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No, secession was neither forbidden nor illegal (use link below for authoritative source information). Virginia was one of 2 nation/states that made the ability to withdraw from the Union a condition of ratification of the Constitution. Those against southern states legally seceding promoted that the Southern states were trying to take down the Union, hence "rebellion" was the term used to permit the use of Federal troops to invade Virginia and other seceeding states. It was after the Civil War that law/laaws were amended or added requiring permission of the Federal Government to secede from the Union.
Source:
Online Entomology Dictionary, Legality of Secession.
Sources for the article:
"Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention," p.45.
2. "Federalist" No. 84.
3. "Federalist" No. 6.
4. "Federalist" No. 8.
5. "Farewell Address."
6. "Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution," vol. 18, p.295.
7. "Federalist" No. 84.
8. Jonathan Elliot, "The Debates of the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution." Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1876, vol. II, p.232-233.
9. Clyde N. Wilson, forward to St. George Tucker, "View of the Constitution of the United States, with Selected Writings." Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999, p.vii.
10. ibid.
11. ibid., p.136.
Bethany Sullivan
Sam Wu
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoNo secession was not illegal in 1861. Nowhere in the Constitution is secession by a State made illegal. Each of the Sovereign States originally acceded to the Constitution as individual States through individual State conventions (and not as a national whole) and could therefore secede from it thorough individual State conventions. "We the people" in the preamble refereed to the people of the individual States and NOT to the people of the nation as a whole.
To confirm the truth of this one only need ask the question "Would any of the original 13 States have ratified the Constitution had there been a clause that definatively declared that the withdrawal of one State under any circumstnaces would have been violently opposed by the others?"
Wiki User
∙ 9y agoSecession from the Union has been illegal since the formation of the United States through the constitution. Efforts to secede are viewed as efforts to bring down the Union.
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How did President Lincoln handle the issue of secession in his 1861 inaugural address?
President Abraham Lincoln spent a good portion of his 1861 inaugural address on the issue of secession. That part of his speech took the form of a detailed legal brief denying the constitutionality of secession. His words dovetailed the illegality of secession with his oath as president to hold, occupy and posses the property and places belonging to the US government. He equated secession with anarchy.
Did Abraham Lincoln believe that secession was legal or illegal?
No, when the first states seceded, both President Buchanan and President-Elect Lincoln announced that they could not legally do that.
Was TX a union or confederate state in the civil war?
The state of Texas declared its secession from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861
Did the North ever declare war on the South in 1861?
A declaration of war would imply that the Confederacy was a legitimate nation. No declaration of war was made. The secession was termed as a 'rebellion.'
What are the names of the Confederate States in the Civil War?
Before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, Seven Southern states seceded from the Union:# South Carolina on December 20, 1860 # Mississippi on January 9, 1861 # Florida on January 10, 1861 # Alabama on January 11, 1861 # Georgia on January 19, 1861 # Louisiana on January 26, 1861 # Texas on February 1, 1861After the beginning of the war and the attack on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), four more states declared secession:# Virginia on April 17, 1861 # Arkansas on May 6, 1861 # Tennessee on May 7, 1861 # North Carolina on May 20, 1861
What voters of which state rejected secession on June 11 1861?
West Virginia rejected secession on June 11, 1861.
Abraham Lincoln thought secession was?
As illegal and a violation of the US Constitution.
When did Texas approve secession?
1861
Did most southerners believe secession was illegal?
no most of the southerners did not believe secession was illegal
What year did Tennessee secede from the Union?
Tennessee was the last of the eleven Southern states to declare secession from the Union as a substantial portion of the population were against secession. Tennessee seceded from the United States on June 8, 1861.
How did President Lincoln handle the issue of secession in his 1861 inaugural address?
President Abraham Lincoln spent a good portion of his 1861 inaugural address on the issue of secession. That part of his speech took the form of a detailed legal brief denying the constitutionality of secession. His words dovetailed the illegality of secession with his oath as president to hold, occupy and posses the property and places belonging to the US government. He equated secession with anarchy.
Did the South have the right to secede from the Union?
According to most Constitutional scholars, states in the United States cannot secede after they receive statehood. In 1861, there was a clear dispute about this. In the Confederacy, they wrote their constitution based mostly on the US Constitution. Their constitution clearly states that secession is illegal.
What were the dates of secession for each southern state?
1860 1861 1862
Where was the movement toward secession in the winter of 1860-1861?
South Carolina
What was the compromise that might have prevented secession introduced in Congress in 1861 by a Senator from Kentucky?
The Crittenden Plan or Crittenden Compromise was introduced in 1861 and if had passed in congress it might have prevented secession. The Kentucky senator who introduced it was John Crittenden.
First president to be elected by secession?
No President of the US can be said to have been "elected by secession", unless possibly Washington himself, if the states ratifying the 1787 Constitution are considered thereby to have "seceded" form the old Confederation, but this is a very questionable notion. Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederate States after their secession in 1861, but was of course never President of the US.
Who was an educator from the university of Mississippi that proposed an ordinance of secession which was adopted in 1861?
L.Q.C. Lamar
