The Civil War South did not have the legal right to secede from the Union.

First, I bring up the 10th Amendment because it shows that if the Constitution doesn’t prohibit it, the states are allowed. Since secession is not mentioned in the Constitution it is therefore not prohibited and therefore allowed. I will restate the 10th amendment and emphasize the key words. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, arereserved to the States respectively, or to the people. As I pointed out last round there was a precedent for the idea of secession, sure there were dissenters from the idea but that is to be expected with any major issue however my opponent failed to mention even one. The right of secession had always been held up until that point. The constitution was meant to be short and direct, for the purpose of showing the limits of the Federal Government’s power. Secession can also be linked to the idea of State Nullification which has been proclaimed legal by many of the founders. While less extreme than secession, Nullification also shows the States right to descent from the Federal Government. [1] In fact Nullification was used to oppose slavery more often than it was to support it. We could look at the Kentucky resolution and the States’ response to the alien and Sedition Acts of 1898. [2] My opponent brings up an interesting point when he says “Reserving the right of secession indefinitely also reduces the federal government and all other states in the union to pointlessness as their wishes can be arbitrarily defied at a whim with threats of secession. ” He s correct that it does reduce the federal government, which was the point of the Bill of rights and the condition on which the anti-Federalists agreed to sign the new Constitution. My opponent has not shown how a state such as Virginia which expressly signed on under the agreement that they retain the right to secede, should be forced to stay as forcing them to stay is a clear volition of their 10th amendment rights. We could also look the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence, while not a binding document in the same way as the constitution it gives us an idea of the intention. It states “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government”. This seems to clearly imply an intended right to secession. [3] My opponent cites several Supreme Court cases. We must remember that the sole purpose of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution. However they quite often step beyond the bounds of their job and inject their own bias into their ruling. So while useful we cannot rely solely on Supreme Court rulings. Even if by the Constitution’s silence on the issue we could infer that it took no issue on it, then the best my opponent could do is say that the issue is ambiguous and we cannot prove that the Constitution prohibits it. Lincoln himself, before he ran for president actually affirmed the states’ right to secession; he only changed his view during the war or political reasons. This source states it well when it says: There had to be a specific constitutional prohibition on secession for it to be illegal. Conversely, there did not have to be a specific constitutional affirmation of the right of secession for it to be legal. [4] [5] As I have shown the right to secession originates from the founders of the country. My opponent has failed to show the substantial difference between the Revolution mentality that founded this country and the secessionist mentality. He asserts it but does not explain why. With that, I pass it back to my opponent. 1 . http://tenthamendmentcenter.com...2 Woods, Thomas E. . Nullification: how to resist Federal tyranny in the 21st century. Washington, D. C. : Regnery Pub. ;, 2010. P. 463. http://www.lewrockwell.com...4 . http://www.bonniebluepublishing.com...5. . http://www.etymonline.com...