The Legal Intricacies Of A Forced Cession Of A U.S. State.

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Picture this. The U.S. has just lost a war, how or why is irrelevant the war has ended in U.S. defeat and furthermore the victor demands in the peace terms an entire U.S. State be ceded to them regardless of the U.S. wishes or the State's wishes for that matter.

So what would the problems be in the legality of such a situation? The idea of perpetual union would be shaken to say the least and furthermore the idea of the U.S. federal government hocking off states to a foreign power regardless of their feelings on the issues won't help things.

What do you see as being the legal and social ramifications for this, beyond the revanchist drive for a round two?

WARNING! This thread isn't for bringing up the election in relation to secession, or of the right of states to secession! This is about the forced cession of a U.S. state by the federal government in an treaty under duress.
 
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ShadowArxxy

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Comrade
I suspect that most Americans would be in absolute shock and disbelief at the United States losing a war at all, much less losing so badly that we are forced to accept peace on the enemy's terms. That said, I think that most Americans, however angry, would accept that the loss of a state is better than the loss of the entire country, which the enemy would presumably be in a position to do if the U.S. is so utterly defeated.

The really interesting legal consequence would be that it is a well-established matter of U.S. law that U.S. nationals who are not also a citizen of a state only have partial rights under the Constitution, which is actively enforced to this day with our various territories.
 

gral

Well-known member
WARNING! This thread isn't for bringing up the election in relation to succession, or of the right of states to succession! This is about the forced cession of a U.S. state by the federal government in an treaty under duress.
Nit pick: Secession, not succession.

Not knowledgeable enough to comment on legal aspects, but historically this kind of defeat usually leads either to soul-searching(and eventually a change in national perception of itself) or the already-mentioned revanchist drive. IMO, it would depend on how(and here I mean in which ways, not how much) fucked-up the US would be after the war.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
The really interesting legal consequence would be that it is a well-established matter of U.S. law that U.S. nationals who are not also a citizen of a state only have partial rights under the Constitution, which is actively enforced to this day with our various territories.

That's not entirely true...in four of the territories, the only thing they can't do is vote for president in the gener election or for the Senate; they can still send delegates to Congress, however.

The only territory where U.S. nationals are not also U.S. citizens is American Samoa, and in their case, it persists because the local chiefs/clan elders are dead set against allowing for the transfer of property to any outsiders, which would violate parts of the Constitution. It screws the average Samoan, but for the most part the powers that be don't really care (and it's not a fight Washington is actually interested in picking)

Anyone else can move from, say, Guam or Puerto Rico to Virginia or Indiana and all they have to go through are the formalities (address change, voter registration, etc) and they're good to go.

Anyway, back to the topic itself...if the U.S. is in a position where we can lose an entire state (something that has not been an issue since roughly 1840), then I suspect the world will have bigger issues to worry about. Unless, say, China has a missile shield and we don't, any war where the U.S. is effectively destroyed as a power is a war that will likely have devastated the rest of the world as well. Hell, I don't think even China and Russia combined could pull it off...and that would have to be the two in question: Russia taking Alaska and China taking Hawaii...neither of which will sit well with the U.S. Hell, even Justin Trudeau would go "Oh HELL no" at the idea of a resurgent Russia that now has a land border.

China *might* be able to hang on to Hawaii, but that would have to mean the annihilation of the U.S. Navy, as well as our shipbuilding facilities...a significant number of which are located on the Eastern Seaboard, so in order for that to happen things would have to spiral out of control to a degree that is basically unfathomable.

Remember, this is the same public that demanded Afghanistan be nuked in the wake of 9/11. Actually invading the country? I would not be surprised if the state in question is actually a radioactive crater instead...
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
That's not entirely true...in four of the territories, the only thing they can't do is vote for president in the gener election or for the Senate; they can still send delegates to Congress, however.

They can send non-voting delegates who are completely irrelevant. More importantly, they are U.S. citizens but they do not have the same rights as U.S. citizens who are state residents.

As upheld by the Supreme Court in a series of decisions known as the "Insular Cases"; almost all of the Constitutional rights of the residents of U.S. territories are overridden by the Constitutional authority of Congress to reign sovereign over federal territories. In legal jargon, the Constitution does not extend "ex proprio vigore" -- by its own power -- over the territories; Constitutional rights only apply as Congress permits.

More specifically, the Insular Cases established that the Constitution only guarantees "fundamental rights" to territorial residents and not "political rights". SCOTUS did not explicitly enumerate "fundamental rights" beyond a generic invocation of life and property, but the following were explicitly established as "political rights":

1. Territorial residents are U.S. nationals but not necessarily U.S. citizens. This is because the territories are deemed to be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, but not actually part of the United States. Under current law, Congress grants citizenship to persons born in all federal territories except for American Samoa and the Northern Marianas; the residents of those two territories are deemed "non-citizen U.S. nationals". However, this is by grant of Congress rather than Constitutional right, and may be revoked as Congress wills.

2. Territorial residents do not have the right to remain U.S. nationals. Congress has the power to "de-annex" any federal territory and strip U.S. nationality from its residents, at will. This has never been done in cases where citizenship had already been granted, but *has* actually been exercised for cases of "only" non-citizen U.S. nationals.

3. Territorial residents do not have the right to free domestic trade with the rest of the United States. Instead, Congress may tax trade between territories and states as if they are foreign countries. On the other hand, the territories are not actually considered foreign countries and are exempt from "normal" foreign tariffs; they are only taxed by specific Congressional levy.

4. Territorial residents do not have the right to trial by jury.

5. Territorial residents do not have Equal Protection Clause protections against discrimination; Congress is explicitly empowered to discriminate against territorial citizens.

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On the other hand, SCOTUS has explicitly upheld the Fourth Amendment right against warrantless search and seizure as fully applicable by right to territorial residents.

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Obviously the forced cession of a U.S. state doesn't directly engage the territorial precedents, but then again, nothing in American jurisprudence does, because it's considered unthinkable. It is, however, simply logical that Congress and the courts would base the cession of a state on the legal precedents surrounding de-annexation of a territory, this being the only thing in jurisprudence that is even vaguely similar. This being the case, there would almost certainly be lawsuits as to whether residents of the ceded state who entered the U.S. would be treated as foreign refugees rather than citizens, and the Constitutional outcome of those lawsuits is highly debatable.
 
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Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
I suspect that most Americans would be in absolute shock and disbelief at the United States losing a war at all, much less losing so badly that we are forced to accept peace on the enemy's terms.

This.

I suspect that the one of the core reasons for modern America's war cult, and the triumphalism in pop culture (good guys win with no real losses, everyone lives happily ever after) is because historically the US has never really suffered in a war since the War of 1812, over 200 years ago, when the British burned American cities.

America always "wins" a war without suffering consequences for it. It's always some far away thing over the ocean. You hear about other people's cities being bombed and that someone's husband down the street died and is coming back in a bodybag, but, hey! Your side is winning and you didn't lose anything personally!

Americans live in a delusive reality where you can go to war without suffering any consequences for it, and you will always win.

So, if in the event America is straight being forced to cede territory, then I can only imagine that the rest of the US has been fucked in some way or another. Perhaps a nuclear Armageddon of some sort, or the water processing plants were destroyed/corrupted, or the food supply has been destroyed. Or there was a plague. Either way, everyone will have suffered real loss for the first time in the civilization's living memory.

There might not be a culture shock this huge until Christ's return. Probably mass disillusionment/disenchantment with the nature of the US as the superpower that always wins. Mass disillusionment as people realize just how fragile their way of life really is and how nobody is prepared. If the water supply to your home stopped today, almost everyone in turn is going to die because nobody knows how to hunt. You're not going to go to the hills and suddenly start trapping squirrels. People are going to wake up and realize that everything education and culture taught them were important lifeskills, are absolutely meaningless.

I can see a movement where lots of people begin moving away from cities to the countryside, trying to become homesteaders or something, trying to learn to survive on their own. If the prospect of war comes up within the next 20 years, there will be a lot of rallying against it.

But this is all assuming that the rest of the country actually hurts in this war. If the average citizen isn't affected, then they're just going to go "oh, Alaska is now a part of Russia again? Oh well." *shrug* and carry on with their lives.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
If the water supply to your home stopped today, almost everyone in turn is going to die because nobody knows how to hunt. You're not going to go to the hills and suddenly start trapping squirrels. People are going to wake up and realize that everything education and culture taught them were important lifeskills, are absolutely meaningless.

To be fair, modern population densities aren't remotely sustainable with agrarian "independent farmsteads", and contrary to popular image, the vast majority of modern farmland is just as dependent on infrastructure as the cities. Modern farmer is hyper-industrialized and hyper-optimized; if anything, it's more vulnerable to disruption than the cities.

The small family farms that can "tech down" and make do without, are actually pretty few and far between, and even they can't really do it without advance planning.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Damn, and here I was hoping this thread would be about kicking California out of the Union. :D
 

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