The legal scholars are debating if the US actually allows for states to secede. Some say because nothing about it is explicitly stated in the constitution, there is nothing legally stopping a state from doing so. Others say that the US is a nation state and no explicit law is needed to state that secession is not possible.
I understand that the American civil war was about states announcing that they were no longer part of the US, and the US stopping their attempts which was, according to the US, unlawful.
Has there ever an attempt for a state to lawfully secede from the US? How far did it go, what happened?
Prior to the Civil War, no state went through the legal process to secede from the Union. In the run up and to the Civil War, the Southern States announced their secession and their members of Congress quit congress, but they didn’t do anything within the law in terms of seeking and trying to receive a legal approval. Most knew this ment war and that is why the Southern States started arming themselves, building militias, and seizing federal armories and forts around this period.
After the war, a case did go through the legal process.
Texas v. White, et al. was a Supreme Court case argued and ruled on in 1869. The case was tied to a dispute about some Federal bonds that Texas sold to finance their secession. In summary, the Supreme Court made their decision on the bonds by determining that Texas never legally seceded and that no state can secede.
The majority opinion states the Union was “perpetual” and went on that “The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.”
If you look at that final statement, the decision was that Texas never left the Union. But it left the door open that it may be possible for a State to leave the Union with the consent of Congress.