Were Confederate soldiers terrorists?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by UofM-TKE

What has always bothered me is this. Why did South Carolina have the right to secede from Great Britain in 1776, but did not have the right to secede from the United States in 1860?

Either they had the right both times or they did not have the right both times. To say that they had the right one time but not the other is Special Pleading.

Not at all. While the two actions have some similarities, they also have differences.

South Carolina didn't "secede" from the United Kingdon in 1776, it declared its independence from the UK. It was a colony of the UK, not a constituent part of the UK. And the only "right" it possessed to declare its independence was what some might describe as a moral or natural right. There certainly was no legal right. Independence was won only by revolution and by treaty at the end of a war.

By contrast, South Carolina in 1860 had ratified the Constitution and thereby esyablished itself as one of the United States. South Carolina's actions in 1860 brought what before had been a hypothetical constitutional question to a head: Could a state that had ratified the Constitution later withdraw that ratification.

Following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in Texas v White held that once a state has entered the Union by ratification of the Constitution, it cannot revoke that ratification. Note this portion (with emphasis added):

When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

Based on this, the Court held that the articles of secession were null and void as a matter of law.