Cosumnes River CollegeHISTORY 320

From Readings in US History: Upon what basis did the South feel it had a right to secede from the United States? Discuss their reasoning: was it Constitutional or not? Why did the seceding states of the Confederacy consider themselves sovereign nations?

 

Answer:

The main line of reasoning the Confederacy used is that the states have supremacy in the government. It was argued that states have the right to ignore federal laws they disagreed with, which eventually became that they could secede from the union if they saw fit. This is also why they viewed themselves as sovereign nations. This argument cast being part of the United States as a voluntary arrangement. While you could point to some lines in the Constitution--such as the Tenth Amendment, which says that any powers not expressly given to the federal government are reserved by the states--it really isn't supported overall. The Constitution declares that laws made "under the authority of the United States" are "the supreme law of the land," not those made by the states.

"The United States" is used in the Constitution to refer to the federal government, such as to distinguish between the US Congress and State Congresses. This means that the Constitution directly says that the federal government is "the supreme law of the land," implying it cannot be overturned by mere state laws. The states that would become the Confederacy believed just the opposite. To them, one's loyalty was foremost to their home state, and the states were like countries that banded together under a mutual agreement, much like the Articles of Confederation that came before the Constitution. Under their logic, it would follow that you could leave that agreement any time you wanted.