The Lincoln Myth(43)

He had. Two weeks ago. More than 125,000 had signed, stating that they no longer wanted to be part of the United States.

“We didn’t spearhead that, but we didn’t discourage it, either. It came from a fringe group. Take a look at its preamble.”

He accepted an iPad and read from the screen.

Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union  , and to do so would protect its citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.



He liked the wording but had not liked the comments made in the press by its creators. Too radical. Too fanatical. They’d sounded absurd. What the petition had done, though, was draw attention to the issue, which the news channels had salivated over for several days.

“Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee now have started similar petitions. But none of them comes close to the 125,000 signers from Texas. These are just publicity stunts, but they don’t hurt a thing.”

He laid the iPad on the table. “We have to bring this discussion out of the South.”

One of the others said, “We know. A recent Zogby poll shows that, nationwide, 18% favored secession of their state from the union  . Another poll, from The Huffington Post, found that 29% said their state should be allowed to secede, if a majority of the residents so wanted. But here’s the interesting part. Another 33% in that study were unsure.”

Which meant a potential 62% could be in favor of a state’s right to leave the union  .

No surprise, really.

“Which is why we have to change the tone,” he said. “Luckily, to quote John Paul Jones, We have not yet begun to fight. Where are we legally?”

“I’ve had my students working on that,” the professor said. “A hypothetical exercise in legal reasoning, I called it. They’re all bright people and they’ve developed a solid treatise.”

He listened as the academician explained their premise.

The Declaration of Independence contained the clear statement that whenever any form of government becomes destructive, 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. It went on to pronounce, in no uncertain terms, when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce the people 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.

Each of the original thirteen colonies had declared its own independence from Great Britain. After the war, England recognized each state as sovereign. The states eventually formed the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual union  , which created a federal government as their collective agent. But in 1787 the states seceded from that perpetual union   and adopted a new constitution. Nowhere were the words perpetual union   included in that new constitution, and no state had agreed to such permanency when ratifying. In fact, Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York, in their ratification votes, specifically reserved the right to secede, which was not opposed by the other states.

He liked what he was hearing.

Since the Civil War any talk of secession had been muted by the fact that the South lost and the Supreme Court of the United States proclaimed in 1869 that the act was unconstitutional.

The professor produced a bound document, two inches thick.

“This is their analysis of every judicial decision in the country that ever considered the issue of secession. Mainly federal cases from the mid-19th century and a few state decisions. All, though, are uniform in holding the concept of secession illegal.”

He waited to hear what he needed to know.

“Nearly all of those decisions, though, use Texas v. White as their basis,” the professor said. “Knock that out, and there’s no precedent. We’d be in virgin territory. I had them analyze that aspect quite carefully. The conclusion is inescapable.” The professor laid the bound pages before him. “It’s a house of cards. Removing just that one will cause the whole thing to collapse.”

He realized his ally was referring to the legal precedents, but the same metaphor applied to the assemblage of fifty states.

Secession was an issue he’d long considered, ever since he decided that the federal government was broken beyond repair. It had become too big, too arrogant, too foolish. The Founding Fathers fought a long and bloody war against a centralized authority—England and its king—so they never would have created a new autocracy. It was self-evident in 1787 that no state could be forced to either join or stay in the union  . Both decisions were up to the people of each state. In fact, a specific proposal to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state failed at the Constitutional Convention.