It was only a matter of time before the dumbest amongst us all decided to adopt a version of the sovereign citizen foolishness.
Well, they are Mormons so maybe they think they can be citizens of as many countries as they like. Polycitizenry (I made that up, copyright Archigator_96)
They were a freestanding area government before they became a territory. They were a freestanding area government before Mexico ceded the land to the US.
I actually think that rather than secession what Utah is proposing is more analogous to South Carolina's Nullification Act of 1832. The state refused to enforce a tariff on imported goods. In response President Andrew Jackson threatened to send federal troops to ensure that the tariff was enforced. In the end the state backed off in part due to the threat and probably much more so because Congress ended up replacing the original tariff referred to as "the Tariff of Abominations" with a less onerous tariff. The Nullification Crisis - Bill of Rights Institute
Last I checked, the founders referred to it at these united states or the several states. I understand. I was being snarky. If states voluntarily joined a union, they should be able to voluntarily leave. Remember it was the states that created the federal government, not the other way around.
That is largely untrue, especially in the West. The Utah territory was created by the Compromise of 1850, a federal law. The boundaries of what became Utah, the state, were based on a series of federal laws which handed pieces of the former Utah territory to what would become other states (such as Colorado and Nevada).
