What Americans Used To Know About The Declaration Of Independence

"During the weeks following the [1860] election, [Northern newspaper] editors of all parties assumed that secession as a constitutional right was not in question . . . . On the contrary, the southern claim to a right of peaceable withdrawal was countenanced out of reverence for the natural law principle of government by consent of the governed." - ~ Howard Cecil Perkins, editor, Northern Editorials on Secession, p. 10

The first several generations of Americans understood that the Declaration of Independence was the ultimate states’ rights document. The citizens of the states would delegate certain powers to a central government in their Constitution, and these powers (mostly for national defense and foreign policy purposes) would hopefully be exercised for the benefit of the citizens of the "free and independent" states, as they are called in the Declaration.

The understanding was that if American citizens were in fact to be the masters rather than the servants of government, they themselves would have to police the national government that was created by them for their mutual benefit. If the day ever came that the national government became the sole arbiter of the limits of its own powers, then Americans would live under a tyranny as bad or worse than the one the colonists fought a revolution against. As the above quotation denotes, the ultimate natural law principle behind this thinking was Jefferson’s famous dictum in the Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever that consent is withdrawn the people of the free and independent states, as sovereigns, have a duty to abolish that government and replace it with a new one if they wish.

This was the fundamental understanding of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence – that it was a Declaration of Secession from the British empire – of the first several generations of Americans. As the 1, 107-page book, Northern Editorials on Secession shows, this view was held just as widely in the Northern states as in the Southern states in 1860-1861. Among the lone dissenters was Abe Lincoln, a corporate lawyer/lobbyist/politician with less than a year of formal education who probably never even read The Federalist Papers.

The following are some illustrations of how various Northern-state newspaper editors thought of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence in 1860-1861:

We believe that the right of any member of this Confederacy [the United States] to dissolve its political relations with the others and assume an independent position is absolute – that, in other words, if South Carolina wants to go out of the Union, she has the right to do so, and no party or power may justly say her nay. This we suppose to be the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence when it affirms that governments are instituted for the protection of men in their lives, liberties, and the pursuit of happiness; and that ‘whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government . . .’

On December 17, 1860 the New York Daily Tribune editorialized that "We have repeatedly asked those who dissent from our view of this matter [the legality of peaceful secession] to tell us frankly whether they do or do not assent to Mr. Jefferson’s statement in the Declaration of Independence that governments ‘derive their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . . We do heartily accept this doctrine, believing it intrinsically sound, beneficent, and one that , universally accepted, is calculated to prevent the shedding of seas of human blood." Furthermore, the Tribune wrote, "[I]f it justified the secession from the British Empire of Three Millions of colonists in 1776, we do not see it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861."

The Kenosha, Wisconsin Democrat editorialized on January 11, 1861, that "The founders of our government were constant secessionists. They not only claimed the right for themselves, but conceded it to others. They were not only secessionists in theory, but in practice.. The old confederation between the states [the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union] was especially declared perpetual by the instrument itself. Yet Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and the hosts of heroes and statesman of that day seceded from it." And, "The Constitution provides no means of coercing a state in the Union; nor any punishment for secession."

Again on February 23, 1861, the New York Daily Tribune reiterated its view that "We must not, in behalf of either of the Union of Freedom, trample down the great truth that ‘governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed.’"

The Washington, D.C. States and Union newspaper editorialized on March 21, 1861, that "The people are the ruling judges, the States independent sovereigns. Where the people chose to change their political condition, as our own Declaration of Independence first promulgated, they have a right to do so. If the doctrine was good then, it is good now. Call that right by whatever name you please, secession or revolution, it makes no sort of difference."

This last sentence was a response to the Republican Party propaganda machine of the day that invented the theory that the Declaration allows for a "right of revolution" but not a right of "secession." The States and Union recognized immediately that this non-distinction was nothing more than a rhetorical flimflam designed to deceive the public about the meaning of their own Declaration of Independence. It is a piece of lying propaganda that is repeated to this day by apologists for the American welfare/warfare/police state, especially the Lincoln-worshipping neocons at National Review, the Claremont Institute, and other appendages of the Republican Party.

On the eve of the war the Providence, Rhode Island Evening Press warned that "the employment of [military] force" against citizens who no longer consented to being governed by Washington, D.C. , "can have no other result than to make the revolution itself complete and lasting, at the expense of thousands of lives, hundreds of millions of dollars, and amount of wretchedness fearful to contemplate, and the humiliation of the American name."

The Evening Press then reminded its readers that in the American Revolution the colonists rejected "the Divine right of Kings" to do whatever they wanted to their subjects. "Our forefathers disputed this dictum," they wrote, and "rose against it, fought against it, and by successful revolution accomplished their independence of it. In its place they substituted the doctrine that ‘to secure human happiness, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . ."

On this Fourth of July most Americans will not be celebrating or commemorating these founding, natural law principles. To the extent that they are celebrating anything but a day off work to overeat and overdrink, they will be celebrating the imperial warfare/police state with hundreds of parades featuring marching soldiers in camouflage, flags galore, military vehicles, jet fighter fly-overs, "patriotic"/warmongering musical anthems, etc. The symbol of all of this is King Lincoln himself, who rejected every single principle of the Declaration of Independence. His successors have reinterpreted the document to "justify" endless military interventionism all over the globe in the name of "making all men everywhere equal." To the neocons, this means perpetual wars for "democracy." This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the real meaning of the Declaration of Independence and is in fact the exact opposite. No people in any country that has been invaded and occupied by the U.S. military have ever consented to being governed as such by Washington, D.C. As such, they can all be thought of as Neo-Confederates.

“That does change the fact that the Founding Fathers and the early Presidents all considered unilateral secession treason.”

Well, that’s nice, but it really isn’t something that they had any authority to decide. Even if they had written into the Constitution that states couldn’t secede (which they didn’t, so the whole debate is pointless based on the 10th Amendment), the natural rights of men take precedence over even the Constitution.

That’s a valid point, but there was no universal suffrage at that time in any state, and since women are half the population in general, then you could say the same for every state.

Well, there's a difference between not having full agency and chattel bondage. No matter what the feminists would say. You can't really compare the situation of women at the time to that of blacks.

I love the principle of succession, with its acknowledgment that the states loan the federal government its power and can take it back at any time. I just wish it had been tested in a worthy cause, instead of the preservation of slavery.

Make no mistake - the North might have been fighting to preserve the Union rather than banish slavery, but the CSA was fighting specifically to preserve it. Read the states' own declarations at the time. That makes the Confederacy as truly evil a nation as ever existed on God's Earth.

Don't mistake my meaning - I'm not saying all Confederate soldiers were fighting to preserve and defend slavery. Heck, most of the good men who died weren't rich enough to qualify. But the states themselves, and the nation they formed, was absolutely founded on slavery. They were only interested in states' rights to a point, which is why states in the CSA didn't have the right to prohibit or restrict slavery.

Unfortunately, that means the rights of states to secede is now largely invalidated. States can't anymore, as the political question was settled on the battlefield. Which also makes all those headlines above moot, since they all predate the Civil War. States had the right to do so at the time those editorials were written, but lost that right shortly afterward.

I disagree with your premise that states cannot now secede. Who says they can’t? Just because the North won the War of Northern Agression does not mean that that victory was written in stone! If the popular will of the people of a state is to secede, then they can do it. The FedGov will try to force that state back into the union, which is an entirely different scenario, but a state can secede if it wants to. It is a false premise to promote the idea that “we can’t do it now.” We can do whatever the heck we want to and their task is to try to stop us! Reference the Revolutionary War, the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and King George. Didn’t work out so well for him, did it?

Good post Highball.

One of the pain-points of the continuing discussions on FreeRepublic regarding “states rights” and the supposed right of secession is that when you criticism the confederate secession southerners interpret that as a personal criticism of them. I’m sure that you have no intention of disparaging any fellow FReepers but some will likely get their noses out of joint.

I largely agree with your statements, “Unfortunately, that means the rights of states to secede is now largely invalidated. States can’t anymore, as the political question was settled on the battlefield” but would say that the issue of unilateral secession (as practiced by the confeds) is settled (prohibited) but the larger question of secession is still open. The agreement to dissolve must include all affected parties - not just the separating state(s).

Anything short of that guarantees conflict and confrontation.

Like I said, we can do anything we want. It is up to them to stop us. Granted, the cost to secede might be too high for some, but it is the cost, not the ***ability*** to do so. This “precedent” stuff is way over-rated. It stands only when someone wants it to stand. Look at all the people who are trashing the Constitution. They don’t care a whit about “precedent.”

All I’m saying is that peaceful succession might now be possible if the CSA hadn’t been an outright evil nation. The Confederacy forced the hand to preserve their slavery, and tarnished the concept of succession by association with it.

Now succession doesn’t have the moral high ground it once did, even in the North (see the editorials above), and will always be met with strong military force. That’s a vastly different reality than was once the norm in our nation.

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