Constitutional question

[BeetleJuice]

I've heard people refering to the Constitution when they argue that States cannot succeed from the Union.

I have read and reread all the articles yet I can't find where it specifically states that it is unconstitutional. Some point to the 14th amendment. Could someone verify the veracity of this?

[Phreakmeister]

Amendment XIV

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.


Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.


Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.


Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article

[Phreakmeister]

Article IV

Section 1.
Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.


Section 2.
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.


A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.


No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.


Section 3.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.


The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.


Section 4.
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

[Phreakmeister]

Doesn't say anywhere that secession is unconstitutional. Doesn't say anywhere either that it's constitutional, though.

[DEAD ZONE]

the contitution does not have to adress it because it already was adressed by the charter of the foundding of the nation.The declaration of independence.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted amoung men ,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.that whenever any form of government becomes destructiveof these ends,it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it,and to institute new government,laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,as to them shal seem most likely to effect their safety and happines."

Thus,with the national charter already stating this fact,why would we expect to see it repeated when it was all ready understood.The constitution is how the nation will be run,or the bi-laws,not the charter.
Then there is the fact that many of the very acts that the states passed ratifying the constitution stated in them that a right to suceed was still aloted to the states if said govenmemt consent was violated.

It was in the case of the south.1/3 of the population beleived it and chose to leave.The same amount that decided to leave British rule durring the revolution for independance.

[DEAD ZONE]

the 14th was ratified after the civil war.It strengthened the fed at the states expense.:p