Constitutional Issues of the Un-Civil War

Now we ask ourselves, was secession legal?  On July 4, 1776, 13 British colonies announced their secession from Great Britain, declaring: "Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends (These ends being: "To assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of natures God entitles them...") it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government..." and in the closing paragraph the signers declare that the colonies are "free and independent states".  Note the the United States of America were not formed into a single, national state, but a confederation of independent and sovereign states.  While the Declaration of Independence is of immense importance as a founding document, it is the Constitution of 1787 and the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, that are the official founding documents by which our Republic was founded.  The Constitution was made official by the approval of the people of each state, by convention and it is important to understand that the states did not surrender their sovereign rights to the United States government.  Only limited governmental powers were delegated to the federal government and every state reserved the right to withdraw those powers, and the 9th and 10th amendments were added to guarantee the sovereignty of the states.  in essence the Constitution was a contract between the states and the federal government, acting as their delegate.  Thus it is the option of the state, not the federal government, whether a state shall remain in the Union or withdraw.  The New England states threatened secession 5 times before the Civil War : in 1803, due to fear that the Louisiana purchase would dilute their political powers. In 1807, because the Embargo Act was unfavorable to their commerce. In 1812 over the admission of Louisiana as a state.  In 1814 because of the war of 1812 and again in 1814 over the annexation of Texas.  As early as 1825 secession was taught in the text books at West Point and was accepted as an undeniable, constitutional right of each state.  The right of secession was very well stated by none other than congressman Abraham Lincoln in 1848: "Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and a form a new one that suits them better.  This is a most valuable and most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world".  The great issues of liberty or union and of states rights or centralized federal power, would culminate in the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, followed by 4 years of terrible war.  In the words of John C. Calhoun, vice-president under Andrew Jackson, and native South Carolinian: "Our Union, next to our liberty, most dear.  May we all remember that it (the union) can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union."