IS AN INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM EVEN LEGAL?
The Constitution says that each state in the Union shall retain every
power which is not by the Constitution given to the federal government.
The Constitution does not give the power of secession to the federal government, nor does it expressly prohibit the states from exercising this power. Therefore, the power of secession is reserved to the states, or to the people, per the Tenth Amendment.
Further, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says that treaties ratified by Congress are the supreme law of the land. In 1945, the United States ratified the UN Charter, a treaty that guarantees peoples the right to self- determination in Article I. Thus, by ratifying this treaty, the United States adopted the right of self-determination as the supreme law of our land.
Lastly, Aristotle wrote that the state “is a culmination of widening circles of human association based on human wants,” and that it is “the highest form of human association.” Why is this important?
It is important because in 1948, the United Nations adopted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 20 of that Declaration provides that “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.” This campaign takes the position, as Aristotle argued, that the state is an association and therefore we Californians may not be compelled to belong to the State, or the country, that is the United States of America.
Regardless, if the original 13 American colonies didn’t pursue their independence from the British Empire because King George and the government in London said they had no right to do so, then this country wouldn’t exist today. Therefore, when a government says to its people that they have no right to seek their independence, history shows us that has not deterred the cause of freedom or self-determination.
