Last time someone tried that, it got ugly
Looks there’s a move in Vermont to secede from the US:
Disillusioned by what they call an empire about to fall, a small cadre of writers and academics hopes to put the question before citizens in March. Eventually, they want to persuade state lawmakers to declare independence, returning Vermont to the status it held from 1777 to 1791.
Neither the state nor the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids secession, but few people think it is politically viable.
Maybe not but I thought the Civil War kinda settled all the debate on that topic.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Yup, the Constitution was (and still is) silent about it, and my crazy ancestors had the right to do it for any reason, good or bad.
They picked a bad reason and caused lots of death and destruction, and constitutional Godawfullnesses which haunt us to this very day.
Sorta like “employment at will.” That is, you or your employer can each fire the other at any time, for any reason or no reason, but sometimes it just ain’t _prudent_, y’know?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:24 am
My take – and IANAL, but I’ve carefully read the Constitution and all the Amendments, which most lawyers and judges don’t seem to have: It says nothing about the federal government having the power to use force to prevent secession, and it clearly says that the feds have only those powers that are explicitly given to them by the Constitution. Therefore, secession may or may not be legal, but sending federal troops or armed agents to stop it is not legal.
Notice that Lincoln didn’t just send out the Army to stop secession (except a few miles march from DC to intimidate the Maryland governor and legislature a bit). It only got ugly after the Confederates fired on a federal installation. If they’d just ignored Fort Sumter, Lincoln wouldn’t have had his excuse for war. Maybe he’d have found another excuse, maybe not.
Lincoln didn’t have to worry about adverse court decisions about the legality of secession or of Lincoln’s actions – he used troops to intimidate the judges. That wouldn’t happen nowadays, but I don’t think the results would be any different. You only get to be a federal judge if your lifelong behavior shows “they” managed to lastingly intimidate you while you were still a kid.
Of course, Vermont in the present day would have a much worse time dealing peacefully with the federal presence. Instead of one fort on an island accessible from international waters, they’ve got DEA, FBI, Homeland Insecurity, BATFE, and other federal offices in all their major towns, armed feds in plainclothes on their streets, links between their police computers and federal agencies, etc. Secession just isn’t going to happen unless the federal government itself is too divided to react.
June 5th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
IIRC, there are rules on splitting, joining, and combining, but not ceding.
Slightly, I think we should force California to split and also combine a few of the tiny states. It should be a requirement that the abbreviation must fit inside the borders on the map – using the same font as the other states.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
markm, if you read your history a little closer, you’ll find that the first aggressive act was not the South’s capture of Fort Sumter. At the time South Carolina seceded from the Union, Fort Sumter was empty. Major Anderson removed his troops from Fort Moultrie several days after South Carolina seceded and relocated to Fort Sumter, which gave him effective control of Charleston Harbor.
By any way of reckoning, this was an aggressive move.
Curiously, evidence seems to show that he made this move without orders from his chain of command.
An unofficial deal was struck between the State government and the Union government for a peaceful end to the occupation of the fort. The State agreed not to attack the fort, and the Union agreed not to attempt to reinforce the fort.
The Union broke that agreement, and sent a Naval force with food, ammunition, guns, and men to resupply Sumter.
That being said, the official position of the US Federal government, regardless of the language of the Constitution, is that secession is rebellion, and it will be dealt with accordingly.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Another interesting tidbit is that after Virginia left the union, the counties that today make up West Virginia voted themselves the official Virginia government, which was then recognized by Lincoln. They then proceeded to give themselves permission to secession from the rest of Virginia and form a new state.
It was actually pretty fishy, and I’m still trying to sort the lot out, but undoubtedly all the constitutional rules were not followed. That’s just fine for Lincoln, who was the first president to violate the constitution wholesale. He just picked the parts he wanted to follow and made shit up when he had to. Somehow it wasn’t OK by Lincoln for Virginia to break away, but it was just fine and dandy for some of the counties to break away and form a new state.
Union troops at the ballot box to make sure Jefferson and Berkeley counties voted the “right” way, and ended up being in the “right” state was just icing on the cake.
Since the North won, Lincoln’s history has been given a white washing he does not at all deserve.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Oh and BTW, there were/are secession movements in Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, Wyoming, Ohio, and New Hampshire, if not other states. Wake me when the state critters discuss it openly in session of the state congress and/or the Governor says some kind of speech about the issue.
IIRC, New Hampshire is the only state that has the right to secede written into the state constitution, which I suppose had to pass muster before they were admitted to the union.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
rich, to be fair to Major Anderson, Fort Moultrie was not defendable from the mainland. It was in a dandy position to protect the harbor only. By moving suddenly to Fort Sumter he protected the troops under his command from attack. Indeed, during the shelling of Fort Sumter, not a single Union soldier died. This is not to say that the residents of South Carolina appreciated that logic.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
The South had it coming; they were completely out of control. Their own party was split over slavery and that resulted in a victory for Lincoln. The South went nuts, of course, and decided to secede like a bunch of upset toddlers.
Lincoln has been blamed by them for everything that happened. However, Buchanan bears responsibility for this as he did nothing during his lame duck presidency, leaving Lincoln to bear that weight.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Of course, the righteousness of our secession from England was a totally different story….
(and heaping the whole thing as being the fault of slavery only happened if you subscribe to the civil war light version of history)
Perhaps he felt that the Constitution did not empower him to do anything to keep states that wished to leave in the union?
Also, have you read about the Hartford Convention?
June 5th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
“We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war,” Williams said.”
If that’s how the Vermoters in general feel then I say good riddance! Oh yeah Vermont, should you seceed dont bother applying to the big, corrupt, and ungovernable USA for foreign aid.
Frank Bryan, a professor at the University of Vermont who has championed the cause for years, said the cachet of secession would make the new republic a magnet.
“People would obviously relish coming to the Republic of Vermont, the Switzerland of North America,” he said. “Christ, you couldn’t keep them away.”
Yeah right. Why would anyone wanna visit a 3rd world socialist dump, which is what it would end up being if leftist libs were in charge.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
The issue of the legality of secession was not settled by the (un)Civil War. The only thing that was settled was who had the most men, the biggest cannons and the most effective naval blockade.
I recommend the multi-volume The Civil War, a narrative, byShelby Foote. Then come back and talk about it.
Just as a start for neophytes who only learned about this tragedy through standard education. Till then, damn few have any idea what happened. Then proceed to more definitive works.