It ' s got to do with the social contact . The Constitution is a legal document , our adherence to , and acceptance of , it as individuals is mediated by the Social Contract . I am of the opinion that having aspects of this debate through the contract law frame is an effective way to stay out of the legal jargon weeds , while still being able to effectively articulate rationales for why it could be reasonable for individuals to support the idea of Calexit . Moving on , I ' d like to point you to the 10 th amendment . The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution , nor prohibited by it to the States , are reserved to the States respectively , or to the people . The People part is the salient portion I ' d like to draw your attention to . There ' s no explicit law forbidding a group of citizens from passing a ballot measure that requests their state legislature formally sever ties with the Union . So in the Calexit situation we have a group of citizens trying to get an initiative on the ballot to do more or less that . The Constitution does not delegate the power of secession to the Government nor does it expressly prohibit it . Ergo , the right to petition to leave is relegated to the States or the to the People . In this case , the People , or rather a fairly small segment of the people , are asking if maybe they should leave . I don ' t deny that there are all sorts of provisions that the act of secession would logistically entail violating , but they wouldn ' t actually be violated until after the secession . If a party is no longer bound by the rules of the group , than violating those rules has no meaning . It would be like working for a company that doesn ' t allow you to smoke . You quit the job and start smoking . You are violating the rules of the company , but you are no longer part of it , so it doesn ' t matter . The first link in the chain is legal , the following links would only be illegal if they were part of the same chain . I should point out though that I am NOT a rabid supporter of the Calexit idea , it merely fascinates me . We haven ' t had a good national discussion about this since those guys in Texas tried to secede back in the 90 s .