Today, I read about how citizens in 34 different States (possibly 35 since the tally of signatures I saw at one website combined petition totals for Alaska and Kansas on the same line of the list) are now gathering signatures to secession petitions for presentation of them to the White House. Apparently each petition requires 25,000 signatures before they can be reviewed and responded to by President Obama, and so far only Texas (once a sovereign nation for nine years from 1836-1845) has exceeded that figure. And of course, our reelected President will be more than happy to take these grumbles of peaceful discontent seriously - yeah, right.
Some political activists will boldly proclaim that these actions are motivated by Republican voters disgusted that Obama beat Romney for the presidency last week with a wide Electoral College margin and a much narrower popular vote total. Others in love with the central government's power and majesty will mock any desire for secession by even one fellow American because the 1861-65 War of Southern Secession (it was never a civil war in the strict definition of the term because the Southern states were not fighting to control Washington, D.C. but to be left alone and run their own affairs for good or bad - including their peculiar institution of slavery - while four slave states Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri stayed loyal to the US) allegedly settled the matter of secession's legality. It did nothing of the sort, only silencing the matter through brute force employing horses, bayonets and hot lead. There was never a court case brought to decide the constitutionality of those 11 states leaving the US peacefully, even after the Lincoln Administration goaded South Carolina into taking the first shot.
But consider one element of American history that confirms the right to secede - the original 13 British Colonies of North America declaring their independence from Great Britain in 1776 - the event that founded the United States. What those founders and their states did was to secede from a then growing British Empire (which would continue to grow even after America left its fold for another century plus and only disintegrate to a shadow of its former grandeur by the time America was celebrating its Bicentennial) deciding they wanted to govern themselves rather than submit to London's authority. The old chesnut of No Taxation without Representation was rather a disingenuous slogan, because the Parliament would have granted 13 seats to the American colonies - one per colony. However, those 13 votes would have been drowned out in a elected body of close to 600 members of Parliament, with even the contingent representing Ireland being larger in number than the American delegation. To oppose secession as a legitimate political tactic (merely because of its negative association with a temporary slaveholding republic that failed in its bid for independence) is to oppose the United States' creation in the first place.
Before the unpleasantness of 1861-65, more than a few national politicians, too many to name here, were in favor of the right to secede from the sacrosanct union. In 1816 five New England states and New York gathered delegates at Hartford, Connecticut to discuss seceding from the US due to grievances over hardships from the recent War of 1812 and the shrinking Federalist Party's confinement to that region while the Democratic-Republican Party (today's modern Democrats under a different label) dominated the Midwest and South politically. They decided against the proposition, but suppose they had left the US. Would we be any worse off bordered by a New England Confederation ruled from their national capital in Boston (or whichever city would've been selected)? I believe not.
Sadly too many of my fellow Americans cling to the misguided notion that secession was right in 1776, despite their ignorance that what was done in that pivotal year was indeed secession by 13 parts of a world empire from its sovereign king and parliament, and that secession in 1860-61 was somehow wrong and even evil because the seceding states lost on that occasion. Had the first proposition failed, the United States would not even exist except in a Canada-like fashion today - another former British dominion that gained its independence from Britain without bloodshed but with Queen Elizabeth II as its perpetual head of state. One other point is that three of the original 13 states had secession clauses in their state constitutions - New York, Rhode Island (that had to be threatened to rejoin the US in 1790 by ratifying the Constitution as the last original state doing so) and Virginia. Only Virginia exercised its option to depart and was crucified for it through war, even as its own northwestern counties seceded to form West Virginia with Lincoln's blessing. New York City also once thought about seceding from the Union in 1863 or its state but so far has not succeeded in the latter desire.
To those proposing secession of their states from the US, I wish you well and all good fortune in this quest, but remember you need to call a convention of selected representatives to make it official as with any Constitutional Convention. Just sending Barack Obama a "Mother, may I" note and expecting his cooperation is naive on its face, but still a genuine expression of dissatisfaction. I didn't vote in the 2012 election, so I have no grudge about Romney losing (good riddance to that RINO phony conservative) and am a registered Libertarian in Ohio. It may eventually require more blood of patriots to water the stunted n,eglected Liberty Tree of 1776 and an actual violent revolution to tear this bloated American empire apart at home and end its bullying domination abroad. Being a pacifist at heart in recent years, I hope and pray that is not the case, but being a "glass half-empty" individual I expect the worst from human nature in such matters.
Keep them Gadsden Flags flying high and the Stars and Stripes flying upside down while screaming: "Don't dare you tread on me, Washington, D. C.!" Or a suitable alternative battle cry from the 1976 movie Network could be "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Some political activists will boldly proclaim that these actions are motivated by Republican voters disgusted that Obama beat Romney for the presidency last week with a wide Electoral College margin and a much narrower popular vote total. Others in love with the central government's power and majesty will mock any desire for secession by even one fellow American because the 1861-65 War of Southern Secession (it was never a civil war in the strict definition of the term because the Southern states were not fighting to control Washington, D.C. but to be left alone and run their own affairs for good or bad - including their peculiar institution of slavery - while four slave states Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri stayed loyal to the US) allegedly settled the matter of secession's legality. It did nothing of the sort, only silencing the matter through brute force employing horses, bayonets and hot lead. There was never a court case brought to decide the constitutionality of those 11 states leaving the US peacefully, even after the Lincoln Administration goaded South Carolina into taking the first shot.
But consider one element of American history that confirms the right to secede - the original 13 British Colonies of North America declaring their independence from Great Britain in 1776 - the event that founded the United States. What those founders and their states did was to secede from a then growing British Empire (which would continue to grow even after America left its fold for another century plus and only disintegrate to a shadow of its former grandeur by the time America was celebrating its Bicentennial) deciding they wanted to govern themselves rather than submit to London's authority. The old chesnut of No Taxation without Representation was rather a disingenuous slogan, because the Parliament would have granted 13 seats to the American colonies - one per colony. However, those 13 votes would have been drowned out in a elected body of close to 600 members of Parliament, with even the contingent representing Ireland being larger in number than the American delegation. To oppose secession as a legitimate political tactic (merely because of its negative association with a temporary slaveholding republic that failed in its bid for independence) is to oppose the United States' creation in the first place.
Before the unpleasantness of 1861-65, more than a few national politicians, too many to name here, were in favor of the right to secede from the sacrosanct union. In 1816 five New England states and New York gathered delegates at Hartford, Connecticut to discuss seceding from the US due to grievances over hardships from the recent War of 1812 and the shrinking Federalist Party's confinement to that region while the Democratic-Republican Party (today's modern Democrats under a different label) dominated the Midwest and South politically. They decided against the proposition, but suppose they had left the US. Would we be any worse off bordered by a New England Confederation ruled from their national capital in Boston (or whichever city would've been selected)? I believe not.
Sadly too many of my fellow Americans cling to the misguided notion that secession was right in 1776, despite their ignorance that what was done in that pivotal year was indeed secession by 13 parts of a world empire from its sovereign king and parliament, and that secession in 1860-61 was somehow wrong and even evil because the seceding states lost on that occasion. Had the first proposition failed, the United States would not even exist except in a Canada-like fashion today - another former British dominion that gained its independence from Britain without bloodshed but with Queen Elizabeth II as its perpetual head of state. One other point is that three of the original 13 states had secession clauses in their state constitutions - New York, Rhode Island (that had to be threatened to rejoin the US in 1790 by ratifying the Constitution as the last original state doing so) and Virginia. Only Virginia exercised its option to depart and was crucified for it through war, even as its own northwestern counties seceded to form West Virginia with Lincoln's blessing. New York City also once thought about seceding from the Union in 1863 or its state but so far has not succeeded in the latter desire.
To those proposing secession of their states from the US, I wish you well and all good fortune in this quest, but remember you need to call a convention of selected representatives to make it official as with any Constitutional Convention. Just sending Barack Obama a "Mother, may I" note and expecting his cooperation is naive on its face, but still a genuine expression of dissatisfaction. I didn't vote in the 2012 election, so I have no grudge about Romney losing (good riddance to that RINO phony conservative) and am a registered Libertarian in Ohio. It may eventually require more blood of patriots to water the stunted n,eglected Liberty Tree of 1776 and an actual violent revolution to tear this bloated American empire apart at home and end its bullying domination abroad. Being a pacifist at heart in recent years, I hope and pray that is not the case, but being a "glass half-empty" individual I expect the worst from human nature in such matters.
Keep them Gadsden Flags flying high and the Stars and Stripes flying upside down while screaming: "Don't dare you tread on me, Washington, D. C.!" Or a suitable alternative battle cry from the 1976 movie Network could be "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"