[FourtySeven]

This is something I hadn’t considered before (national debt).

How would that be distributed in the secessionist plan? It seems to me that would be a huge (probably insurmountable) obstacle to the plan. How would the states decide which amount is “owed” by whom?

Could the seceding states wash themselves completely of the debt? If so, which one wouldn’t secede?

Would each state “owe” 1/50th? That wouldn’t be just to some of the midwestern states that can’t be said to have “created” an equal amount of the debt over the years.

I would think this issue would be the one to truly kill this idea. I don’t see a way around it that would be just.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Determining the debt share per state would be easy. We would simply use the congressional representation as guide. California would owe 55/435 of the total, Ohio would be responsible for 18/435, Texas’ share would be 32/435, and so on to lowly Wyoming which would owe only 1/435 of the outstanding US debt.

[x]

Just how to distribute the national debt would have to be settled before any dissolution of the union. Would it be apportioned on the basis of population, or tax income or expenditures? It's hard to say. Other matters like federal property, the military, national parks, social security, would have to be settled before any change was made in the status of a state or states.

Of course there are people who tell you that the states have only to assert their sovereignty and then negotiate as independent nations with the former union with the freedom to accept or reject any or every offer or plan made. Those people have learned nothing from history and perhaps never will. The same with people who tell you that one part of the country is too stupid or lazy or cowardly or weak to mount a resistance to any breakaway secession.