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.