Civil War, further, convinced many Canadians that the American experiment was a failure.
1860s
British Columbia
United States Secretary of StateWilliam Seward predicted in 1860 that western British North America, from Manitoba to British Columbia, would with Russian Alaska join the United States. Many in Britain, such as Goldwin Smith and The Times of London, were pessimistic about the future of British North America and agreed with Seward; The Times said that Britain would only object if the United States attempted to take the territory by force. In the late 1860s, residents of British Columbia, which was not yet a Canadian province, responded to the United States' purchase of Alaska
with fear of being surrounded by American territory. Some residents
wanted the colony to be the next American purchase. Local opinion was
divided, as the three Vancouver Island
newspapers supported annexation to the United States, while the three
mainland newspapers rejected the idea. Even opponents of the annexation
scheme admitted that Great Britain had neglected the region and that
grievances were justified. Nonetheless, annexation sentiment disappeared
within a few months and prominent leaders moved toward confederation
with Canada.
Petitions circulated in favour of American annexation. The first, in 1867, was addressed to Queen Victoria,
demanding that the British government assume the colony's debts and
establish a steamer link, or allow the colony to join the U.S. In 1869, a
second petition was addressed to President Ulysses S. Grant, asking him to negotiate American annexation of the territory from Britain. It was delivered to Grant by Vincent Colyer, Indian Commissioner
for Alaska, on December 29, 1869. Both petitions were signed by only a
small fraction of the colony's population, and British Columbia was
ultimately admitted as a Canadian province in 1871.
Nova Scotia
Most Canadians were strongly opposed to the prospect of American annexation. Reports of the Annexation Bill of 1866 — a bill that, contrary to myth, never came to a vote — might have been one of the many factors behind Canadian Confederation in 1867. Much more serious were the Fenian raids made by Irish Americans across the border in 1866, which spurred a wave of patriotic feeling that helped the cause of Confederation.
Nonetheless, a substantial annexation movement existed in Nova
Scotia, and to a lesser degree in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario,
during the 1860s. Nova Scotia anti-confederationists led by Joseph Howe felt that pro-confederation premier Charles Tupper
had caused the province to agree to join Canada without popular
support. Howe in London unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the
government to free Nova Scotia from the pending British North America
Act by threatening American annexation. A significant economic downturn
occurred after the end after 1866 of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854;
the colony was heavily dependent on selling fish to Americans, causing
many to believe that free trade with the United States was necessary for
prosperity. Anti-confederationists won all but two seats in the 1867 provincial election;
as in British Columbia they did not necessarily support annexation.
They again sent Howe to London to free Nova Scotia but in 1868 the
British government again refused, believing that New Brunswick would
likely follow Nova Scotia out of the dominion and cause the new nation
to collapse.
Angry Nova Scotians began talking seriously of annexation. An
alarmed Howe—who wished Nova Scotia to be free of Canada but still with
Britain—warned his supporters against disloyalty, dividing
anti-confederationists. The provincial government, dominated by
extremists who now also opposed Howe, decided that if another appeal to
London failed it would seize federal offices and unilaterally declare
annexation, believing that Britain would not use force to stop Nova
Scotia. Believing he had no choice, Howe left the
anti-confederationists. Although he narrowly won reelection to his
federal parliamentary seat in March 1869 as a confederationist, support
for secession and annexation grew that year; however, by 1871 the
movement had mostly disappeared. The federal government promised changes
to taxes and tariffs, the economy revived, and the United States agreed
to free trade for Canadian fish.
1880s
A
Quebec-born homeopathic physician, Prosper Bender, expressed
disappointment with the Canadian experiment in the 1880s and 1890s. An
author and the former host of a literary circle in Quebec City, Bender
suddenly moved to Boston in 1882. After celebrating the promise of
Confederation, he became a strong proponent of annexation to the United
States and something of an intercultural broker; he helped interpret
French-Canadian culture to American readers. Bender wrote in the North American Review
in 1883 that many Canadians believed that annexation by the United
States would occur "within the present generation, if not sooner". He
believed that Irish
Catholics—about one quarter of Canada's population—would prefer
annexation because of the British rule of Ireland. They would be joined
by the majority of those under 40, who viewed the United States as a
prosperous, fast-growing neighbour providing many opportunities. (The
author attributed the absence of an active annexation movement in part
to many who would favor such an effort taking the "easiest and quietest
method of securing the benefits of annexation, by themselves silently
migrating to the Republic", as more than a million already had.)
Bender believed that Prime Minister John A. Macdonald's promise of a transcontinental railway
linking eastern Canada to British Columbia to be overambitious and too
expensive, and unfavourably compared the Canadian government's growing
debt to the United States' rapid reduction of its Civil War
debt. He stated that Canadian businesses would benefit from duty-free
access to the American market, while "wondrous American enterprise,
supported by illimitable capital" would rapidly prosper Canada,
especially its vast undeveloped interior. Bender concluded with
pessimism about the likelihood of success of a nation divided in two
parts by 1,200 miles of "forbidding, silent wilderness stretching from
the head-waters of the Ottawa to Thunder Bay, and thence to Manitoba".
1890s
In 1891, Goldwin Smith posited in his book Canada and the Canadian Question
that Canada's eventual annexation by the United States was inevitable,
and should be welcomed if Canadians genuinely believed in the ideal of democracy. His view did not receive widespread support.
In January 1893, concerned about Canada's possible annexation, a
goal then being pursued by the Continental Union Association, a group of
Ontario and Quebec Liberals, Prime Minister Sir John Thompson delivered a speech on tolerance, Canadian nationalism
and continued loyalty to Britain. Thompson eventually learned that the
desire to make Canada part of the U.S. was confined to a small minority
amongst the Liberals.
1900s
In 1901 W. T. Stead, a newspaper editor in London, England, discussed in The Americanization of the World possible annexations of Canada and Newfoundland.
He believed that because of its size and strength Canada would likely
be the last of Britain's possessions in the Americas to join the United
States. Stead cited several reasons for why he believed annexation
seemed "inevitable", however, including rapidly growing economic ties
and migration between the two countries, the French Shore, and disputes over the Alaska boundary and fishing rights in the Atlantic.
After the discovery of gold in the Yukon,
many Canadians propose to annex parts of Alaska currently controlled by
the United States, by calling for a revision in the original map of the
boundary line between the Russian Empire
and the United States. The US offered to lease the territory but not to
give it back. London and Washington agreed on arbitration, with one
member of the panel from Canada. In 1903 the Chief Justice of Britain
sided with the Americans to resolve the map dispute in favour of the
United States. Many Canadians felt a sense of betrayal on the part of
the British government, whose own national interest required close ties
to the United States, regardless of the interests of Canada.
The 1932 establishment of the International Peace Garden
on the North Dakota–Manitoba border honored the long lasting friendship
between the two countries rather than attempts at annexation.
Newfoundland in the mid-twentieth century
While the Dominion of Newfoundland was still separate from Canada, during World War II, a party known as the Economic Union Party
sought closer ties with the United States. However, Canada objected to
the possibility, and the British government, which controlled
Newfoundland as a colony, would not allow it to consider annexation with
the United States in any referendum. Instead, the EUP sought an
independent "responsible government" that would then explore American annexation.
A referendum showed a plurality in support of independence, but not a
majority; a runoff referendum resulted in Newfoundland instead
confederating with Canada to become the tenth province.
Modern annexationist groups
Two modern provincial political parties have proposed that their province secede from Canada to join the United States. Neither attracted significant support.
The Unionest Party was a provincial political party in Saskatchewan
in 1980 that promoted the union of the western provinces with the
United States. It was the most politically successful annexationist
group, but its success was both short-lived and extremely limited in
scope. The party briefly had two members in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, both of whom crossed the floor from another party, but dissolved within a few weeks after failing to qualify for official party status.
The original Parti 51 was a short-lived political party in Quebec in the 1980s that advocated Quebec's admission to the United States as the 51st state. The party won just 3,846 votes, or 0.11 per cent of the popular vote in the province, in the 1989 election — fewer votes than the Marxist–Leninists or the satirical Lemon Party — and was dissolved the following year. In 2016 Hans Mercier, a pro-American lawyer from Saint-Georges, Quebec, revived the party for a second time. Mercier told La Presse that the times have changed since the party's previous era, as Quebec sovereigntism
has waned in popularity. Mercier argued that Americans would be
welcoming of a new Quebec state, and pointed to a survey taken during
the administration of George W. Bush that suggested nearly 34 per cent of Quebecers would support joining the United States. The revived party ran five candidates and received just 1,117 votes provincewide in the 2018 Quebec general election, representing 0.03 per cent of the provincewide popular vote.
Anti-annexation rhetoric
In modern Canadian political discourse, the idea of Canada becoming the "51st state"
of the United States is much more often used as a scare tactic against
political courses of action that may be seen as too "Americanizing". The
use of this type of rhetoric may occur even if the proponents of such a
course of action have not endorsed or proposed annexation.
In the 1911 federal election, the Conservative response to the proposed reciprocity treaty negotiated by the Liberals
was to denounce it as equivalent to an American economic takeover, with
annexation likely to follow. The parties swapped position in the later 1988 federal election, when the Liberals used the same type of rhetoric to denounce the Progressive Conservatives' proposed Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, although the Progressive Conservatives won that election and the agreement was implemented.
Annexation fears can be found throughout Canadian History for Dummies, in which humourist Will Ferguson stated that for "John L. O'Sullivan, it was the "manifest destiny" of the United States to annex and possess all of North America". In fact, O'Sullivan's use of the term never extended beyond potential American annexation of Texas and the Oregon Territory; he explicitly wrote that he did not believe that the United States had a destiny to annex Canada.
Reverse annexation
Political satirists, including the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, have occasionally proposed reverse annexation, whereby all or part the United States would be annexed into an expanded Canadian federation. Following the 2004 American election, some Americans distributed the satirical Jesusland map on the Internet, depicting a similar proposal under which the "blue states" were part of a new political entity called "The United States of Canada".
Montana
In 2019, there was a petition calling for the US to sell Montana to Canada to pay off the US debt.
The first 77 of these essays were published serially in the Independent Journal, the New York Packet, and The Daily Advertiser between October 1787 and April 1788. A compilation of these 77 essays and eight others were published in two volumes as The
Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New
Constitution, as Agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17,
1787 by publishing firm J. & A. McLean in March and May 1788. The last eight papers (Nos. 78–85) were republished in the New York newspapers between June 14 and August 16, 1788.
The authors of The Federalist intended to influence the voters to ratify the Constitution. In Federalist No. 1, they explicitly set that debate in broad political terms:
It
has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to
the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the
important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not,
of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether
they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions,
on accident and force.
In Federalist No. 10, Madison discusses the means of preventing rule by majority faction and advocates a large, commercial republic. This is complemented by Federalist No. 14,
in which Madison takes the measure of the United States, declares it
appropriate for an extended republic, and concludes with a memorable
defense of the constitutional and political creativity of the Federal
Convention. In Federalist No. 84, Hamilton makes the case that there is no need to amend the Constitution by adding a Bill of Rights, insisting that the various provisions in the proposed Constitution protecting liberty amount to a "bill of rights". Federalist No. 78, also written by Hamilton, lays the groundwork for the doctrine of judicial review by federal courts of federal legislation or executive acts. Federalist No. 70 presents Hamilton's case for a one-man chief executive. In Federalist No. 39, Madison presents the clearest exposition of what has come to be called "Federalism". In Federalist No. 51,
Madison distills arguments for checks and balances in an essay often
quoted for its justification of government as "the greatest of all
reflections on human nature." According to historian Richard B. Morris, the essays that make up The Federalist Papers
are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in
political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product
of any later American writer."
On June 21, 1788, the proposed Constitution was ratified by the
minimum of nine states required under Article VII. Towards the end of
July 1788, with eleven states having ratified the new Constitution, the
process of organizing the new government began.
The Federal Convention
(Constitutional Convention) sent the proposed Constitution to the
Confederation Congress, which in turn submitted it to the states for
ratification at the end of September 1787. On September 27, 1787, "Cato"
first appeared in the New York press criticizing the proposition;
"Brutus" followed on October 18, 1787. These and other articles and public letters critical of the new Constitution would eventually become known as the "Anti-Federalist Papers".
In response, Alexander Hamilton decided to launch a measured defense
and extensive explanation of the proposed Constitution to the people of
the state of New York. He wrote in Federalist No. 1
that the series would "endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all
the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to
have any claim to your attention."
Hamilton recruited collaborators for the project. He enlisted John Jay, who after four strong essays (Federalist Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5), fell ill and contributed only one more essay, Federalist No. 64, to the series. Jay also distilled his case into a pamphlet in the spring of 1788, An Address to the People of the State of New-York; Hamilton cited it approvingly in Federalist No. 85.
James Madison, present in New York as a Virginia delegate to the
Confederation Congress, was recruited by Hamilton and Jay and became
Hamilton's primary collaborator. Gouverneur Morris and William Duer were also considered. However, Morris turned down the invitation, and Hamilton rejected three essays written by Duer.
Duer later wrote in support of the three Federalist authors under the
name "Philo-Publius", meaning either "Friend of the People" or "Friend
of Hamilton" based on Hamilton's pen name Publius.
Alexander Hamilton chose the pseudonymous name "Publius". While
many other pieces representing both sides of the constitutional debate
were written under Roman names, historian Albert Furtwangler contends
that "'Publius' was a cut above 'Caesar' or 'Brutus' or even 'Cato'. Publius Valerius helped found the ancient republic of Rome. His more famous name, Publicola, meant 'friend of the people'." Hamilton had applied this pseudonym to three letters in 1778, in which he attacked fellow Federalist Samuel Chase and revealed that Chase had taken advantage of knowledge gained in Congress to try to dominate the flour market.
Authorship
James Madison, Hamilton's major collaborator, later fourth President of the United States (1809-1817)
At the time of publication, the authors of The Federalist Papers attempted to hide their identities due to Hamilton and Madison having attended the convention.
Astute observers, however, correctly discerned the identities of
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. Establishing authorial authenticity of the
essays that constitute The Federalist Papers has not always been
clear. After Alexander Hamilton died in 1804, a list emerged, claiming
that he alone had written two-thirds of The Federalist essays.
Some believe that several of these essays were written by James Madison
(Nos. 49–58 and 62–63). The scholarly detective work of Douglass Adair in 1944 postulated the following assignments of authorship, corroborated in 1964 by a computer analysis of the text:
Alexander Hamilton (51 articles: Nos. 1, 6–9, 11–13, 15–17, 21–36, 59–61, and 65–85)
James Madison (29 articles: Nos. 10, 14, 18–20, 37–58, and 62–63)
John Jay (5 articles: Nos. 2–5 and 64).
In six months, a total of 85 articles were written by the three men.
Hamilton, who had been a leading advocate of national constitutional
reform throughout the 1780s and was one of the three representatives for
New York at the Constitutional Convention, in 1789 became the first Secretary of the Treasury,
a post he held until his resignation in 1795. Madison, who is now
acknowledged as the father of the Constitution—despite his repeated
rejection of this honor during his lifetime,
became a leading member of the U.S. House of Representatives from
Virginia (1789–1797), Secretary of State (1801–1809), and ultimately the
fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). John Jay, who had been secretary for foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation from 1784 through their expiration in 1789, became the first Chief Justice of the United States in 1789, stepping down in 1795 to accept election as governor of New York, a post he held for two terms, retiring in 1801.
Publication
An advertisement for the book edition of The Federalist
The Federalist articles appeared in three New York newspapers: The Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser, beginning on October 27, 1787. Although written and published with haste, The Federalist articles were widely read and greatly influenced the shape of American political institutions.
Hamilton, Madison and Jay published the essays at a rapid pace. At
times, three to four new essays by Publius appeared in the papers in a
single week. Garry Wills observes that this fast pace of production
"overwhelmed" any possible response: "Who, given ample time could have
answered such a battery of arguments? And no time was given."
Hamilton also encouraged the reprinting of the essays in newspapers
outside New York state, and indeed they were published in several other
states where the ratification debate was taking place. However, they
were only irregularly published outside New York, and in other parts of
the country they were often overshadowed by local writers.
Because the essays were initially published in New York, most of them begin with the same salutation: "To the People of the State of New York".
The high demand for the essays led to their publication in a more
permanent form. On January 1, 1788, the New York publishing firm J.
& A. McLean announced that they would publish the first 36 essays as
a bound volume; that volume was released on March 22, 1788, and was
titled The Federalist Volume 1. New essays continued to appear in the newspapers; Federalist No. 77
was the last number to appear first in that form, on April 2. A second
bound volume was released on May 28, containing Federalist Nos. 37–77
and the previously unpublished Nos. 78–85. The last eight papers (Nos. 78–85) were republished in the New York newspapers between June 14 and August 16, 1788.
A 1792 French edition ended the collective anonymity of Publius,
announcing that the work had been written by "Mm. Hamilton, Maddisson e
Gay, citoyens de l'État de New York".
In 1802, George Hopkins published an American edition that similarly
named the authors. Hopkins wished as well that "the name of the writer
should be prefixed to each number," but at this point Hamilton insisted
that this was not to be, and the division of the essays among the three
authors remained a secret.
The first publication to divide the papers in such a way was an
1810 edition that used a list left by Hamilton to associate the authors
with their numbers; this edition appeared as two volumes of the compiled
"Works of Hamilton". In 1818, Jacob Gideon published a new edition with
a new listing of authors, based on a list provided by Madison. The
difference between Hamilton's list and Madison's formed the basis for a
dispute over the authorship of a dozen of the essays.
Both Hopkins's and Gideon's editions incorporated significant
edits to the text of the papers themselves, generally with the approval
of the authors. In 1863, Henry Dawson published an edition
containing the original text of the papers, arguing that they should be
preserved as they were written in that particular historical moment,
not as edited by the authors years later.
Modern scholars generally use the text prepared by Jacob E. Cooke for his 1961 edition of The Federalist; this edition used the newspaper texts for essay numbers 1–76 and the McLean edition for essay numbers 77–85.
Disputed essays
John Jay, author of five of The Federalist Papers, later became the first Chief Justice of the United States
While the authorship of 73 of The Federalist essays is fairly
certain, the identities of those who wrote the twelve remaining essays
are disputed by some scholars. The modern consensus is that Madison
wrote essays Nos. 49–58, with Nos. 18–20 being products of a
collaboration between him and Hamilton; No. 64
was by John Jay. The first open designation of which essay belonged to
whom was provided by Hamilton who, in the days before his ultimately
fatal gun duel with Aaron Burr,
provided his lawyer with a list detailing the author of each number.
This list credited Hamilton with a full 63 of the essays (three of those
being jointly written with Madison), almost three-quarters of the
whole, and was used as the basis for an 1810 printing that was the first
to make specific attribution for the essays.
Madison did not immediately dispute Hamilton's list, but provided his own list for the 1818 Gideon edition of The Federalist.
Madison claimed 29 essays for himself, and he suggested that the
difference between the two lists was "owing doubtless to the hurry in
which [Hamilton's] memorandum was made out." A known error in Hamilton's
list — Hamilton incorrectly ascribed No. 54 to John Jay, when in fact, Jay wrote No. 64 — provided some evidence for Madison's suggestion.
Statistical analysis
has been undertaken on several occasions in attempts to accurately
identify the author of each individual essay. After examining word
choice and writing style, studies generally agree that the disputed
essays were written by James Madison. However, there are notable
exceptions maintaining that some of the essays which are now widely
attributed to Madison were, in fact, collaborative efforts.
Influence on the ratification debates
The Federalist Papers were written to support the ratification of the Constitution, specifically in New York.
Whether they succeeded in this mission is questionable. Separate
ratification proceedings took place in each state, and the essays were
not reliably reprinted outside of New York; furthermore, by the time the
series was well underway, a number of important states had already
ratified it, for instance Pennsylvania on December 12. New York held out
until July 26; certainly The Federalist was more important there
than anywhere else, but Furtwangler argues that it "could hardly rival
other major forces in the ratification contests" — specifically, these
forces included the personal influence of well-known Federalists, for
instance Hamilton and Jay, and Anti-Federalists, including Governor George Clinton.
Further, by the time New York came to a vote, ten states had already
ratified the Constitution and it had thus already passed — only nine
states had to ratify it for the new government to be established among
them; the ratification by Virginia, the tenth state, placed pressure on
New York to ratify. In light of that, Furtwangler observes, "New York's
refusal would make that state an odd outsider."
Only 19 Federalists were elected to New York's ratification
convention, compared to the Anti-Federalists' 46 delegates. While New
York did indeed ratify the Constitution on July 26, the lack of public
support for pro-Constitution Federalists has led historian John Kaminski
to suggest that the impact of The Federalist on New York citizens was "negligible".
As for Virginia, which ratified the Constitution only at its convention on June 25, Hamilton writes in a letter to Madison that the collected edition of The Federalist
had been sent to Virginia; Furtwangler presumes that it was to act as a
"debater's handbook for the convention there", though he claims that
this indirect influence would be a "dubious distinction".
Probably of greater importance to the Virginia debate, in any case,
were George Washington's support for the proposed Constitution and the
presence of Madison and Edmund Randolph, the governor, at the convention arguing for ratification.
Structure and content
In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton listed six topics to be covered in the subsequent articles:
"The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity" — covered in No. 2 through No. 14
"The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union" — covered in No. 15 through No. 22
"The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the
one proposed to the attainment of this object" — covered in No. 23
through No. 36
"The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government" — covered in No. 37 through No. 84
"Its analogy to your own state constitution" — covered in No. 85
"The additional security which its adoption will afford to the
preservation of that species of government, to liberty and to
prosperity" — covered in No. 85.
Furtwangler notes that as the series grew, this plan was somewhat
changed. The fourth topic expanded into detailed coverage of the
individual articles of the Constitution and the institutions it
mandated, while the two last topics were merely touched on in the last
essay.
The papers can be broken down by author as well as by topic. At
the start of the series, all three authors were contributing; the first
20 papers are broken down as 11 by Hamilton, five by Madison and four by
Jay. The rest of the series, however, is dominated by three long
segments by a single writer: Nos. 21–36 by Hamilton, Nos. 37–58 by
Madison, written while Hamilton was in Albany, and No. 65 through the
end by Hamilton, published after Madison had left for Virginia.
Opposition to the Bill of Rights
The Federalist Papers (specifically Federalist No. 84) are notable for their opposition to what later became the United States Bill of Rights.
The idea of adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution was originally
controversial because the Constitution, as written, did not specifically
enumerate or protect the rights of the people, rather it listed the
powers of the government and left all that remained to the states and
the people. Alexander Hamilton,
the author of Federalist No. 84, feared that such an enumeration, once
written down explicitly, would later be interpreted as a list of the only rights that people had.
However, Hamilton's opposition to a Bill of Rights was far from universal. Robert Yates, writing under the pseudonym "Brutus", articulated this view point in the so-called Anti-Federalist No. 84, asserting that a government unrestrained by such a bill could easily devolve into tyranny. References in The Federalist and in the ratification debates warn of demagogues of the variety who through divisive appeals would aim at tyranny. The Federalist begins and ends with this issue.
In the final paper Hamilton offers "a lesson of moderation to all
sincere lovers of the Union, and ought to put them on their guard
against hazarding anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of the
States from each other, and perhaps the military despotism of a
successful demagogue". The matter was further clarified by the Ninth Amendment.
Judicial use
Federal judges, when interpreting the Constitution, frequently use The Federalist Papers as a contemporary account of the intentions of the framers and ratifiers. They have been applied on issues ranging from the power of the federal government in foreign affairs (in Hines v. Davidowitz) to the validity of ex post facto laws (in the 1798 decision Calder v. Bull, apparently the first decision to mention The Federalist). By 2000, The Federalist had been quoted 291 times in Supreme Court decisions.
The amount of deference that should be given to The Federalist Papers in constitutional interpretation has always been somewhat controversial. As early as 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall noted in the famous case McCulloch v. Maryland,
that "the opinions expressed by the authors of that work have been
justly supposed to be entitled to great respect in expounding the
Constitution. No tribute can be paid to them which exceeds their merit;
but in applying their opinions to the cases which may arise in the
progress of our government, a right to judge of their correctness must
be retained." In a letter to Thomas Ritchie
in 1821, James Madison stated of the Constitution that "the legitimate
meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a
key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or
intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution,
but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State
Conventions where it recd. all the authority which it possesses."
In the context of the United States, secession primarily refers to the voluntary withdrawal of one or more states
from the Union that constitutes the United States; but may loosely
refer to leaving a state or territory to form a separate territory or
new state, or to the severing of an area from a city or county within a
state. Advocates for secession are called disunionists by their contemporaries in various historical documents.
Threats and aspirations to secede from the United States, or
arguments justifying secession, have been a feature of the country's
politics almost since its birth. Some have argued for secession as a constitutional right and others as from a natural right of revolution. In Texas v. White
(1869), the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional,
while commenting that revolution or consent of the states could lead to a
successful secession.
The most serious attempt at secession was advanced in the years
1860 and 1861 as 11 Southern states each declared secession from the
United States, and joined together to form the Confederate States of America. This movement collapsed in 1865 with the defeat of Confederate forces by Union armies in the American Civil War.
We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness.
Historian Pauline Maier
argues that this narrative asserted "the right of revolution, which
was, after all, the right Americans were exercising in 1776"; and notes
that Thomas Jefferson's language incorporated ideas explained at length by a long list of 17th-century writers, including John Milton, Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and other English and Scottish commentators, all of whom had contributed to the development of the Whig tradition in 18th-century Britain.
The right of revolution expressed in the Declaration was
immediately followed with the observation that long-practiced injustice
is tolerated until sustained assaults on the rights of the entire people
have accumulated enough force to oppress them; then they may defend themselves. This reasoning was not original to the Declaration, but can be found in many prior political writings: Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1690); the Fairfax Resolves of 1774; Jefferson's own Summary View of the Rights of British America; the first Constitution of Virginia, which was enacted five days prior to the Declaration; and Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776):
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; ...mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms ("of
Government", editor's addition) to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing...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.
Gordon S. Wood quotes President John Adams:
"Only repeated, multiplied oppressions placing it beyond all doubt that
their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their
liberties, could warrant the concerted resistance of the people against
their government".
Civil War–era political and legal views on secession
Overview
With origins in the question of states' rights,
the issue of secession was argued in many forums and advocated from
time to time in both the North and South in the decades after adopting
the Constitution and before the American Civil War.
Historian Maury Klein described the contemporary debate: "Was the
Republic a unified nation in which the individual states had merged
their sovereign rights and identities forever, or was it a federation of
sovereign states joined together for specific purposes from which they
could withdraw at any time?"
He observed that "the case can be made that no result of the [American
Civil] war was more important than the destruction, once and for
all...of the idea of secession".
Historian Forrest McDonald
argued that after adopting the Constitution, "there were no guidelines,
either in theory or in history, as to whether the compact could be
dissolved and, if so, on what conditions". However, during "the founding
era, many a public figure...declared that the states could interpose
their powers between their citizens and the power of the federal
government, and talk of secession was not unknown". But according to
McDonald, to avoid resorting to the violence that had accompanied the
Revolution, the Constitution established "legitimate means for
constitutional change in the future". In effect, the Constitution
"completed and perfected the Revolution".
Whatever the intentions of the Founders, threats of secession and
disunion were a constant in the political discourse of Americans
preceding the Civil War. Historian Elizabeth R. Varon wrote:
[O]ne word [disunion] contained,
and stimulated, their [Americans'] fears of extreme political
factionalism, tyranny, regionalism, economic decline, foreign
intervention, class conflict, gender disorder, racial strife, widespread
violence and anarchy, and civil war, all of which could be interpreted
as God's retribution for America's moral failings. Disunion connoted the
dissolution of the republic—the failure of the Founders' efforts to
establish a stable and lasting representative government. For many
Americans in the North and the South, disunion was a nightmare, a tragic
cataclysm that would reduce them to the kind of fear and misery that
seemed to pervade the rest of the world. And yet, for many other
Americans, disunion served as the main instrument by which they could
achieve their political goals.
Abandoning the Articles of Confederation
In late 1777 the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation for ratification by the individual states. The Confederation government was administered de facto by the Congress under the provisions of the approved (final) draft of the Articles until they achieved ratification—and de jure status—in early 1781. In 1786 delegates of five states (the Annapolis Convention)
called for a convention of delegates in Philadelphia to amend the
Articles, which would require the unanimous consent of all thirteen
states.
The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention convened and deliberated from May to September 1787. Instead of pursuing their official charge they returned a draft (new) Constitution,
proposed for constructing and administering a new federal—later also
known as "national"—government. They further proposed that the draft
Constitution not be submitted to the Congress (where it would
require unanimous approval of the states); instead that it be presented
directly to the states for ratification in special ratification
conventions, and that approval by a minimum of nine state conventions
would suffice to adopt the new Constitution and initiate the new federal
government; and that only those states ratifying the Constitution would
be included in the new government. (For a time, eleven of the original
states operated under the Constitution without two non-ratifying states,
Rhode Island and North Carolina.) In effect, the delegates proposed to
abandon and replace the Articles of Confederation rather than amend
them.
Because the Articles had specified a "perpetual union", various
arguments have been offered to explain the apparent contradiction (and
presumed illegality) of abandoning one form of government and creating
another that did not include the members of the original.
One explanation was that the Articles of Confederation simply failed to
protect the vital interests of the individual states. Necessity then,
rather than legality, was the practical factor in abandoning the
Articles.
According to historian John Ferling, by 1786 the Union under the Articles was falling apart. James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton
of New York—they who joined together to vigorously promote a new
Constitution—urged that renewed stability of the Union government was
critically needed to protect property and commerce. Both founders were
strong advocates for a more powerful central government; they published The Federalist Papers to advocate their cause and became known as the federalists. (Because of his powerful advocacy Madison was later accorded the honorific "Father of the Constitution".) Ferling wrote:
Rumors of likely secessionist
movements were unleashed. There was buzz as well that some states
planned to abandon the American Union and form a regional confederacy.
America, it was said, would go the way of Europe, and ultimately three
or four, or more confederacies would spring up. ... Not only would these
confederations be capable of taking steps that were beyond the ability
of Congress under the articles, but in private some portrayed such a
step in a positive light, in as much as the regional union could adopt
constitutions that secured property rights and maintained order.
Other arguments that justified abandoning the Articles of Confederation pictured the Articles as an international compact between unconsolidated, sovereign states, any one of which was empowered to renounce the compact at will. (This as opposed to a consolidated union that "totally annihilated, without any power of revival" the sovereign states.)
The Articles required that all states were obliged to comply with all
requirements of the agreement; thus, permanence was linked to
compliance.
'Compliance' was typically perceived as a matter of interpretation by each individual state. Emerich de Vattel,
a recognized authority on international law, wrote at the time that
"Treaties contain promises that are perfect and reciprocal. If one of
the allies fails in his engagements, the other may ... disengage himself
in his promises, and ... break the treaty."
Thus, each state could unilaterally 'secede' from the Articles of
Confederation at will; this argument for abandoning the Articles—for its
weakness in the face of secession—was used by advocates for the new
Constitution and was featured by James Madison in Federalist No. 43.
St. George Tucker,
an influential jurist in the early republic era, and especially in the
South, argued that abandoning the Articles of Confederation was the same
as seceding from the Articles government. In 1803, he wrote that the
unanimous dissolution of the Articles Confederation in 1789 by Act of
Congress was legal precedent for future secession(s) from the
Constitution one state at a time by state legislatures.
And since the seceding states, by
establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among
themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they
consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion
require it, we may infer that the right has not been diminished by any
new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be
more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the
contracting partie[s]."
Others, such as Chief Justice John Marshall who had been a Virginia delegate to its Ratification (Federal) Convention,
denied that ratifying the Constitution was a precedent for a future
one-off dissolution of the Union by an isolated state or states. Writing
in 1824, exactly midway between the fall of the Articles of
Confederation and the rise of a second self-described American
Confederacy, Marshal summarized the issue thusly: "Reference has been
made to the political situation of these states, anterior to [the
Constitution's] formation. It has been said that they were sovereign,
were completely independent, and were connected with each other only by a
league. This is true. But, when these allied sovereigns converted their
league into a government, when they converted their congress of
ambassadors, deputed to deliberate on their common concerns, and to
recommend measures of general utility, into a legislature, empowered to
enact laws on the most interesting subjects, the whole character in
which the states appear underwent a change."
Nationalists for Union in the antebellum America argued the opposite of secession; that indeed the new Constitution inherited perpetuity
from the language in the Articles and from other actions done prior to
the Constitution. Historian Kenneth Stampp explains their view:
Lacking an explicit clause in the
Constitution with which to establish the Union's perpetuity, the
nationalists made their case, first, with a unique interpretation of the history of the country prior to the Philadelphia Convention; second, with inferences drawn from certain passages of the Constitution; and third,
with careful selections from the speeches and writings of the Founding
Fathers. The historical case begins with the postulate that the Union is
older than the states. It quotes the reference in the Declaration of
Independence to "these united colonies", contends that the Second
Continental Congress actually called the states into being [i.e.,
"colonies" no longer], notes the provision for a perpetual Union in the
Articles of Confederation, and ends with the reminder that the preamble
to the new Constitution gives as one of its purposes the formation of "a
more perfect Union".
Adopting the Constitution
Constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar argues that the permanence of the Union of the states changed significantly when the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation. This action "signaled its decisive break with the Articles' regime of state sovereignty".
By adopting a constitution—rather than a treaty, or a compact, or an
instrument of confederacy, etc.—that created a new body of government
designed to be senior to the several states, and by approving the
particular language and provisions of that new Constitution, the framers
and voters made it clear that the fates of the individual states were
(severely) changed; and that the new United States was:
Not a "league", however firm; not a
"confederacy" or a "confederation"; not a compact on among "sovereign'
states"—all these high profile and legally freighted words from the
Articles were conspicuously absent from the Preamble and every other
operative part of the Constitution. The new text proposed a
fundamentally different legal framework.
Patrick Henry
adamantly opposed adopting the Constitution because he interpreted its
language to replace the sovereignty of the individual states, including
that of his own Virginia. He gave his strong voice to the
anti-federalist cause in opposition to the federalists led by Madison and Hamilton. Questioning the nature of the proposed new federal government, Henry asked:
The fate ... of America may depend
on this. ... Have they made a proposal of a compact between the states?
If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly
a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little
thing—the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of America. ...
The federalists acknowledged that national sovereignty would be transferred by the new Constitution to the whole of the American people—indeed, regard the expression, "We the people ...".
They argued, however, that Henry exaggerated the extent to which a
consolidated government was being created and that the states would
serve a vital role within the new republic even though their national
sovereignty was ending. Tellingly, on the matter of whether states
retained a right to unilaterally secede from the United States, the
federalists made it clear that no such right would exist under the
Constitution.
Amar specifically cites the example of New York's ratification as
suggestive that the Constitution did not countenance secession. Anti-federalists dominated the Poughkeepsie Convention
that would ratify the Constitution. Concerned that the new compact
might not sufficiently safeguard states' rights, the anti-federalists
sought to insert into the New York ratification message language to the
effect that "there should be reserved to the state of New York a right
to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years."
The Madison federalists opposed this, with Hamilton, a delegate at the
Convention, reading aloud in response a letter from James Madison
stating: "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever" [emphasis added]. Hamilton and John Jay
then told the Convention that in their view, reserving "a right to
withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no
ratification".
The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without
including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the
anti-federalists.
Amar explains how the Constitution impacted on state sovereignty:
In dramatic contrast to Article
VII–whose unanimity rule that no state can bind another confirms the
sovereignty of each state prior to 1787 – Article V does not permit a
single state convention to modify the federal Constitution for itself.
Moreover, it makes clear that a state may be bound by a federal
constitutional amendment even if that state votes against the amendment
in a properly convened state convention. And this rule is flatly
inconsistent with the idea that states remain sovereign after joining
the Constitution, even if they were sovereign before joining it. Thus,
ratification of the Constitution itself marked the moment when
previously sovereign states gave up their sovereignty and legal
independence.
Natural right of revolution versus right of secession
What about the original
understanding? The debates contain scattered statements about the
permanence or impermanence of the Union. The occasional reference to the
impermanency of the Constitution are hard to interpret. They might have
referred to a legal right to revoke ratification. But they equally
could have referred to an extraconstitutional right of revolution, or to
the possibility that a new national convention would rewrite the
Constitution, or simply to the factual possibility that the national
government might break down. Similarly, references to the permanency of
the Union could have referred to the practical unlikelihood of
withdrawal rather than any lack of legal power. The public debates
seemingly do not speak specifically to whether ratification under
Article VII was revocable.
In the public debate over the Nullification Crisis the separate issue of secession was also discussed. James Madison,
often referred to as "The Father of the Constitution", strongly opposed
the argument that secession was permitted by the Constitution. In a March 15, 1833, letter to Daniel Webster (congratulating him on a speech opposing nullification), Madison discussed "revolution" versus "secession":
I return my thanks for the copy of
your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes
"nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession". But
this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with
the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers
itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged.
The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no
theoretic controversy.
Thus Madison affirms an extraconstitutional right to revolt
against conditions of "intolerable oppression"; but if the case cannot
be made (that such conditions exist), then he rejects secession—as a
violation of the Constitution.
During the crisis, President Andrew Jackson, published his Proclamation to the People of South Carolina,
which made a case for the perpetuity of the Union; plus, he provided
his views re the questions of "revolution" and "secession":
But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede,
because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity
of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which
would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense
against the whole Union. [emphasis added] To say that any State may at
pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not
a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a
nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their
injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any
other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of
oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the
meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to
deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before
they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a
failure.
Some twenty-eight years after Jackson spoke, President James Buchanan
gave a different voice—one much more accommodating to the views of the
secessionists and the 'slave' states—in the midst of the pre-War secession crisis. In his final State of the Union address
to Congress, on December 3, 1860, he acknowledged his view that the
South, "after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to
obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the
Government of the Union"; but he also drew his apocalyptic vision of the
results to be expected from secession:
In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy,
it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere
voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one
of the contracting parties. [emphasis added] If this be so, the
Confederacy [here referring to the existing Union] is a rope of sand, to
be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion
in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may
resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics,
each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any
sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a
Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost
our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.
Alien and Sedition Acts
In response to the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts—advanced by the Federalist Party—John Taylor
of the Virginia House of Delegates spoke out, urging Virginia to secede
from the United States. He argued—as one of many vociferous responses
by the Jeffersonian Republicans—the sense of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, adopted in 1798 and 1799, which reserved to those States the rights of secession and interposition (nullification).
Thomas Jefferson, while sitting as Vice President of the United States in 1799, wrote to James Madison
of his conviction in "a reservation of th[ose] rights resulting to us
from these palpable violations [the Alien and Sedition Acts]" and, if the federal government did not return to
"the true principles of our federal compact, [he was determined to] sever ourselves from that union
we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self government
which we have reserved, and in which alone we see liberty, safety and
happiness."[emphasis added]
Here Jefferson is arguing in a radical voice (and in a private
letter) that he would lead a movement for secession; but it is unclear
whether he is arguing for "secession at will" or for "revolution" on
account of "intolerable oppression" (see above), or neither. Jefferson
secretly wrote (one of) the Kentucky Resolutions, which was done—again—while he was holding the office of Vice President. His biographer Dumas Malone
argued that, had his actions become known at the time, Jefferson's
participation might have gotten him impeached for (charged with)
treason.
In writing the first Kentucky Resolution, Jefferson warned that,
"unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would
"necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood". Historian Ron Chernow
says of this "he wasn't calling for peaceful protests or civil
disobedience: he was calling for outright rebellion, if needed, against
the federal government of which he was vice president." Jefferson "thus
set forth a radical doctrine of states' rights that effectively
undermined the constitution".
Jeffersonian Republicans were not alone in claiming "reserved
rights" against the federal government. Contributing to the rancorous
debates during the War of 1812, Founding FatherGouverneur Morris
of Pennsylvania and New York—a Federalist, a Hamilton ally and a
primary author of the Constitution who advanced the concept that
Americans were citizens of a single Union of the states—was persuaded to
claim that "secession, under certain circumstances, was entirely
constitutional."
New England Federalists and the Hartford Convention
The election of 1800 showed Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party to be on the rise and the Federalists
to be declining, and the Federalists felt threatened by initiatives
taken by their opponents. They viewed Jefferson's unilateral purchase of
the Louisiana territory
as violating foundational agreements between the original 13 states;
Jefferson transacted the purchase in secret and refused to seek the
approval of Congress. The new lands anticipated several future western
states which the Federalists feared would be dominated by the
Democratic-Republicans. Other things added to the Federalists' alarm,
such as the impeachment of Federalist district judge John Pickering
by the Jeffersonian-dominated Congress, and similar attacks on
Pennsylvania state officials by the Democratic-Republican legislature.
By 1804, their national leadership was decimated and their viable base
was reduced to the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware.
Timothy Pickering
of Massachusetts and a few Federalists envisioned creating a separate
New England confederation, possibly combining with lower Canada to form a
new pro-British nation. The Embargo Act of 1807
was seen as a threat to the economy of Massachusetts, and the state
legislature debated in May 1808 how the state should respond. These
debates generated isolated references to secession, but no definite plot
materialized.
Historian Richard Buell, Jr. suggests that "the secessionist movement
of 1804 was more of a confession of despair about the future than a
realistic proposal for action."
Federalist party members convened the Hartford Convention on December 15, 1814, and they addressed their opposition to the continuing war with Britain
and the domination of the federal government by the "Virginia dynasty".
Twenty six delegates attended; Massachusetts sent 12, Connecticut
seven, and Rhode Island four. New Hampshire and Vermont declined, but
two counties each from those states sent delegates. Historian Donald R. Hickey notes:
Despite pleas in the New England
press for secession and a separate peace, most of the delegates taking
part in the Hartford Convention were determined to pursue a moderate
course. Only Timothy Bigelow of Massachusetts apparently favored extreme measures, and he did not play a major role in the proceedings.
The final report addressed issues related to the war and state
defense, and it recommended several amendments to the Constitution.
Massachusetts and Connecticut endorsed it, but the war ended as the
delegates were returning to Washington, effectively quashing any impact
that it might have had. The Jeffersonians described the convention as "a
synonym for disloyalty and treason", and it became a major factor in
the sharp decline of the Federalist Party.
Abolitionists for secession by the North
Wm.
Lloyd Garrison—"Henceforth, the watchword of every uncompromising
abolitionist, of every friend of God and liberty, must be, both in a
religious and political sense — 'NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS'"
It is not often remembered today, as it was the South that actually
attempted to secede. However, there was a movement to have the North
secede, thereby escaping the Slave Power that dominated the Federal government.
Tensions began to rise between North and South by the late 1830s
over slavery and related issues. Many Northerners, especially New
Englanders, saw themselves as political victims of conspiracies between
slave owners and western expansionists. They viewed the movements to annex Texas
and to make war on Mexico as fomented by slaveholders bent on
dominating western expansion and thereby the national destiny. New
England abolitionist Benjamin Lundy
argued that the annexation of Texas was "a long-premeditated
crusade—set on foot by slaveholders, land speculators, etc., with the
view of reestablishing, extending, and perpetuating the system of
slavery and the slave trade".
Newspaper editors began demanding separation from the South. Wm. Lloyd Garrison called for secession in The Liberator
of May 1844 with his "Address to the Friends of Freedom and
Emancipation in the United States". The Constitution was created, he
wrote, "at the expense of the colored population of the country", and
Southerners were dominating the nation because of the Three-Fifths Compromise; now it was time "to set the captive free by the potency of truth" and to "secede from the government". Coincidentally, the New England Anti-Slavery Convention endorsed the principles of disunion by a vote of 250–24.
Support of secession began to shift to Southern states from 1846, after introduction of the Wilmot Proviso
into the public debate. Southern leaders increasingly felt helpless
against a powerful political group that was attacking their interests,
reminiscent of Federalist alarms at the beginning of the century.
South Carolina
During the presidential term of Andrew Jackson, South Carolina had its own semi-secession movement due to the so-called 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which threatened South Carolina's economy, and South Carolina, in turn, threatened to secede from the United States (the Union).
Jackson also threatened to send federal troops to put down the movement
and to hang the leader of the secessionists from the highest tree in
South Carolina. Also due to this, Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, who supported the movement and wrote the essay "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest", became the first US vice president to resign. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote of nullification, "the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and Southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."
South Carolina also threatened to secede in 1850 over the issue of
California's statehood. It became the first state to declare its
secession from the Union on December 20, 1860, with the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, and it later joined with the other Southern states to form the Confederacy.
Seceded states form the Confederate States of America
States under CSA control
States and territories represented in the governments of the USA and CSA
The most famous secession movement was the case of the Southern
states of the United States. Secession from the United States was
accepted in eleven states (and failed in two others). The seceding
states joined together to form the Confederate States of America (CSA).
This secession movement brought about the American Civil War. The position of the Union
was that the Confederacy was not a sovereign nation—and never had been,
but that "the Union" was always a single nation by intent of the states
themselves, from 1776 onward—and thus that a rebellion had been
initiated by individuals. Historian Bruce Catton described President Abraham Lincoln's April 15, 1861, proclamation after the attack on Fort Sumter, which defined the Union's position on the hostilities:
After reciting the obvious fact
that "combinations too powerful to be suppressed" by ordinary law courts
and marshalls had taken charge of affairs in the seven secessionist
states, it announced that the several states of the Union were called on
to contribute 75,000 militia "...to suppress said combinations and to
cause the laws to be duly executed." ... "And I hereby command the
persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse, and retire
peacefully to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date.
The Constitution does not directly mention secession.
The legality of secession was hotly debated in the 19th century.
Although the Federalist Party briefly explored New England secession
during the War of 1812, secession became associated with Southern states
as the North's industrial power increased. The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Constitution to be an "indestructible" union.
The Articles of Confederation explicitly state the Union is
"perpetual"; the U.S. Constitution declares itself an even "more perfect
union" than the Articles of Confederation. Other scholars, while not necessarily disagreeing that the secession was illegal, point out that sovereignty is often de facto
an "extralegal" question. Had the Confederacy won, any illegality of
its actions under U.S. law would have been rendered irrelevant, just as
the undisputed illegality of American rebellion under the British law of
1775 was rendered irrelevant. Thus, these scholars argue, the
illegality of unilateral secession was not firmly de facto established until the Union won the Civil War; in this view, the legal question was resolved at Appomattox.
Supreme Court rulings
Texas v. White was argued before the United States Supreme Court during the December 1868 term. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase read the Court's decision, on April 15, 1869. Australian Professors Peter Radan and Aleksandar Pavkovic write:
Chase, [Chief Justice], ruled in
favor of Texas on the ground that the Confederate state government in
Texas had no legal existence on the basis that the secession of Texas
from the United States was illegal. The critical finding underpinning
the ruling that Texas could not secede from the United States was that,
following its admission to the United States in 1845, Texas had become
part of "an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states". In
practical terms, this meant that Texas has never seceded from the
United States.
However, the Court's decision recognized some possibility of the
divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States".
In 1877, the Williams v. Bruffy decision was rendered, pertaining to Civil War
debts. The Court wrote regarding acts establishing an independent
government that "The validity of its acts, both against the parent state
and the citizens or subjects thereof, depends entirely upon its
ultimate success; if it fail to establish itself permanently, all such
acts perish with it; if it succeed and become recognized, its acts from
the commencement of its existence are upheld as those of an independent
nation."
The Union as a sovereign state
Historian
Kenneth Stampp notes that a historical case against secession had been
made that argued that "the Union is older than the states" and that "the
provision for a perpetual Union in the Articles of Confederation" was
carried over into the Constitution by the "reminder that the preamble to
the new Constitution gives us one of its purposes the formation of 'a
more perfect Union'". Concerning the White decision Stampp wrote:
In 1869, when the Supreme Court, in Texas v. White,
finally rejected as untenable the case for a constitutional right of
secession, it stressed this historical argument. The Union, the Court
said, "never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation". Rather,
"It began among the Colonies. ...It was confirmed and strengthened by
the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and
sanction from the Articles of Confederation."
Texas secession from Mexico
The Republic of Texas successfully seceded from Mexico in 1836
(this, however took the form of outright rebellion against Mexico, and
claimed no warrant under the Mexican Constitution to do so). Mexico
refused to recognize its revolted province as an independent country,
but the major nations of the world did recognize it. In 1845, Congress
admitted Texas as a state. The documents governing Texas' accession to
the United States of America do not mention any right of
secession—although they did raise the possibility of dividing Texas into
multiple states inside the Union. Mexico warned that annexation meant
war and the Mexican–American War followed in 1846.
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this
Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the
Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction
of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the
Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
The separation referred to is not secession but partition. Some of the movements to partition states have identified themselves as "secessionist" movements.
Of the new states admitted to the Union by Congress, three were set off from already existing states, while one was established upon land claimed by an existing state after existing for several years as a de factoindependent republic. They are:
Vermont was admitted as a new state in 1791 after the legislature of New York ceded its claim to the region in 1790. New York's claim that Vermont (also known as the New Hampshire Grants) was legally a part of New York was and remains a matter of disagreement. King George III, ruled in 1764 that the region belonged to the Province of New York.
Kentucky was a part of Virginia until it was admitted as a new state in 1792 with the consent of the legislature of Virginia in 1789.
Maine was a part of Massachusetts until it was admitted as a new state in 1820 after the legislature of Massachusetts consented in 1819.
West Virginia was a part of Virginia until it was admitted as a new state in 1863 after the General Assembly of the Restored Government of Virginia consented in 1862.
The question of whether the legislature of Virginia consented is
controversial, as Virginia was one of the Confederate states. However,
antisecessionist Virginians formed a government in exile, which was recognized by the United States and approved the state's partition. Later, by its ruling in Virginia v. West Virginia (1871), the Supreme Court implicitly affirmed that the breakaway Virginia counties did have the proper consents required to become a separate state.
The
late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen examples of local and
state secession movements. All such movements to create new states have
failed. The formation in 1971 of the Libertarian Party
and its national platform affirmed the right of states to secede on
three vital principles: "We shall support recognition of the right to
secede. Political units or areas which do secede should be recognized by
the United States as independent political entities where: (1)
secession is supported by a majority within the political unit, (2) the
majority does not attempt suppression of the dissenting minority, and
(3) the government of the new entity is at least as compatible with
human freedom as that from which it seceded."
City secession
There was an attempt by Staten Island
to break away from New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
leading to a 1993 referendum, in which 65% voted to secede.
Implementation was blocked in the State Assembly by assertions that the state's constitution required a "home rule message" from New York City.
The San Fernando Valleylost a vote to separate
from Los Angeles in 2002. Despite the majority (55%) of the valley
within the L.A. city limits voting for secession, the city council
unanimously voted to block the partition of the valley north of Mulholland Drive.
A portion of the town of Calabash, North Carolina,
voted to secede from the town in 1998 after receiving permission for a
referendum on the issue from the state of North Carolina. Following
secession, the area incorporated itself as the town of Carolina Shores. Despite the split, the towns continue to share fire and emergency services.
The town of Rough and Ready, California
declared its secession from the Union as The Great Republic of Rough
and Ready on 7 April 1850, largely to avoid mining taxes, but voted to
rejoin the Union less than three months later on 4 July.
State secession
Some state movements seek secession from the United States itself and the formation of a nation from one or more states.
Alaska: In November 2006, the Alaska Supreme Court held in the case Kohlhaas v. State that secession was illegal and refused to permit an initiative to be presented to the people of Alaska for a vote. The Alaskan Independence Party remains a factor in state politics, and Walter Hickel, a member of the party, was Governor from 1990 to 1994.
California:
California secession, known as #CALEXIT, was discussed by grassroots
movement parties and small activist groups calling for the state to
secede from the union in a pro-secessionist meeting in Sacramento on
April 15, 2010. In 2015, a political action committee called Yes California Independence Committee formed to advocate California's independence from the United States. On January 8, 2016, the California Secretary of State's office confirmed that a political body called the California National Party filed the appropriate paperwork to begin qualifying as a political party.
The California National Party, whose primary objective is California
independence, ran a candidate for State Assembly in the June 7, 2016
primary. On November 9, 2016, after Donald Trump won the presidential election, residents of the state caused #calexit to trend on Twitter,
wanting out of the country due to his win; they argue that they have
the 6th largest economy in the world, and more residents than any other
state in the union. 32% of Californians, and 44% of California Democrats were in favor of California secession in a March 2017 poll. The Attorney General of California approved applications by the California Freedom Coalition and others to gather signatures to put #CALEXIT on the 2018 ballot.
In July 2018, the objectives of the Calexit initiative were expanded
upon by including a plan to carve out an "autonomous Native American
nation"
that would take up the eastern part of California, and "postponing its
ballot referendum approach in favor of convincing Republican states to
support their breakaway efforts."
Florida: The mock 1982 secessionist protest by the Conch Republic
in the Florida Keys resulted in an ongoing source of local pride and
tourist amusement. In 2015, right-wing activist Jason Patrick Sager called for Florida to secede.
Georgia: On April 1, 2009, the Georgia State Senate
passed a resolution, 43–1, that asserted the right of states to nullify
federal laws under some circumstances. The resolution also asserted
that if Congress, the president, or the federal judiciary took certain
steps, such as establishing martial law without state consent, requiring
some types of involuntary servitude, taking any action regarding
religion or restricting freedom of political speech, or establishing
further prohibitions of types or quantities of firearms or ammunition,
the constitution establishing the United States government would be
considered nullified and the union would be dissolved.
Hawaii: The Hawaiian sovereignty movement
has a number of active groups that have won some concessions from the
state of Hawaii, including the offering of H.R. 258 in March 2011, which
removes the words "Treaty of Annexation" from a statute. As of 2011, it had passed a committee recommendation 6–0.
Minnesota: The Northwest Angle is a small exclave of Minnesota jutting north into Canada due to a quirk in the definitions of the US-Canada border.
Because of laws restricting fishing, some residents of the Northwest
Angle suggested leaving the United States and joining Canada in 1997.
The following year, U.S. Representative Collin Peterson
of Minnesota proposed legislation to allow the residents of the
Northwest Angle, which is part of his district, to vote on seceding from
the United States and joining Canada. This action succeeded in getting fishing regulations better synchronized across these international (fresh) waters.
Montana: With the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to hear District of Columbia v. Heller
in late 2007, an early 2008 movement began in Montana involving at
least 60 elected officials addressing potential secession if the Second Amendment were interpreted not to grant an individual right, citing its compact with the United States of America.
New Hampshire:
On September 1, 2012, "The New Hampshire Liberty Party was formed to
promote independence from the federal government and for the
individual." The Free State Project
is another NH based movement that has considered secession to increase
liberty. On July 23, 2001, founder of the FSP, Jason Sorens, published
"Announcement: The Free State Project", in The Libertarian Enterprise,
stating, "Even if we don't actually secede, we can force the federal
government to compromise with us and grant us substantial liberties.
Scotland and Quebec have both used the threat of secession to get large
subsidies and concessions from their respective national governments. We
could use our leverage for liberty."
Oregon: Following the 2016 presidential election,
Portland residents Christian Trejbal and Jennifer Rollins submitted a
petition for a ballot measure relating to secession from the United
States; the petitioners withdrew the measure shortly afterward, citing recent riots and death threats.
South Carolina:
In May 2010 a group formed that called itself the Third Palmetto
Republic, a reference to the fact that the state claimed to be an
independent republic twice before: once in 1776 and again in 1860. The
group models itself after the Second Vermont Republic, and says its aims
are for a free and independent South Carolina, and to abstain from any
further federations.
Texas Secession Movement: The group Republic of Texas generated national publicity for its controversial actions in the late 1990s. A small group still meets. In April 2009, Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, raised the issue of secession in disputed comments during a speech at a Tea Party protest
saying "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 pays
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." Another group, the Texas Nationalist Movement, also seeks Texas' independence from the United States, but its methodology is to have the Texas Legislature call for a state-wide referendum on the issue (similar to the Scottish Independence vote of 2014).
Vermont: The Second Vermont Republic,
founded in 2003, is a loose network of several groups that describes
itself as "a nonviolent citizens' network and think tank opposed to the
tyranny of Corporate America and the U.S. government, and committed to
the peaceful return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic
and more broadly the dissolution of the Union". Its "primary objective is to extricate Vermont peacefully from the United States as soon as possible". They have worked closely with the Middlebury Institute created from a meeting sponsored in Vermont in 2004.
On October 28, 2005, activists held the Vermont Independence
Conference, "the first statewide convention on secession in the United
States since North Carolina voted to secede from the Union on May 20,
1861".
They also participated in the 2006 and 2007 Middlebury-organized
national secessionist meetings that brought delegates from over a dozen
groups.
Republic of Lakotah: Some members of the Lakota people
of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota created
the Republic to assert the independence of a nation that was always
sovereign and did not willingly join the United States; therefore they
do not consider themselves technically to be secessionists.
Pacific Northwest: Cascadia: There have been repeated attempts to form a Bioregional Democracy Cascadia
in the northwest. The core of Cascadia would be made up through the
secession of the states of Washington, Oregon and the Canadian province
of British Columbia,
while some supporters of the movement support portions of Northern
California, Southern Alaska, Idaho and Western Montana joining, to
define its boundaries along ecological, cultural, economic and political
boundaries.
League of the South: The group seeks "a free and independent Southern republic" made up of the former Confederate States of America. It operated a short-lived Southern Party supporting the right of states to secede from the Union or to legally nullify federal laws.
Red-State secession / Blue-state secession: Various editorials have proposed that states of the USA secede and then form federations
only with states that have voted for the same political party. These
editorials note the increasingly polarized political strife in the USA
between Republican voters and Democratic voters. They propose partition
of the US as a way of allowing both groups to achieve their policy
goals while reducing the chances of civil war. Red states and blue states are states that typically vote for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.
Polling
A September 2017 Zogby International poll found that 68% of Americans were open to states of the USA seceding.
A 2014 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 24% of Americans supported their state
seceding from the union if necessary; 53% opposed the idea. Republicans
were somewhat more supportive than Democrats. Respondents cited issues
like gridlock, governmental overreach, the possible unconstitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and a loss of faith in the federal government as reasons for desiring secession.
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