FREE AND INDEPENDENT
September 11, 2003

by Joe Sobran

     A recent biography of Thomas Jefferson contains an 
amusing statement. It says that Jefferson's arguments in 
the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions "brought him dangerously 
close to secessionism."

     Apparently the biographer doesn't realize that 
Jefferson was an explicit secessionist. For openers, he 
wrote a famous secessionist document known to posterity 
as the Declaration of Independence.

     The Declaration proclaims the 13 American colonies 
"Free and Independent States" -- adding "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."

     Note the plural. Jefferson weighed his words with 
utmost care, and he didn't speak of these states as a 
single thing -- certainly not as the single, monolithic 
"new nation" Lincoln later called them. Each state was 
independent not only of Britain, but of the other states 
as well. They were united only in "alliance."

     The Articles of Confederation would soon repeat the 
point: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and 
independence." The 1783 Treaty of Paris, concluding peace 
with Britain, spoke of the "free, sovereign, and 
independent states," listing them all by name. The 
Constitution always refers to the United States in the 
plural and never refers to them as a "nation."

     When the Constitution was presented for 
ratification, the Union was briefly dissolved. It was 
reunited as the states ratified the Constitution. Any 
state that declined to ratify it would have remained 
outside the Union, but in the end all rejoined. Even so, 
three states ratified on the express condition that they 
reserved the right to "resume" or "reassume" the powers 
they had delegated to the Union -- that is, to withdraw 
from the Union. The right to secede, or "separate," was 
taken for granted.

     In the Kentucky Resolutions, which every thoughtful 
American should study carefully, Jefferson reminded his 
countrymen that the nature of the Union was that of a 
voluntary confederation of those free and independent 
states. It was not a capitulation to a new sovereign 
power. The powers of the Federal Government were limited, 
specific, and delegated; and if it exceeded them the 
states must have some recourse.

     The Resolutions were written in protest against the 
Alien and Sedition Acts, which Jefferson saw as 
unconstitutional. It's now generally agreed that he was 
right. He stressed that if the Federal Government were to 
be the final and exclusive authority on what the 
Constitution meant, it would be free to define the extent 
of its own powers -- which would defeat the whole purpose 
of a written constitution.

     On this occasion Jefferson didn't call for 
secession, but later secessionists would draw on his 
powerful arguments. He treasured the Union, but he 
abhorred the idea that the states could or should be kept 
in the Union by force. They were still, in principle, 
"Free and Independent States." They could remain free and 
independent only if they remained sovereign.

     In 1816 Jefferson would write that "if any state in 
the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to 
a continuance in union ... I have no hesitation in 
saying, 'Let us separate.'" He hoped it would never come 
to that, but he saw that the ultimate right to withdraw 
from the Union was essential to the Union's free and 
voluntary character.

     Though he regarded slavery as a great wrong that 
would have to be corrected, Jefferson would certainly 
have agreed that the Southern states had the right to 
secede in 1860. His grandson George Wythe Randolph served 
the Confederacy as a general in the army and as secretary 
of war.

     In the early nineteenth century there had been many 
separation movements, most of them in New England, and 
the right to secede was generally unchallenged. The first 
president to deny a state's right to leave the Union was 
Andrew Jackson, who threatened to keep South Carolina in 
the Union by force if necessary. The idea of invading a 
state shocked even strong Unionists like Daniel Webster. 
But Abraham Lincoln would adopt Jackson's views in his 
first inaugural address, and he acted on them ruthlessly.

     The curious thing is that both Jackson and Lincoln 
claimed devotion to Jefferson's principles, as nearly 
everyone did in those days. But they ignored the part 
about "Free and Independent States." Today it would be 
absurd to describe the states as independent -- or free.

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