Is it possible to seceede from the United States?

Question

not that i am going to, so dont send gov't officials to my house

Answer 1

You can renounce your United States citizenship, but you must either do so in another country or be prepared to apply for a nonimmigrant visa. The site below has the process for renoucning it.

Answer 2

The only state that has the right to seceede from the union is Texas.

Answer 3

We fought a war over this exact same question!

No

(I'm not sure what would happen if Texas tried to pull out that old treaty saying they can secede, they would probably just split in to 4 states like they also have the right to do.)

Answer 4

The US was founded, under its present organizing document -- the Constitution -- when Connecticut (the ninth State) ratified it, there are no provisions in the Constitutions for any state to leave the Union created then. Nor has any Amendment been added since to make such a provision. So on the bald text of the governing document, the answer must be no.

But that's not been enough. While the Federalist Party (however unaware of itself it was) was in power, during Washington and Adams' Presidency, there arose some theorizing about the lmiits of Federal power, and the minimum possible State power. In particular, the Kentucky Resolutions (wirtten by or with the assistance of Jefferson and Madison, discussed the issue. They were not very influential, except in certain circles opposed tohte Federal Government of their day.

During the very early 1800's, several New England States, being economically hurt by constrained trade (eg, Mr Jefferson's Embargo, British seizures, and Napoleonic edicts, ...) seriously considered secession as a remedy for their woes.

And, during the next decade or three, there arose in the South, especially among the slave-holders adn supporters in the South, the conviction that the rest of the country would use Federal power to end or restrict slavery. The folks used the Kentucky Resolutions, and some of hte discussions in New England before the War of 1812, together with analysis of their own to elaborate a theory of State nullification of Federal actions. Including, if necessary, leaving the Union. After all, it was noted, each of the original states had joined in the Union voluntarily, all additioanl States were added on exact parity with the exisiting ones, and if so, should it not be possible for States to withdraw their agreement? The most prominent and serious of these thinkers was john C Calhoun of South Carolina. He and his supporters took those arguments very seriously.

The less thoughtful in the South became more and more caught up in the line of reaonsing, rumor, gossip, bravado, and public hysteria about a possible Federal move to restrict or eliminate slavery. And more and more wild in their speeches and writing. The conflicts inherent in the constitution's treatment of the slavery question, the Great Missouri Compromise, and of its revision in the Kansas-Nebraska act lead to outright warfare on the frontier, especially in Kansas. John Brown and Qantrill's Raiders became famous in that bloody terrorist conflict. And when South Carolina, whipped to a frenzy by extremist oratory, decided to seceed when the compromising Stephen Douglas was defeated by Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, it voted to secede, fearing Lincoln's extremeist anti-slavery views. Most of which other observers were rather less sure of. By the endo fo the business nearly all ofhte South had joined South Carolina. In his last months of office, Lincoln's predecessor (a strong Southern sympathizer) turned over to the secessionist States the Federal property and installations in them. Thus, the US Navy base at Hampton Roads and Norfolk virginia went over, as did forts and installations throughout the South. One exception was the Fort in the Charleston South Carolina harbor. It remained in Federal hands for months, though denied resupply from the mainland, and going on very short rations. A resupply expedition was taken by the hotheads in Charlelston as threateing, and they opernd fire on the Fort. This began the American civil War.

That war was fought, to preserve the Union on one side, and to secede from it on the other. The outcome of that first modern war (seige warfare, manuver warfare, long raids behind enemy lines, ...) was the bloodiest war in US history. Single battles killed more than the entire conflict in Vietnam, or the Sapsnih-American War, o the Mexican War. Lincoln's own position is shown by his comment that he would preserve slavery if that would save the Union, do nothing about it if that would save the Union, and would eliminate slavery if that would preserve the Union. His Emancipation Proclamation was another tool in the attempt to end the secession.

The Northern victory settled the question of secession for a very long time and perhaps even longer. So, on that reading, the answer is no, no State is permitted to secede.

But the War has continued for more than 150 years after the actaul fighting has stopped. Those who characterise it as The War between the States or as The War of Northern Aggression attempt to recast it away from the pro-slavery and anti-Federal government positons in the South that began it, and concentrate on the noble South whose gallant men were cut down in their hundreds of thousands. In fact, most of the Southern tropps were hardly the gallant gentlemen of southern legend. They were usually poor and few were slave holders, and very few owned large slave staffed plantations. On the Northern side, the determinatino to preserve the Union and end disputes about slavery by ending slavery were even stronger. The Union Army was much larger than Confederate one, almost from the beginning, despite short terms of enlistment (90 days at the beginning of the War). These men have hardly been lionized by legend and song as have the Rebels in the continuing war over the significance of the War.

In recent years, movements have arisen in several States which have proclaimed independence of the United States (and sometimes even of their own states). The have been small, generally extremely agressive verbally, and on a few occaions, quite agressive physically as well. Every such attempt has ended with arrests and trials. So far.

The settled answer may be changing.