“Harvard is” what, in your opinion? A ‘hotbed’ of Southern secessionist sympathizers? (LOL!) As for “political philosophers,” perhaps you’ve never run across this:
“If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth [‘on the application of the constituted authorities of each state’] to subdue it.
”Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.
”The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on [the state] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed...
”The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union...
William Rawle, A view of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1825
“To deny [the right of secession] would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.” There – does that help?
;>)
Perhaps you can tell us whether and why you believe that a document signed by a bunch of dead white males can make any action legitimate.
(“White males?” You’re not a racist AND a sexist, are you? ;>) You said “it's not too hard” to make the case that “secession was ILLEGITIMATE revolution.” Pardon me, but it certainly looks like you’re asking questions rather than ‘making the case.’ Have at it: quote the constitutional clause that prohibits secession. After all, the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the land,” is it not?
;>)
If you wonder why I ask this question, and what it implies, add this question to it: what, fundamentally, legitimates revolution? Can a Constitution legitimate revolution?
Find a dictionary. Look up two words: “secede” and “revolution.” Tell us what you find (not that WE really need the information – most of US already know the difference)...
;>)
Rawle is no political philosopher if he thinks that the American republic is founded on a doctrine of the right to revolutionize at pleasure, i.e., without offering to the examination of the decent opinion of mankind arguments resolving to the laws of nature and of nature's God. The text you and your allies cite is tiresomely familiar, and fails to make the distinction between the alleged legal right to secession and the genuine natural right to revolution.
The relevent distinction is between unilateral withdrawal from the compact under terms of the compact (called "secession" and absent from the Constitution and all genuine political communities), and withdrawal from the compact according to the natural right of self-government, i.e, of revolution.
The simple question is whether there was any national sovereignty at all. If there was, there existed a national political community, an act of a national people, and accordingly an arrangement that only an act of the national people could terminate legitimately. The Constitution includes a procedure for amendment, which would be a legal method to accomplish so fundamental a change as the departure of a component part.
If you deny that there was any national sovereignty, then I do not dispute the legal right to secession. I think this much the strongest ground for secessionists, albeit still completely false. At least it avoids the incoherence of the claim that it is legitimate for a portion of a compacting community to withdraw from the compact at pleasure.
But, pace Professor Rawles, the argument that a state can simply secede from a genuine national sovereignty is incoherent. It is particularly incoherent if based on the 10th Amendment -- because if a person is a citizen of both the United States and, say, Virginia, he certainly, by the 10th Amendment, retains as much right to retain his citizenship on the United States as the state of Virginia retains the power to leave the United States. If there is any genuine, even if partial, national sovereignty, then the citizens of the states retain the right to remain members of that national community and no power reserved to the States can override this power.
So there's your argument. And please notice that it depends on the premise that there is some national sovereignty. If you deny this premise, then please let's have that discussion, and not the implausible debate over whether a compact can be annulled at pleasure by any of its participants, particularly at the expense of others. If Professor Rawles has any texts to cite on this issue, beyond the ones so frequently posted already, please present them.
And, by the way, Harvard is . . . . a pit of deconstructionist, anti-intellectual, passion-driven mind-goop. And I suspect we probably agree about that. Your source may be an excellent scholar. I was just suggesting that it's a bit silly to expect respect for the anonymous credential "Harvard Professor" given that the reigning doctrine there today is that truth is a silly myth.