May 13, 2009 News+Opinion » Jack Hunter

State sovereignty is a long-standing American tradition 

Is Secession Crazy?

by Jack Hunter
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When Texas Gov. Rick Perry said last month that his state had the right to secede from the United States, liberals scoffed, laughing at the mere suggestion.

When polls showed that one third of Texans believed in the right of secession, one liberal blogger said it was further proof of "just how whacked out Republicans are becoming during these days of their political exile." When various states introduced sovereignty resolutions, including South Carolina and Oklahoma, liberals considered it childish posturing; the Charleston City Paper's Greg Hambrick wrote, S.C.'s legislature was just "stomping their feet in dissatisfaction" with the Obama administration.

For many, the question of American secession was settled once-and-for-all by Abraham Lincoln's military victory against the South. Not so, writes Kirkpatrick Sale, author and director of the Mulberry Institute, a pro-secession think tank: "Of course, it is true that the particular secession of 1861-65 did not succeed, but that didn't make it illegal or even unwise. It made it a failure, that's all. The victory by a superior military might is not the same thing as the creation of a superior constitutional right."

Sale raises a good point. If the Founding Fathers had lost the American Revolution to Great Britain, would the colonial's quest to secede from England have been decided forever, all because of a military loss? The idea that the U.S. could still be an outpost of the British Empire is one that many today would find as laughable as some find secession.

Consider the secessionist movements around the world the U.S. has supported in just the last few decades. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and its 15 satellite nations declared their independence, America cheered. Our military intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s found the U.S. on the side of the Albanian secessionists. On the American Left, support for Tibet's secession from China remains a popular cause célèbre.

But these are secessionist movements elsewhere. Isn't it unpatriotic to want to break up the United States? The author of our most famous secessionist document — the Declaration of Independence — didn't think so. After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who said at his first presidential address, "If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed." And it was Jefferson who joined with James Madison to pen the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which said, "where powers were assumed by the national government which had not been granted by the states, nullification is the rightful remedy," foreshadowing John C. Calhoun.

So often associated with slavery and racism, the first post-revolution American secessionist movement was the Hartford Convention of 1814, in which many New Englanders no longer wished to be associated with Southern and Western slave states. Wrote Massachusetts secessionist leader Timothy Pickering, a former chief of staff for President George Washington: "The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West ... The Eastern states must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government."

Abraham Lincoln, the man who so many believe settled the secession question forever, was once a far more radical proponent of secession than any Republican today. Lincoln once believed secession was a permanent and inalienable right, or as he said on the House floor in 1848, "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit."

And Gov. Perry was laughed at simply for saying he believed a state had the constitutional right to secede.

But what does any of this have to do with the modern United States? Isn't secession crazy? Perhaps. But no more crazy than nationalizing American banks, the auto industry, newspapers, and other private enterprise. Secession is no more crazy than spending trillions of dollars on wars that don't make sense and to stimulate an economy that already suffers from excessive spending, saddling future generations with unthinkable debt. Liberals never consider the radical expansion of government crazy, but responsible, per Obama's current example. But any suggestions to radically decentralize or reduce government, perhaps even by chopping it up into more manageable portions, is considered either impossible, immature, or unpatriotic.

American secession is no more crazy than American socialism. But the longer secession is laughed at and socialism is applauded, the more likely the chance the tradition with the deepest American roots will once again bear fruit.

Catch Southern Avenger commentaries every Tuesday and Friday at 7:50 a.m. on the "Morning Buzz with Richard Todd" on 1250 AM WTMA.

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You can have the pot, we'll keep the SEC, NASCAR, the bulk of the sugar, oil (try keeping warm without heating oil or nat. gas) and that includes gasoline..oh, but you can drill off California,oops, sorry you get the enviromental wackos too! We'll keep the best cotton, rice, peanuts, beef, shrimp...we can go on forever. Personally, I'll keep my constitutional freedoms and you can have obama!

Posted by cajunG on June 17, 2009 at 5:58 AM | Report this comment

Blue states: "We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country..."
Red states: Let us know if we can help.

Posted by Phaedo on May 22, 2009 at 12:58 PM | Report this comment

Reasonable you also get Washington DC along with home invasion, the thought police, phone taps and no civil rights. You get Polosi, Kennedy and the other liberals that have created this economic mess. But they were not alone. Repubs had just as much to do with that. But you also get Wall St.,UAW,AIG and a slew of other failed financial institutions. We have a pretty good port in Houston as well as in New Orleans, Ms. Gulf Coast and even in Fla. to some extent so we will have all the fruit we want that we do not grow. We will have freedom and you will have socialism. Not too hard a choice for me.

Posted by BK Campbell on May 20, 2009 at 9:35 PM | Report this comment

All,

While I willing support Red State secession (btw, shouldn't the commie states be Red?), I doubt that the Blue could survive on their own. Whose money would they steal to passify the cities?

Posted by Vin on May 20, 2009 at 10:21 AM | Report this comment

All,

While I willing support Red State secession (btw, shouldn't the commie states be Red?), I doubt that the Blue could survive on their own. Whose money would they steal to passify the cities?

Posted by Vin on May 20, 2009 at 10:20 AM | Report this comment

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