[McGavin999]

It would be an interesting exercise. Of course it would work better with 30 or 40 states cooperating with each other and ignoring the feds. Strength in numbers.

[jboot]

Setting the neccesary military question aside for a moment, the biggest hurdle a "small" secession would face would be that of establishing a currency. "Papa" USA would obviously not let the seceeding states "take" the dollar, and almost certainly would not let them peg their new currency to the dollar, either.

Of course, most of the natural resources are in the potential seceeding states, so they would have a powerful bargaining chip. Assuming that the means of production of said resources were not a casualty of the war, which is not a given.

All things considered, a "big" secession has the greatest chance of success.