P5 | APUSH | Wiley | Secession Debate, D___ Name:

Is the United States really “one nation, indivisible,” as the Pledge of Allegiance asserts?

Since Lincoln’s time (see his First Inaugural) the national government has denied the legality of secession from the United States. The official White House response to secession petitions in recent years has been the following:

“Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States ‘in order to form a more perfect union’ through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot. . . .But they did not provide a right to walk away from it. . . . [About 700,000] Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States.”

And the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated, “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”

The Constitution includes neither specific language providing for a right to secede, nor specific language prohibiting it. But, Article I, Section 10, reads, “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….”

You might ask: What about Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, which affirms Locke’s social contract theory and asserts eternal, self-evident, fundamental truths and rights? Could the South validly argue, as Jefferson did in 1776, that their rights were violated? Was there a long enough list of grievances? Did the South try and reconcile? Was there a pattern of tyranny? If the answers are no, does that make Southern secession unwarranted? Or, were the standards for secession set by Jefferson incorrect in some way? If so, what should the standards be?

Also consider the principle of self-determination, an idea that emergedat the time of World War I, and one that the United Nations declared was a “human right”: people should decide for themselves under what government they wish to live.

Other questions to consider:

  • Is self-determination (see definition above) a fundamental right that knows no boundaries? Or, can self-determination only be applied when the party desiring it has a “just” cause? (colonists vs. British VS. Confederacy vs. Union)
  • Was the South justified in seceding from the Union?
  • Why, precisely, did they secede?
  • Is secession legal? If a state were to try and secede today, should they be allowed?
  • Is it legal/constitutional/ethical, to force parts of a country to stay part of that country? Is it tyrannical to physically force a minority to rejoin the majority?
  • How should the nation, both North and South, remember, or tell the story of, Southern secession (1860-’61)?

Prepare to share your thoughts on the questions above in a debate on secession, on ______. You will be evaluated on your participation, which may come in the form of offering an opinion, posing a question (to the group or to a particular student), or introducing an issue raised by one of our course documents. Your comments/questions should mention specific Period 5materials and indicate that you have a strong understanding of Period 5 documents. Use the backside of this document to prepare for the debate.