As Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln opposed the secession of the southern states militarily and under his leadership the armed forces of the United States defeated the secessionist movement on the battlefield. In his addresses to the American people, Lincoln mounted powerful arguments opposing secession on all fronts – on legal grounds, on political grounds, on economic grounds, on patriotic grounds, and most importantly, on moral grounds. Lincoln addressed secession at length in two speeches: his First Inaugural Address and his address to Congress on July 4, 1861. In this post I describe the arguments that Lincoln made against secession in his First Inaugural.
On March 4, 1861, in his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln made three legal arguments against secession and closed with an appeal to the common heritage of the North and the South in the Revolution. The first legal argument stemmed from the fact that the Articles of Confederation, our first Constitution which was written in 1778 and adopted in 1781, had declared the Union to be "perpetual." Lincoln contended that all governments consider themselves to be perpetual, and that in any event the Constitution itself did not contemplate or provide for secession:
I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever – it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Second, Lincoln likened the Constitution to a contract or a compact among the states, an analogy which secessionists were fond of asserting, and argued that even considered as a contract the southern states had no right to secede:
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it – break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
The third legal argument against secession that Lincoln made in the First Inaugural reasoned from the history of the Union and the language in the Preamble that secession was inconsistent with the intent of the framers of the Constitution:
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was "to form a more perfect union."
But if destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
Lincoln concluded his legal arguments by characterizing secession as an act that was beyond the power of the states and as constituting either a breach of contract, revolution, or treason – but certainly not a lawful or constitutional act:
It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, – that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
Lincoln closed his First Inaugural with an appeal to patriotism:
I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln expanded upon these arguments in his address to Congress on July 4, 1861. In that speech Lincoln made a number of points that are still relevant to the interpretation of the Constitution. The principles that Lincoln established in that speech will be the subject of a post this coming Friday.
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These cannot seriously be considered legal arguments. A more fitting description would be "Interpretation stretched to convenience and selective backfill taken out of context." What was the Declaration of Indepdendence if not a document to support the secession of a group of states from a federal government? If perpetutity makes a government more perfect, then our secession from Great Britain would, by definition, have made our government less perfect. The "perpetual" verbage was intentionally removed to recognize that secession was the tool used to make our government more perfect.
The Constitution goes great lengths to attempt to reserve all undelegated rights to the states and remove all undelegated rights from the federal government. Even now, this reserves the legal right to seceed for any state and denies the legal right to invade any state from the federal government.
Like any lawyer, Mr. Lincoln's interpretations of Constitutional law were intentionally flawed and incomplete to meet his ends. The conequenses of his actions speak for themselves. We may regret that the end of slavery could not have been accomplished in his lifetime without the sacrifice of so many hundreds of thousands. Still, we cannot give credence to these inane ramblings by labeling them an enlightened interpretation of Contitutional Law.
Nonsense. You lunatics – if the South had the right to secede – they did NOT have the right to use violence to do it. Just because you lose an election, there is nothing in the constitution — nor logic — that says you can throw a hissy fit, then threaten the government – then attack US troops lawfully deployed.
Which is pretty much what happened.
You have a right to get a divorce too — but you dont have a right to shoot or threaten your wife.
You have a right to get your money out of the bank – but you don't have the right to break in and take it in the middle of the night at gun point.
If the South wanted to secede — let it do so by the Constitution – as Lincoln said. Why on earth have you not answered Lincon's – or this – point? Secede all you want, have a party. Go for it. But seceding legally is one thing. Attacking US troops cause you lost an election is another.
Notice how you lunatics onlly talk about the right to secede. Go ahead and secede already — shut up and do it. But you wont do it by force this time. Guess why? Lincoln taught you otherwise.
If you don't think Lincoln's election triggered secession, then you are a complete idiot. Go read the Declarations of Causes – most of them mentioned Lincoln by name, and saying his election made it clear they had to secede.
In fact, why the heck havent you read them already? Here is just ONE quote from Florida Declaration of Causes.
"A President has recently been elected (Lincoln) , an obscure and illiterate man without experience who often proclaims that no more slave States shall be admitted into the union. If no more states are admitted, then the present slaves from their rapid increase in birth will become worthless to their owners. Nothing is more certain than this –and at no distant day.
"No more slave states admitted ? What must be the condition of the slaves themselves when their number becomes so large that their labor will be of no value to their owners? The black race has a natural tendency to idleness vagrancy and crime, which will be increased by an inability to procure subsistence, if they become worthless as slaves.
[stopping slavery from expanding] is in so many words saying we will not burn you at the stake but we will torture you to death by a slow fire. It is saying we will not confiscate your property and consign you to a residence and equality with the african, but that destiny certainly awaits your children. "
Here is another Tennessee governor advising the people to secede
"The antislavery party is the enemy of the Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free States. And now, having [won the election] it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its damnable heresies [of equality of races] entertained for many vears toward the South and its institutions.
That we will resist Lincolns usurpation unto death; that, we have no compromise with tyranny or with the tyrant who has trampled our Constitution and now seeks to enslave us "
So yes– Lincoln's election was the trigger for these lunatics to secede. It wasn't anything Lincoln DID – he wasnt even in yet. And it wasnt logically anything he said — he had bent over backwards for years not to piss off these lunatics.
Oh – and if you are going by this logic "when form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government"
Why didn't then the SLAVES have a right to alter or abolish the government of any slave state? The form of goverment was certainly destructive to THEIR end. Notice how the lunatic south treated any people who dared to have armed rebellion against them — hanging for the lucky ones — burning to death in front of their family for the unlucky ones.
So spare me this nonsense about Southern concerns for rule of law. They were by definition for the rule of force. Anything else is nonsense.
Enough pretending — 150 years of Southern whinning and lying is enough.
The fallacy of Douglas' argument is destroyed by the words of Lincoln himself:
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any such portion may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both and make new ones.” – Abraham Lincoln
Should be instead
The fallacy of Douglass argument is revealed by these words of Lincoln:
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any such portion may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both and make new ones.” – Abraham Lincoln