Secessionist No. 11

Secession: A Biblical Defense of Localism

by Kevin L. Clauson
*rehosted here with the express permission of Mr. Clausin

Secession is a process whereby one or more political entities remove themselves from the jurisdiction of another political entity (usually larger or more encompassing). It has been a hotly debated subject in theory in America ever since the Confederate States of America tried it in practice (and were defeated militarily). Most Americans do not realize that secession was threatened on at least two previous significant occasions, one of which involved the threatened secession of the New England States.

Is secession a legal-political remedy that is warranted by Scripture as a means of protecting "localism" (in America we sometimes call this "states rights")? This article will answer this question, and in so doing take a biblical, theological, historical, and constitutional look at an issue which might someday face America (as it has diverse nations such as Canada, Nigeria, and the old Soviet Union).

We begin by turning to an often neglected historical account from the Bible in 1 Kings 12:1-24. King Solomon had just died. Rehoboam, one of Solomon's sons, became the new king of all Israel. Jeroboam, a very astute and high official in Solomon's regime who had fled to Egypt because of an attempted rebellion, returned after the news of Solomon's death. Jeroboam and an apparently large contingent of leaders in Israel came to the new king, saying:

Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. (1 Kings 12:4)

Jeroboam represented a large portion of the people in Israel who apparently had experienced some degree of tyranny or oppression during the latter years of Solomon's regime. (There is ample evidence from preceding chapters to indicate that Solomon had succumbed to idolatry, lost some control of his kingdom, and allowed others to exert oppressive control over the people, doing during the latter years of his regime many of the things foretold by God through Samuel in 1 Samuel 8.) He was petitioning the new regime to reduce this oppression--to exercise godly and righteous rule.

The passage continues by describing how Rehoboam promised an answer in three days and consulted both the "old men that stood before Solomon" (the old advisors and officials who wisely offered counsel that the king should lift the "heavy yoke" and he would have peace and loyalty--"If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them...." 1 Kings 12:7) and the "young men that were grown up with him" (his young, inexperienced peers, who, as is customary with those who would ingratiate themselves with a ruler, told him what he probably wanted to hear, namely, that he should increase the oppression--"My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins...and I will add to your yoke...." 1 Kings 12:10-11). Rehoboam followed the advice of the "young men." The people who were with Jeroboam answered this response: "What portion have we in David?" (1 Kings 12:16) Furthermore: "...when Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation and made him king over all Israel... [except] Judah." (1 Kings 12:20) Rehoboam prepares to fight Jeroboam; but the Lord directly intervenes to prevent this, saying, "for this thing is from me." (1 Kings 12:24)

What we see here is a rebellion of the "northern tribes" which takes the form of what we would call secession. While it is true that all of this took place to fulfill God's prophecy that the kingdom would be divided, which was a judgment upon Solomon for his evil (see 1 Kings 11:1-13 and 26-43, 1 Kings 12:15 and 1 Kings 12:24), nevertheless, there are also clear normative lessons regarding a "just revolution" generally and the more specific method of "just revolution" called secession or secessionism. What are the theological lessons from this historical incident?

Israel was a nation founded upon a very explicit covenant with God. Such a covenant involved a condition --the condition that the people and especially the rulers obey God's commandments. Under Rehoboam, this covenantal condition was broken. The civil authorities, that stood in a representative relationship to those who to one degree or another desired to retain or re-establish the covenant, after having sought redress of grievances through the proper procedural means, understood that Rehoboam was determined to break the civil covenant. Therefore Jeroboam, in essence, purposed with the people of the "northern tribes" to re-establish the civil covenant in the "new" kingdom--Israel. To put it another way, Jeroboam and the northern tribes were continuing the covenant which all Israel was bound by, but which the current king Rehoboam broke. "Israel" then was simply a continuation of Israel in covenantal terms.

Where the cause is just (upholding the civil covenant), where all legal/peaceful means have been exhausted and rejected (petitions no longer matter), and where another civil authority or jurisdiction is legitimately leading the way in the just cause, then the basic conditions for a "just revolution" are present. This was so in the 1 Kings 12 account even though Jeroboam fairly quickly led his nation into corporate sin in setting up the golden calves for worship so that his people would not go to Jerusalem to worship and potentially be enticed back into the political orbit of Judah. The form that the just revolution took here, instead of the "capture" of the entire existing nation, was the seceding of a portion or remnant of the nation to create a new jurisdiction, free from the anti-covenantal unrighteous government of the original nation.

Such was the case, I would argue, in the American "War Between the States," 1861-1865. The national government, under the leadership of the Republican Party (which was at least partially influenced by "radicalabolitionists") and Abraham Lincoln, had already broken or was in the process of breaking what the South perceived to be an existing civil covenant (embodied in a constitution). The Confederate States of America believedthey were bringing continuity to this civil covenant whereas the national government was destroying it.⁷ The agents of the "revolution" were state governments, legitimate civil jurisdictions in their own right. By the time Fort Sumter was fired upon all legal/peaceful means of remedy were already non-existent. (Lincoln was raising an army to attack the already-seceded states!)

Slavery was not the central issue, although like the "new" Israel under Jeroboam in its newly-created idolatrous worship of the golden calves, slavery may be considered an ancillary sin for which partial judgment was due. But note well that the argument against slavery, if it is to be legitimate, cannot be based on the crime of man-stealing, since man-stealing had ceased and all that was left after many years was a system of slavery from which there was no ideally satisfactory escape. Many blacks were already free men, a much larger number were slaves, but as they were cared for by "owners" they possessed no strong feelings of leaving a life they had always known for a life of great uncertainty and potential hardship.

I say this not to dismiss the problem of slavery, but to put the whole situation in perspective; slavery (and many other matters) was plainly and clearly and totally under the jurisdiction of the states. For the national government to seriously talk of interfering with the states on the slavery issue was an assault on state sovereignty and the Constitution as Southerners had always understood it (a modified Articles of Confederation, no matter that it was less than perfect).

I would furthermore strengthen the case for secessionism (although I Kings 12 is enough) by pointing out a particular part of the U.S. Constitution which is almost unanimously interpreted today as being anti-secessionist, Article VI, section 2, the so-called "Supremacy clause." This clause states:

This Constitution, and all laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof...shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary not withstanding.

Far from meaning that whatever Congress legislates is automatically the "supreme law of the land" which the states are bound to uphold, this clause clearly means that only those federal laws which are pursuant to the Constitution are the supreme law, and if such laws are not pursuant to the Constitution, they are not the supreme law of the land and do not have to be upheld by the states. This in turn implies strongly that the states (i.e. state governments) have a duty to interpret the U.S. Constitution just as much as any federal branch of government.

This itself is nothing new but is a doctrine affirmed by John Calvin in Book IV of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, where he writes of the power of the "lesser magistrate" to use interposition, i.e ., to interpose or stand between the people under his jurisdiction and some larger civil government, to stop the evil or tyranny of that larger government.⁸

I would argue that Article VI, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution allows, indeed requires, the same of the states vis-a-vis the national government where the national government is attempting to impose (and to use the states to help impose) some unconstitutional evil. Secession is simply a higher more advanced stage of the concept of interposition (or "nullification," or in simple terms, disobedience). It is an ultimate form of "just revolution" by another civil jurisdiction. It involves the removal of a political "subdivision" from the jurisdiction of the larger entity where the larger entity has "broken covenant." (It should be added that if there is really no righteous civil covenant, then a seceding jurisdiction is really doing nothing more than forming a new tyranny--an attempt to create a "big fish in a smaller pond"--unless the seceding entity is establishing a heretofore non-existent godly covenant.)

In modern times, the most astounding example of secession was that of the former soviet republics (such as Ukraine, Armenia, Latvia, etc.) from the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Whether all of the seceding republics left in order to perpetuate a more biblical civil covenant is highly doubtful. Nevertheless, this secession certainly caused the collapse of the former "evil empire," an event about which God is surely pleased since He brought it about. It is exceedingly difficult for any modern observer to celebrate the collapse of the Soviet Union and simultaneously decry Southern secession and secessionism in general. This is all the more true when one considers that while the soviet republics' secessions were motivated by a desire to be free from centralized tyranny (only in some cases to establish a decentralized tyranny), Southern secession was motivated by a desire to continue a civil covenant which was largely Christian.⁹

This is a similar case to the secession of the northern tribes from Israel (leaving only Judah) to create a "new" Israelite nation-state which was at least at first a more perfect continuation of the old Israel (until the "golden calves"). And I have argued that the division of Israel after the death of Solomon is a model-by-way-of-historical-illustration of all proper secessions.

The conclusion of the matter is that secession is a biblical, covenantal, constitutional mechanism for the protection and preservation of "states rights." In the context of a Christian socio-political culture it is a mechanism which allows a new political entity to perpetuate the continuity of an older civil covenant which the original larger nation-state has broken. As such, it is a remedy we should never use lightly but always esteem highly. Let those who would preach union-at-any-cost (in perpetuity) prove otherwise.

A biblically-based analogy which comes to mind in support of the concept of secession is that of marriage. Marriage is a covenantal relationship under God. However, God has not said that the marriage bond must be maintained under all circumstances. If one party breaks the covenant, then it is annulled and a divorce (a secession from the marriage union) is justified (due to adultery, for example). It is folly for a pastor or elder to counsel an innocent woman whose husband has clearly and flagrantly committed adultery that she must remain married and that any divorce on her part is sin (for which she should "feel" guilt).

Likewise, it is folly to counsel a legitimate political entity (e.g ., a state) that no matter how much its sovereignty is trampled upon it must remain perpetually in "the union," that no matter how much the larger government breaks the civil covenant the state must go along. (This is as bad as a local church knowingly remaining within a denomination which has clearly become a "Synagogue of Satan" for the sake of peace and unity.) Let not secession be used lightly and for transient reasons. But where called for, as Patrick Henry said: "Give me liberty or give me death."¹⁰

Kevin L. Clauson B.A. (International Relations), B.S. (Chemistry), M.A. (Political Science), Marshall University; J.D. (Law), West Virginia University. President, Christ College; President, The Patrick Henry Institute; Former Chair, Government Department, Liberty University; Professor of Government, Helms School of Government, Liberty University; Former Assistant Professor of Political Science, Grove City College. Married (since 1982); four children (ages 12-21, as of May 1, 2006).

Endnotes:

The first six notes were just scripture references and I put them inline to eventually become links to a hypertext Bible. - dlh

7. See McDonald, A Constitutional History of the United States (Krieger Press, 1984).

8. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV.

9. See also Otto Scott, The Secret Six.

10. This was in reference to the impeding American Revolution, a secession of the American colonies from Britain.

The Calhoun Institute