mentaries on America’s fundamental law. It was the text onrnconstitutional law used at West Point from 1825 until 1840. Inrnit, Rawle outlines the steps necessary for the legal secession ofrnan American state. By 1861 every Southern state had takenrnthose steps.rnForeign writers who had studied the Constitution concludedrnthat a state could secede from the compact. Tocqueville wrote:rn”If one of the States chose to withdraw from the compact… thernFederal Government would have no means of maintaining itsrnclaims directly either by force or right.” Lord Brougham, in hisrnmagisterial study of constitutions, published in 1849, taughtrnthat the American Constitution was a compact from which arnstate could secede. He described the union as a “treaty,” arn”Federacy of states,” and as “the Great League.”rnJohn Quincy Adams, in his famous speech celebrating thernjubilee of the Constitution (1839), went out of his way to arguernthat a state could secede. What holds “the several states of thisrnconfederated nation together,” he said, is not “in the right” butrn”in the heart.” Should common affection and interest fail, thenrn”far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to partrnin friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.”rnOne must follow the “precedent” (Adams recognized,rnas Texas v. White would not, that the union had been dissolvedrnbefore) “to form again a more perfect Union by dissolving thatrnwhich could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts tornbe reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.”rnFour years after this speech, the former President, along withrnother New England leaders, would call for the dissolution ofrnthe union over the annexation of Texas.rnIn the late 1850’s, anticipating the secession of South Carolina,rnthere was a movement in the mid-Atlantic states to form arn”Central Confederacy.” It would include such states as NewrnYork, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland,rnand connected states. Such a confederacy, it was argued, wasrnthe conservative and moderate core of the union; it could preventrnwar and provide a rallying point around which the disaffectedrnstates of the Deep South could one day return shouldrnthey secede. Here was a splendid case of the Constitution underrnthe compact theory working as it should. The sectional crisisrnbetween North and South could only be solved constitutionallyrnby actions of the sovereign states themselves. I’hernmovement by prominent leaders to form a Central Confederacyrnwas cut short by Lincoln’s decision to send Massachusettsrntroops into Maryland. Blood was drawn, and states had tornchoose sides.rnVirginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas had votedrnto remain in the union even after the Deep South states hadrnseceded. They reversed themselves only after Lincoln demandedrntroops to coerce the seceding states back into thernunion. To these people, it was clear that the constitutional traditionrnthey had inherited prohibited the coercion of a state.rnHamilton had argued just this at the New York ratifying convention:rn”To coerce a state would be one of the maddest projectsrnever devised. No state would ever suffer itself to be used asrnthe instiument of coercing another.” But Massachusetts couldrnand did. A new order of men had entered the world whosernsouls were shaped by the ideology of the French Revolutionrnand the hubris of the Industrial Revolution which has everywhererndemanded consolidation and centialization.rnIn none of the enumerated powers granted by the states tornCongress in Article I, section 8 is there authority to prohibit secession.rnThe only conceivable power is the authority to “suppressrninsurrections.” And it was this power that Lincoln seizedrnupon to justify coercing the seceding states back into the union.rnBut an insurrection is an attempt to overthrow either the centialrngovernment or the government of a state. The orderly secessionrnof a state, authorized by the people in convention (thernsame instrument authorizing entrance into the union) is not anrnattempt to overthrow either a state government or the centralrngovernment. It is an act of the people to withdraw those powersrndelegated to the central government and to govern themselves.rnThis, of course, is a serious matter, but it is not insurrection. Itrnwas not prohibited by the Constitution in 1861, and it is notrnprohibited today.rnSo deep was this understanding that, when secession ofrnSouthern states seemed imminent, no less than three amendmentsrnwere proposed to the Constitution to make secession illegal.rnBy the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, what is not prohibitedrnto the people of the states by the Constitution isrnpermitted. The attempt to prohibit secession by an amendmentrnis clear proof that secession was permitted by the Constitution.rnAmericans have yet to come to terms with the stark immoralityrnand barbarism of the invasion of the Southernrnstates to preserve the union. The war was the bloodiest of thern19th century, leaving 1.5 million killed, missing, and wounded.rnThe moral question becomes insistent when considered inrnlight of the peaceful secession of 15 republics from the SovietrnUnion and other peaceful secessions after 1990. Here in Americarnwas a union formed by secession from the Articles of Confederation,rnitself a union grounded in the secession of 13 selfproclaimedrnsovereign states from the British empire; a union inrnwhich the constitutional right of state interposition and secessionrnhad been acknowledged in every section throughout thernantebellum period; a union only 70 years old that had swollenrnto some ten times its size in only 50 years and by that expansionrnhad rapidly created new majorities, minorities, instability, andrnconflicts between great sectional interests; a union seeking torndeal with a great sectional crisis in the way that was most continuousrnwith its inherited constitutional tiadition, namely, byrnpeacefril secession of sovereign states by conventions of the people.rnLincoln opposed this with a sophistical “nationalist” theory,rnnot 30 years old, that inverted some 80 years of Americanrnconstitutional experience with its perverse historical doctrinernthat the union created the states.rnBut the violence of war was not sufficient to destioy the federatedrnpolity of the Founders; though weakened, it remainedrnintact. Tlie Southern states were now ruled by Southerners loyalrnto the union; they returned their members to Congress andrnimmediately ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.rnBut when the 14th Amendment was floated in Congress, theyrnrejected it, as did many non-Southerners, fearing that it wouldrnconcentrate too much power in the central government. Inrnhopes of getting the amendment ratified, and fearful of beingrnreduced to a minority by a union of Southern and NorthernrnDemocrats, the Republican Congress expelled the Southernrnstates, declaring them conquered provinces and placing themrnunder military dictatorship. Nothing had changed in thesernstates; if they had the authority to ratify the 13th Amendment,rnthey also had the authority to vote against the 14th Amendment.rnLincoln had invaded the Southern states on the grounds thatrna state could not secede from a union that was perpetual, or-rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn