Secession: A Specifically American Principle [Part 1 of "The
Secession Tradition in America," a paper presented at the 1995
Mises Institute conference, "Secession, State, and Economy."]
The United Nations Charter asserts the self-determination of
peoples as a fundamental human right. From this, there has
developed a lively debate among international jurists about
whether the right of self-determination includes a right of
legitimate secession.  But while the concept of legitimate
secession is being explored in the world at large, it forms no
part of contemporary American political discourse. There was a
time, however, when talk about secession was a part of American
politics. Indeed, the very concept of secession and self-
determination of peoples, in the form being discussed today, is
largely an American invention. It is no exaggeration to say that
the unique contribution of the eighteenth-century American
Enlightenment to political thought is not federalism but the
principle that a people, under certain cond