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{{blockquote|But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, ''cannot from that period possess any right to secede'', because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. [emphasis added] To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure.<ref>{{cite web |work=The [[Avalon Project]] |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp |title=President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification |date=December 10, 1832 |publisher=[[Yale Law School]] |access-date=September 16, 2015}}</ref>}}
Some twenty-eight years after Jackson spoke, President [[James Buchanan]] gave a different voice—one much more accommodating to the views of the secessionists and the slave states—in the midst of the [[American Civil War|pre-War]] secession crisis. In his final [[State of the Union address]] to Congress, on December 3, 1860, he stated his view that the South, "after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union"; but he also drew his apocalyptic vision of the results to be expected from secession:<ref name="presidency.ucsb.edu">
<blockquote>In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy [here referring to the existing Union] is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.<ref name="presidency.ucsb.edu"/></blockquote>
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{{see also|Municipal deannexation in the United States}}
The island of [[Nantucket]] has attemted to secede from the commonwealth of Massachusetts three time. In 1937 it was over public utilty rates, in 1957 it was over state ownership of passenger ferry boats, and in 1977 over redistricting that would have diluted their representation in congress <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/06/archives/massachusetts-isles-wave-secession-flag.html|title=Massachusetts isles Wave Secession Flag|first=John Kifner Special to The New York|last=Times|date=April 6, 1977|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nha.org/research/nantucket-history/history-topics/nantucket-aspired-to-become-part-of-new-york/|title=Why would Nantucket aspire to become part of New York State?|first=Frances|last=Karttunen}}</ref>
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