The state of California has long been a Democratic stronghold. As a result, following the election of 45th US President Donald J. Trump, many activists have called for the state’s secession from the Union, or a so-called “Calexit”. So the important question is, could California actually secede and form its own country?
Calls for secession from within the the state of California are nothing new. Since the state’s admission into the the Union in 1850, there have been more than 200 calls for secession. Some have called for the state to break into separate sections before the leaving the Union, for instance creating a separate North and South California. Others have suggested an autonomous coastal California.
In 2014, a group of ambitious Silicon Valley venture capitalists led a proposal to split California into six separate states. However, the measure ended up dying before making it onto the 2016 ballots after only ⅔ of the signatures in support of the proposal were found to be valid.
Today, the most significant movement for Californian independence is YesCalifornia. According to the movement’s supporters, “the state of California has become so economically powerful and ideologically distinct from the rest of the Union that it ought to be its own independent nation.” In fact, according to 2015 figures by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), an independent Californian nation would be the sixth largest economy in the world, placing just between the United Kingdom (5th) and France (7th).
According to the campaign’s unofficial manifesto, “CA suffers from the federal gov.’s trade policies and pays more in federal tax than it receives in funding, all while the state remains in debt.” The campaign’s head, Louis J. Marinelli, states in a press conference, “We advocate for peaceful secession from the United States by use of 2019 independence referendum… followed by a nationwide campaign to advocate in support of a constitutional exit from the Union” Other positive factors that make an independent California seem possible are the facts that California is home the world’s largest tech industry, the world’s largest entertainment industry, and that the state produces more produce than any other state in the Union.
So why is California not an independent nation already? Well, not so fast. Although there are many factors in support of a California secession, there are just as many if not more going against the movement.
Despite the common claim among movement supporters that there is no statement in the Constitution prohibiting a state’s secession, there is also no statement approving it. While the Constitution is silent on the matter, there is evidence to indicate that the founders viewed such an action as antithetical to the Constitution. Founding father James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers No. 43 that “The expressed authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable. Like a man living in the state of nature who surrenders a part of his individual sovereignty to the state in exchange for the guaranteed protection of his natural rights—life, liberty, and property—the states gave up a part of their sovereignty to enter the union. A state can no more secede from the union than an individual can secede from a state because of a law he doesn’t like or find “constitutional.”
In addition, George Washington, who served as president of the Constitutional Convention, blasted the idea of state sovereignty in a letter announcing the new Constitution to Congress: “It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all.”
Also important to discuss is the 1869 United States Supreme Court case of Texas v. White. To summarize what happened, in 1850, the newly announced state of Texas received a federal government bond of $10,000,000 in settlement of ongoing boundary claims. In 1861 the state seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. In 1862 the acting Confederate government of the state transferred the bonds to several private citizens in payment for military supplies for the Confederate army. After the Civil War, the reconstruction state government filed a suit in the Supreme Court seeking to recover the bonds, then held by citizens of various states. The reconstruction government (Texas) claimed that since a transfer of federal bonds requires the signature of the governor under federal law, which these bonds did not receive, the $10,000,000 was still rightfully the property of Texas. The defendants (White) contended that Texas had no right to file this suit since this event had occurred during a period of time in which the state rebelled against the nation and claimed to be part of an independent power.
The Supreme Court held that the intention of the Confederate States to secede meant that they had only temporarily lost privileges of Union membership but had not lost membership itself. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase stated that the federal Constitution “in all its provisions looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” Thus, the Supreme Court decreed by law what the Union’s Civil War victory had effected by force, namely, the principle that no state may secede from the Union. With this declaration, the Supreme Court ruled that since no state can legally secede from the Union, Texas had never seceded and thus, the bonds were still rightfully the property of Texas, as they had failed to receive the legally required signature from the governor. In this monumental case, the Supreme Court effectively ruled that no state could separate and achieve autonomy from the Union with the exception of a case in which it received the other states’ consent or partook in an armed revolution.
So considering that California does not have a standing state armed force capable of fighting and winning against the United States military, the consent of the other states would be the only plausible option (in the form of a constitutional amendment). Politically speaking, Californian independence would require the approval of ⅔ of the Congress’s vote and the approval of 38 states, a feat that is highly unlikely considering countless and logical economic and political factors.
What’s more, the YesCalifornia movement is still a rather insignificant movement, with only about 3,000 official supports in comparison to the states colossal population of over 38 million. Taking all this into account, while an interesting topic to discuss, the idea of an autonomous California seems unlikely, at least in the near future. Although anything is possible as we learned from the thirteen colonies successfully seceding from the mighty British Empire in history, California, as of now, is destined to remain as one of fifty stars sewn onto the star spangled banner.
