1807 set the legal precedent as far as secession.
Chief Justice Marshall said peaceful secession was allowed, secession by force wasn’t. Even though he planned to split the country, and planned to attack New Orleans, Aaron Burr was innocent of treason because no shots had been fired. However, Burr’s case didn’t address the complications of secession.
South Carolina did demand Federal troops abandon Fort Sumter, saying the state felt “unsecure” about having a US military base inside its borders, one of the issues Buchanan was trying to negotiate — if states seceded, what became of Federal property in those states? Lincoln hoped to keep Fort Sumter, in the same way we now keep Guantanamo Bay, a US property in a foreign country, while at the same time trying to convince South Carolina to reverse course.
Hawaiians talk about secession, but complications are myriad. Would the US keep its property in the islands? If not, would Hawaiians compensate them? What about US citizens owning property and residing there, what about taxes and trade? Secession gets messy, and in the four months between secession and the attack on Fort Sumter no one had enough time to figure it out.
Complications like these make it less likely states will ever secede, but if you take the Declaration to heart, it’s not illegal, we just don’t know how to do it.
BTW, in case you can’t see the note at the bottom of your piece, apparently someone on Medium has complained about your very good article on gun control and schools, and Medium has tagged it “fascist”. I don’t know if that buries it or if the tag is simply meant to warn traffic.
Some of Medium’s users label ideas they don’t like “fascist” and demand Medium delete them, which is a wonderful example of real fascism!
One Mediot took offense at my article: “The Post — Why Now?” and talked Facebook into deleting my home page (And they won’t let me have another.) So, though Medium still lets me post, I am persona non grata at Facebook — due to a person who disliked an article I wrote that Medium’s editors asked if they could record and send to paying members as an audio file.
I went from Medium congratulations to Facebook censored, for the same piece, in one week…all because of one person’s complaint, something you may be going through now.
