State Sovereignty and Secession

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.  --The Declaration of Independence

It has been held that the Declaration of Independence established a union predating either the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution and this was  the pretext used to justify Mr. Lincoln's War Against the South between 1861 and 1865.  While the union of the American colonies is self evident, the language clearly establishes the affection of alliance for a common and rather singular purpose rather than the establishment of a national government and subservient provinces thereof.  In Eighteenth Century parlance, the term "state" referred to a sovereign nation and this is the clear intent of its use in the Declaration of Independence as evinced by the reference to "the state of Great Britain", the very establishment of the colonies as "free and independent states", and the enumeration of the specific, sovereign powers of the several united states versus that of the United States as a singular entity. 

Thus, thirteen independent nations, allied in a cause against Great Britain,  were established when independence was declared in 1776.  These nations formalized this alliance under the Articles of Confederation which, agreed upon by Congress in 1777, affirmed the independence of each state and defined the relationship between them:

Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Article III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.

Centered upon mutual defense and friendship, this alliance provided rules for war and treaties, recognition of common privileges of citizenship, universal weights and measures, regulation of coinage, post offices, resolution for boundary and jurisdictional disputes, and a common treasury for expenses related to war and general welfare.  In ratifying this alliance, the states agreed to collectively address their security and provide convenience in their intercourse; they did not cede their sovereignty nor establish a national government to which they and their citizens were subservient.

Just as delegates from the states came together in congress to collectively declare their sovereignty and independence, they likewise established grounds of confederation (i.e. alliance) and voluntarily ratified it.  It was in this manner that the Constitutional convention convened in 1787 and established a "more perfect Union".  This union required the states to surrender more sovereignty than had been required under the Articles of Confederation and it was ratified only after a Bill of Rights with explicit protection of liberty was provided.  State sovereignty beyond the specifics of the compact was retained while a federal government, not a national government, was formed to execute the improved alliance between the states.

The Declaration of Independence established the colonies "...as free and independent states, [with] full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do."   When the states allied under the Articles of Confederation, they agreed to exercise some of their authority collectively in a manner that was mutually determined while retaining sole authority in other areas.  While this collective authority and mutual determination were broadened by the Constitution, the sovereignty of the States was preserved and the Tenth Amendment recognizes it: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

The Tenth Amendment is clear when Federal authority is narrowly construed within the confines of the Constitution, especially within Article I, Section 8, which enumerates the powers of Congress.  At face value, these powers follow the pattern of those provided Congress by the Articles of Confederation and do not compromise the sovereignty of the states unless enhanced, extended, and abused by innovative interpretation and subsequent usurpation.  If this occurs, Federal power is mutable and capricious, leaving the powers of the states and the people, as protected by the Tenth Amendment, forever unknown and undefined.

In ratifying the Constitution, the states simply extended the mutually beneficial, allied relationship of independent political entities that existed when they declared independence and was codified with the adoption of the Articles of Confederation.  They did not sacrifice sovereignty for national government with unlimited and self perpetuating dominion disguised by a hollow Bill of Rights.  To have done so would have invalidated their status and justification of the cause expressed in the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence which states:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

This sentence indicates the necessity of separation when natural rights are violated and there is no presumption that such violation and remedy cannot be repetitive.  Thus, any supposition that a permanently binding national government is evinced by the Declaration of Independence, as postulated by Lincoln, is preposterously erroneous. Likewise is the supposition that free and independent states cannot terminate a compact that they have voluntarily entered into.  They effectively did so with the Articles of Confederation "in Order to form a more perfect Union" and it was under this principle that the various southern states seceded from the Union in 1860 to form their own Confederacy. Secession was a lawful exercise of state sovereignty that terminated a compact that the South believed had become odious to liberty.