The History of the Development of Legal Instruments to Prevent Secession: Texas v. White (1869)

Abstract

On April 12, 1869 the Supreme Court of the United States rendered the decision in the case of Texas v. White in connection with the appeal of Texas on the fate of the bonds issued by the state during the Civil War of the North and South. The resolution of this issue, seemingly far from the constitutional and legal aspects of secession, forced the Supreme Court to speak on a number of related issues. These include the «eternal and indissoluble union» of the states that entered the United States, the American nation and its expressed will, the nature of American federalism, the possibility of secession of the states as such. The court answered in the negative as to whether a state can unilaterally secede from the United States, thereby laying the foundations of a modern judicial constitutional and legal doctrine on the admissibility of secession. In American and European science, this decision is still the subject of discussion. The paper analyzes the documents mentioned in this decision, outlines the main arguments of the Supreme Court, and reveals the arguments of scientists criticizing the decision. The paper shows the difference between the approach of the US Supreme Court in interpreting the «silence» of the US Constitution and modern approaches in other countries of the Anglo-Saxon system of law (in Canada and the UK). The problem of the validity of the decision of the US Supreme Court in the case of Texas v. White in the context of modern international law is touched upon. In conclusion, the author expresses her opinion on the reasons for the use of arguments and approaches of the Supreme Court in this decision by modern constitutional control bodies in different countries. The author believes that in search of justification for the existing legal framework in the conditions of the «silence» of the constitution on secession, the US Supreme Court chose those fundamental provisions that do not directly relate to it, but are contained in the constitutions of many countries, and at the same time managed to link them with the inadmissibility of secession.