The problem with this is, and one reason I insist on the right of unilateral secession, is that the seceding party will inevitably be in the minority, and if the majority has an expectation of a revenue transfer, or other advantage, from the party wishing to secede, as in the case in 1861, they will (unjustly) oppose that secession.
Can't you see how unfair that is?
It is not unjust to insist that --everyone-- pay into the debts incurred by all. If for no other reason than this, --unilateral-- secession is unfair. It is, as President Lincoln said, absurd and unjust. And when you look at our situation today, where the national debt is 6.2 trillion dollars -- how are you going to divvy that up fairly? You're not. And if one section tries to secede today, they'll face the same issues as in 1860-65. And there will be bloodshed again. We are stuck with each other, whether we like it or not.
To me it just seems incredible that anyone thinks that our problems can be gotten rid of by splitting up. Friends can make laws better than aliens can make treaties. Look at Europe. That's a great model for you. And that is what you would turn us into. It's nuts.Walt
I don't see it as being as unfair as holding people to an agreement formed 3/4 of a century before by people long-dead who thought that they were forming a voluntary union (small "u") and had no way of foreseeing the problems that would arise in the future. Of course the seceding parties should take a responsible share of the debt incurred during the union. But let's not forget that the South had, (under the scheme of the iniquitous Alexander Hamilton to help his cronies enrich themselves at national expense - which was the direct cause of the whiskey rebellion), assumed a portion of debt of the northern states - so that they were up somewhat in the balance.
Nothing could be more unfair than forcing people to remain in a federation which they see as totally opposed to their best intestests and facilitating an uncompensated transfer of wealth from themselves to more favored members of the federation.
Our country today is made up of people equally divided between fundamentally opposed and incompatible views of what government should and should not do. Each wants to force its desired political structure on the other. In my view there can be no satisfactory compromise between such groups, unless the federal government were to be weakened very considerably. The solution to such problems is, as Switzerland approximates, avoid formation of large inhomogeneously populated national entities with rigid uniform systems of law. It would be far preferable to have many small homgeneously populated states, each with a political system and laws appropriate to its particular population.
"Can't you see how unfair that is?"
Your question arises from a very fundamental philosophical error. You can't understand why other people don't see the world exactly as you do. But the way that you see the world is quite particular to you, determined in ways which you cannot possibley understand by the sum total of your life's experiences and the various influences to which you were subjected in your formative years. You cannot expect people whose experiences have been quite different from yours to see the world exactly as you do - but you do seem to expect just that. And you think that the "truths" that hold in your particular worldview are absolute truths rather than "truths" particular to you.
But the funds to service that debt will be unequally extracted from the population - and that is no less unfair than any "divvying-up" of the debt would be.