Secaucus
a borough of New Jersey, in Hudson co. It is on the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western railroad. It is the center of an important farming and stock-raising region. Its notable buildings include a public library, borough hall, and the county institutions. Pop. (1910) 4,740; (1920) 5,423.
SECESSION. Whenever a State has claimed the right to withdraw from the Union, it has based its claim on the doctrine of State sovereignty. This claim must be considered as emphatically distinct from the right of revolution, insurrection, or violent revolts, in all of which there is no claim of legal right, and the appeal of which is to force instead of to reason. In its turn, nearly every State in the Union has advanced the right of secession, and usually each has been condemned by the others as treasonable. This claim was specifically brought forward or involved in the Kentucky "Resolutions," the Hartford "Convention," and the "Nullification Ordinance." In the discussion preceding the annexation of Texas there were arguments that led to threats of secession in the South if the refusal to annex should be passed, and in the North if permission to annex should be granted. This demonstrates that before these cases materialized, the doctrine of State sovereignty had been understood, both in the North and South. Among the SECKER Southern States there had been some talk of co-operation for the purpose of effecta secession programme, for no State would have made the attempt independently, but such discussion had resulted in nothing. Nevertheless, State sovereignty and slavery had been bound up together since about 1835, and the logical consequence was secession. Though no such issue had actually been instituted, the feeling between non-slave-holding sections and slave-holding sections, and between the North and South, had become more and more strained. The election of Abraham Lincoln, when the political situation was flanked with sectional differences resting on State claims, was all that was necessary to change the theory of secession in the South into an attempt to effect the reality. South Carolina took the lead by issuing a circular to all the Southern States, in which she declared her readiness to unite with any other States in the act of secession, or to secede alone, provided any other State would agree to follow. No single State was prepared or willing to secede alone, but Florida, Mississippi and Alabama agreed to secede with any other State. Again South Carolina was leader in calling a State convention, and on Dec. 20, 1860, the Act of 1788, ratifying the National Constitution, was repealed, and it was declared "that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." A declaration of the causes for this act was formulated, and on the 24th was adopted. The governor proclaimed "the secession of South Carolina" the same day. Mississippi was the first to follow this example, Jan. 9, 1861, then in succession came Florida, Jan. 10; Alabama, Jan. 11; Georgia, Jan. 19; Louisiana, Jan. 26; and Texas, Texas, Feb. 1, though in the case of this last State the proceedings were decidedly irregular.
Virginia followed in April; Arkansas and North Carolina in May; and Tennessee in June. The Civil War was the consequence.
The final issue was the victory of the government, the surrender of the Confederate to the Federal army, and the full union of the United States of America See CONFEDERATE STATES.