Cultural commentator Albert Mohler addressed the contentious issue of state-led secession in a podcast last week, as rural areas across the United States call for a split from either the federal government or their own state government. In Texas, for example, a handful of GOP leaders want the state to consider seceding from the U.S. In Illinois, many rural counties want to form a new state separate from Chicago. In Oregon, a handful of rural counties want to join Idaho.
Mohler addressed the issue of state-led secession when he responded to a question submitted by a 15-year-old who asked, “Would there ever be a point where it might be considered biblically acceptable for a state or group of states to secede from the United States?”
The biblical response is clear, Mohler said. The constitutional question, he added, was answered in the 1800s.
“The United States experienced a horrifying Civil War over this question,” said Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on his podcast, The Briefing.
The northern states, he said, did not acknowledge the secession of the southern states.
“It was instead treated as an act of treason, and it was a rebellion in the southern region,” he said. “And so we need to recognize that so far as the federal government of the United States is concerned right now, there never has been a secession. And you might put it another way and say there never has been a successful secession.”
A Supreme Court case in 1869, Texas v. White, held that states could not unilaterally secede and could only break away with permission from the federal government.
“That’s really crucial. So, it doesn’t say that a state can’t leave the union. It says it can’t leave the union unilaterally, which means the federal government and the state would have to agree for the state to leave. In other words, good luck with that. It’s not going to happen,” Mohler said.
Pro-secession states, he noted, “said that if the state has the right to join, then it has the right to leave.” But the “argument from the federal government,” dating back to the 1700s, is that states have no such power, Mohler said.
Mohler then turned to the biblical argument.
“Is there ever a time when a state might be considered, say, biblically mandated to secede from the United States if there is any biblically acceptable reason? Well, of course,” he answered. “The Scripture is a higher authority than the U.S. Constitution, but I do not envision a situation in which it would be constitutionally possible for a state to secede from the union.
“But I have to say we’re looking at a situation of cultural stress in the United States where we already are accustomed to talking about red states and blue states, and we can envision a divide between the states that I think could be extremely dangerous. But insofar as authorization to secede from the union, I have to say, I can’t come up with any adequate justification. So I’ll quote the Supreme Court and just stop.”
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Albert Mohler
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.