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T Lee Horne III

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I retired when I turned 50 years old. I am working again at 72 years old.

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CSA II: The New Confederate States of America

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Chet McAteer ·May 7, 2026 The Reserved Right of Secession: A Constitutional Compact Among Sovereign States "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" The Constitution of the Unit... View MoreChet McAteer ·May 7, 2026 The Reserved Right of Secession: A Constitutional Compact Among Sovereign States "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" The Constitution of the United States was framed as a Compact among Sovereign States, not an indissoluble national Union forged by a single, indivisible people. This understanding, rooted in the political philosophy of the Founding era, the ratification debates, and contemporaneous legal commentary, Reserved to the States, as Sovereign Entities, the ultimate Right to Secede under certain conditions. Far from being a radical Southern invention in 1860–61, this view was articulated by key Founders and jurists, including James Madison, and affirmed in influential treatises such as William Rawle’s A View of the Constitution. Even Northern leaders and politicians implicitly acknowledged its legal viability by seeking explicit Constitutional prohibition on the eve of the War for Southern Independence. The Secession of the Southern States in 1860–61 thus rested on a sound, historically grounded interpretation of the Constitutional order as a Voluntary Compact of Sovereign republics. The Compact Theory and State Sovereignty The American Union originated in the Sovereign Acts of the States. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the colonies “Free and Independent States” with full powers to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, and do all other acts that Independent States may of right do." The Articles of Confederation explicitly described the arrangement as a “firm league of friendship” among Sovereign States. The Constitution of 1787 was ratified not by a national plebiscite but by conventions of the People of each State acting in their Sovereign Capacity. Several States, including Virginia and New York, included explicit reservations or declarations affirming their Sovereign status and the conditional nature of the Union in their ratification instruments. Virginia Ratification Declaration: “That the powers granted under the said Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression; and that every power not granted thereby remains at and with the people.” New York Ratification Declaration: “That all Power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the People, and that Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common Benefit, Protection and Security of the People, Nation or Community; and not for the particular Emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or set of Men, who are only a part of that Community… That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Safety; but these Restrictions shall not impair the Right of the Government to punish every Offence against the Laws of Nations, and every Violation of the Rights of Citizenship, wherever committed.” Rhode Island Ratification Declaration: “That all Power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the People, and that Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common Benefit, Protection and Security of the People, Nation or Community; and not for the particular Emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or set of Men, who are only a part of that Community… That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Safety; but these Restrictions shall not impair the Right of the Government to punish every Offence against the Laws of Nations, and every Violation of the Rights of Citizenship, wherever committed.” This framework embodied Compact Theory: the Constitution as a contractual agreement among the States as Parties. Powers not delegated were Reserved to the States or the People (Tenth Amendment). No Clause expressly prohibits Secession or declares the Union perpetual in a manner that overrides State Sovereignty. The Preamble’s “more perfect Union” improved upon the Articles but did not fundamentally alter the federal character. As Madison explained in Federalist No. 39, the Constitution was “not a national, but a federal act”, the act of the people composing independent States, not one consolidated nation. James Madison on Rightful Secession James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” provided one of the clearest articulations late in life. In a letter to Alexander Rives (often dated around 1830–1833), Madison addressed claims that the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 endorsed unilateral Secession at will: “A rightful Secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the Compact, absolving the Seceding Party from all obligations imposed by it.” Madison questioned Secession “at will” by a single State against the majority without cause, comparing it to anarchy where any Party could dissolve the agreement unilaterally. However, he explicitly affirmed two lawful pathways: (1) mutual consent, or (2) a material breach or “abuse of the compact” that absolves the injured party. This mirrors basic contract law principles: a contract binds Parties only so long as its terms are observed; fundamental breach releases the non-breaching party. Southern States in 1860–61 cited Northern Nullification of the Fugitive Slave Clause, personal liberty laws, and the rise of a sectional Party hostile to their domestic laws as precisely such an abuse. Madison’s view aligned with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798–99), which he and Jefferson authored in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. These asserted that States, as Parties to the Compact, could interpose against Unconstitutional federal acts and, in extreme cases, resort to remedies flowing from their Sovereign status. William Rawle and Legal Commentary William Rawle’s A View of the Constitution of the United States (1825, 2d ed. 1829), a leading antebellum treatise used at West Point and elsewhere, explicitly affirmed the Right. Rawle, a Federalist and former U.S. District Attorney under Washington, wrote: “The States, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union… The Secession of a State from the Union depends on the Will of the People of such a State.” Rawle grounded this in the People's Sovereign Right to alter or abolish their government (echoing the Declaration) and the conditional nature of allegiance to the Union. While the Union could guarantee republican government to States (Article IV, Section 4), it could not compel perpetual membership against the deliberate, peaceable Will of a State’s People. Secession had to be clear and unequivocal, preferably through popular conventions mirroring the ratification process, but the Right inhered in State Sovereignty. Rawle opposed hasty or violent Secession but affirmed its legality as inherent in the Compact. This was not fringe opinion. It reflected widespread understanding before the sectional crisis intensified. Views of Other Founders and Statesmen: Webster, Adams, and Broader Context Daniel Webster, a staunch Unionist, famously declared in his 1830 reply to Hayne that the Union was “not a compact” but the work of the People as one nation. Yet even Webster operated in a political culture where secession had been seriously contemplated. During the Hartford Convention (1814–15), New England Federalists, opposed to the War of 1812 and Southern influence, discussed remedies including potential Secession or separate peace. While the Convention ultimately proposed amendments rather than disunion, the episode demonstrated that Northern Statesmen viewed extreme remedies as available when the compact was abused. DANIEL WEBSTER, U. S. Senate, Feb. 15, 1833: "If the Union was formed by the accession of States then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States." "The States are Nations."— Daniel Webster DANIEL WEBSTER: "If the States were not left to leave the Union when their Rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name." Henry Cabot Lodge: "It is safe to say there was no man in this country… who regarded our system of government, when first adopted, as anything but an experiment entered upon by the states, and from which each and every State had the right to peaceably withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised.” John Quincy Adams, another Northern Unionist and former President, explicitly contemplated peaceful separation. In an 1839 Jubilee of the Constitution speech, he stated: “If the day should ever come… when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other… far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint." John Quincy Adams (on the Louisiana Purchase bill): "It is my deliberate opinion that if this bill passes, the bonds of the Union are virtually dissolved; that the states which oppose it are morally free from their obligations, and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation.” Adams opposed Southern expansion (e.g., Texas annexation) partly because he believed it would justify Northern Secession or dissolution as a violation of the Compact's spirit. He and others signed appeals asserting that certain federal actions would “fully justify” dissolution. These examples illustrate that Secession was not deemed Unconstitutional; its propriety depended on circumstances, consent, or breach. The Founders’ generation had just Seceded from Britain via the Declaration. They understood Sovereignty and Compacts through the lens of Natural Rights, revolution, and contractual remedies. None other than Abraham Lincoln recognized and supported the Act of Secession in the 1840s. In a fiery speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 12, 1848, amid debates over the Mexican War, Lincoln declared: “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 this 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.” As was recognized later by SENATOR JOSEPH LANE, of Oregon, in reply to Andrew Johnson in regard to the Crittenden Resolution (Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, p. 1347), said: "If there is, as I contend, a right for secession, then whenever a State exercises that Right this Government has no laws to execute in that State, nor has it any property in such State that can be protected by the power of that Government.” The 1861 Amendment: Northern Acknowledgment of Legal and Constitutional Right. The most compelling contemporaneous evidence that Secession was widely viewed as a Reserved Right even by Northerners, comes from the frantic efforts to amend the Constitution to prohibit it after seven Southern States had already Seceded. On March 2, 1861, just days before Lincoln’s inauguration, Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed: “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States.” Why propose such an Amendment if Secession were already plainly Unconstitutional and impossible? Under standard Constitutional interpretation, an Amendment would be unnecessary to ban a non-existent power. The proposal (part of the broader “Corwin Amendment” efforts and compromise attempts) reveals that many in the North understood the Constitution as silent or permissive on Secession, requiring explicit textual change to foreclose it. This aligns with Madison’s and Rawle’s views: absent mutual consent or amendment, States retained Sovereign remedies for abuse of the Compact. The failure of these last-ditch efforts underscored the breakdown of the original federal consensus. Conclusion: The Legality of Southern Secession The historical record proves beyond reasonable doubt that Secession was recognized as a legal, Reserved Right of the Sovereign States under the Compact Theory of the Union. Madison affirmed it under conditions of consent or breach. Rawle enshrined it in Constitutional commentary. Northern leaders from the Hartford Convention era through John Quincy Adams contemplated it as a remedy. The Doolittle proposal in 1861 constitutes an admission against interest: if Secession required no Amendment to prohibit, it was already understood as within State power. The Southern States Seceded through orderly conventions of the People, mirroring ratification, after decades of perceived Northern breaches (Punitive Tariffs, fugitive slave non-compliance, sectional agitation, and the election of a party openly hostile to their section). Whether one views their grievances as justified is a separate moral and political question. Legally and Constitutionally, under the Founders’ understanding, they acted within the Reserved Rights of Sovereign States. The Civil War settled the issue by force, not by conclusive Constitutional adjudication (though Texas v. White later offered a post-hoc nationalist interpretation, but had absolutely no legal standing on the issue of Secession). Might does not make right, nor does it erase the Compact origins of the Republic. This essay rests not on modern ideology but on primary sources, ratification history, and the words of Madison, Rawle, Adams, and the political actors of the era. The Constitution was a Union of Consent, not coercion; when Consent eroded and the Compact was abused, the States retained the Sovereign Remedy the Founders implicitly reserved. In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance, C.M.McAteer December 17, 2004 Foundational Documents (State Sovereignty & Compact Origins) Declaration of Independence (1776) Key line: “Free and Independent States… full Power to levy War, conclude Peace…” Establishes original State Sovereignty. Articles of Confederation (1777, ratified 1781) Article II: “Each State retains its Sovereignty, Freedom, and Independence” Describes the Union as a “firm league of friendship.” U.S. Constitution (1787) Ratification structure (Article VII): by conventions of each State. Tenth Amendment (1791): reservation of undelegated powers. Ratification Debates & State Reservations Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788) Instrument of Ratification: reserves the Right to reassume delegated powers if abused. New York Ratifying Convention (1788) Similar conditional language asserting retained Sovereignty. Rhode Island Ratification (1790) Explicitly affirms the People's Right to “resume” powers. The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 39 (James Madison): Constitution is “federal, not national.” Federalist No. 45 (Madison): powers of federal government are “few and defined.” Madison, Jefferson, and Compact Theory Kentucky Resolutions (1798, Thomas Jefferson) States as Parties to the Compact; right to judge infractions. Virginia Resolutions (1798, James Madison) Doctrine of “interposition.” James Madison to Alexander Rives (1830s) Statement on “rightful Secession” requiring Consent or justified by abuse of the Compact. James Madison, Report of 1800-Elaborates Compact Theory and State role in Constitutional enforcement. Early Secession Discussions (North & South) Hartford Convention Proceedings (1814–1815) Official report and resolutions discussing Constitutional remedies, including structural separation. Timothy Pickering Letters (early 1800s) Open advocacy of Northern confederacy through Secession. Antebellum Constitutional Commentary William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States (1825, 1829 ed.) Explicit statement: States may Secede; grounded in Popular Sovereignty. St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries (American edition, 1803) Treats the Union as a Compact among Sovereign States. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution (1833) Opposes secession, but valuable as a counter-primary source showing the debate existed. Major Statesmen on Disunion or Secession. Daniel Webster, Reply to Hayne (1830) Argues against compact theory, useful as contrast. Daniel Webster speeches (1833 Force Bill debates) Addresses possibility of disunion, even while opposing it. John Quincy Adams, “Jubilee of the Constitution” Speech (1839) Advocates peaceful separation if mutual affection collapses. John Quincy Adams, House speeches on Texas (1836–1843) Suggests annexation could justify Northern Secession. Pre–War Crisis Evidence South Carolina Declaration of Causes (Dec. 1860) Lists Constitutional breaches (especially Tariffs, fugitive slave issue). Mississippi, Georgia, Texas Declarations of Causes (1860–61) Provide justification grounded in Compact violation. Proceedings of Secession Conventions (1860–61) Demonstrate process via popular conventions mirroring ratification. Northern Acknowledgment / Amendment Efforts Corwin Amendment (1861) Proposed Constitutional amendment to protect slavery and preserve Union. Congressional Globe (36th Congress, 1861) Senator James R. Doolittle’s proposed amendment explicitly prohibiting Secession Texas v. White (1869) The Orbit Dictum of Salmon P Chase, no Legally Binding Case Virginia Ratification (1788) Madison’s Federalist No. 39 + Rawle (1825)

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