The Ominous ‘S-Word’ – Secession

Big Government ^ | 3-31-10 | Timothy H. Lee

[kingattax]

After 230 years, are the American people coursing toward eventual divorce?

Our polarized society increasingly ponders what would happen if American conservatives and liberals simply agreed that their differences had become irreconcilable, and redivided the nation to go their separate ways.

Which side would prosper and experience an influx of migration from the other? Conversely, which side would likely become a fiscal and socio-political basket case?

Any reasonable person already knows the likely answer. One need only compare the smoldering wreckage wrought by liberal governance in such states as California or Michigan with the comparative prosperity created by conservative governance in such states as Texas or Utah.

We can also examine the past 400 years, during which immigrants abandoned Europe for an America founded upon the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedom.

[wmfights]

Does anybody else get pissed off when people claim the Civil War was not about slavery?

Yes!

All you have to do is ask the question "would the north have fought to keep the south if the slaves had been freed?".

[AzaleaCity5691]

It is liberal propaganda that says the war about slavery, but don’t let that change your misperceptions.

It was about federal power vs. state’s rights and had been an ongoing fight ever since the nullification crisis of 1832.

Of course, the side of freedom lost in that war in tyranny prevailed but slavery is used as a convenient rhetorical dodge to cover that. Never mind the fact that Lincoln never freed a single slave in any state that remained in the Union.

[kosciusko51]

Yes, that is the problem. Those who seek the dismantling of the US have placed “sleeper cells” in all of our institutions. Now, their work has come to fruition. They have planted the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind.

[driftless2]

The liberal-run country would degenerate into a Marxist wasteland where everyone has rights but no one has responsibilities. The few producers would be taxed and harassed so mightily by the Al Sharptons, Ralph Naders, and such that they would be among the first to bolt the socialist wonderland.

[sbMKE]

Abandoning the Great Lakes is akin to handing off an oil field. No one would let their control go - there are already local municipalities fighting over Great Lakes water rights. A freshwater supply like that will only get more valuable as population grows.

[rustbucket]

And what is the one common feature in all those incidents? The partition was done with the agreement of both sides of the issue and after negotiations which settled all possible areas of disagreement before the separation

If memory serves (and it does), the United States supported the unilateral secession of Kosovo a couple of years ago.

[kosciusko51]

Good points. My thought on the Great Lakes is that there are a lot of libs living on them. I think it might be something in the water.

I am beginning to sound like Brigadier General Jack Ripper...

[TheRightGuy]

Chicago is on the Great Lakes, as is Detroit, Cleveland, etc., and would be part of Lib USSA.

Chiago is ON the Great Lakes, but it drains into the Gulf Of Mexico ... not into the lakes. The flow of the Chicago River was reversed over 100 years ago.

[goodwithagun]

What was their right? The right to secede? So the whole war was about we can secede and you can’t stop us? There was no reason to secede, it was just an experiment?

[Non-Sequitur]

If memory serves (and it does), the United States supported the unilateral secession of Kosovo a couple of years ago.

And that sure turned out peaceful, didn't it? </sarcasm>

[myself6]

To say that secession is illegal is analogous to saying that war is illegal.

When the differences between two or more sides become so great that they cannot continue to coexist, secession or outright war will happen whether or not it has been deemed illegal or not.

Secession on this scale is not something that requires the consent of both parties or the consent of a judge. It is one of the human responses to tyranny.

Ive seen enough of you to know that the “legality” of secession is not what your interested in. Your interested in the threat of force to keep slaves tied to the socialist “fields”. Your argument ALWAYS boils down to “the federal government will use force against any state and population of people who chooses to abandon their chains”.

You should just rid yourself of the extra “fluff” that is easily swept away and get to the core of your argument, because that is the only part of your argument that has any merit. However, that point no loner is met with fear, it is instead met with determination and defiance. The marxists cannot keep us as their “resource” for much longer and when they do initiate violence they will find an opponent that is strategically and tactically prepared. How could we not be? We have been threatened for decades about this. We took the threats to heart and will be prepared for it. Count on it...

[kosciusko51]

That’s right. I had forgotten about that. However, IIRC they do get their drinking water from Lake Michigan. And we could always fix that “environmental damage”.

[Non-Sequitur]

To say that secession is illegal is analogous to saying that war is illegal.

You said "This right of secession was NEVER determined to be either legal or illegal by any court of law." You were wrong.

[AzaleaCity5691]

A lot of it had to do with tariffs and trade. The North was trying to restrict the South’s ability to engage in free trade.

[kosciusko51]

“If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition - which you cannot force - that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there - I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine - I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me - use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.”

[myself6]

Lol.. I said no such thing... =P

[GonzoGOP]

Warning Long Rant

Have no doubt Obama will not let us go easily. If we were to try to break away we would need to make some hard choices as to what areas to bring out, and how to frame the argument for secession. If we were crazy enough to ever consider scesssion we would need to learn from the lessons of the Confederacy as to what not to do.

Make it clear to the other side that they would be better off with us gone. In the run up to Bull Run the Confederate states continuously tried to raise local morale by stressing how after session they would be able to screw the Yankees. They claimed that all of the Federal territories (think where Montana and Washington State are now) were part of the Confederacy. These sorts of proclamations played great at home, but since they Yankees could read southern newspapers it caused panic in many of the western states like Illinois and Kansas. Many of these western states were not pro emancipation and generally had southern sympathies. But they wanted those western lands for expansion and were completely dependent on the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers for transportation of goods to markets. This left the Union with the option of economic strangulation and perpetual frontier warfare with the Confederacy or going to war. Facing the choice of war now or war later, they answered Lincolns call for militia.

Imagine if instead the Confederacy had offered all the western territories. The Confederacy could expand into the Caribbean and by giving up the western territories they would ensure that the Union would expend its energy expanding away from the Confederacy. Also offer open navigation to Union shipping on the Mississippi. Sure you lose some money in tariffs, but you also remove the main reason for war among several of the key Union states. The Union wanted to become an industrialized, steam driven, capitalist society. The Confederacy should have used their many contacts in the north to stress how much easier this expansion would be without having to constantly fight the agrarian, rural interests in the south. Want a railroad to the Pacific, not problem once the south is gone. Want protective tariffs, no problem once the south is gone. Want to ban all slavery in the remaining states and territories, no problem once the south is gone.

The secessionists should not claim any territory that does not overwhelmingly want to come with them. If they claim territory, no matter how valuable it might be, that doesn’t want to leave the union it makes the secessionists the aggressor, and force the other side to fight. In 1861 the Confederacy admitted several border states based on the votes of “State Governments in Exile”. Their claims to Maryland can be understood, as the Majority of people there were sympathetic to the south. However in states like Kentucky, Missouri they insisted that those states were part of the Confederacy even though the local populations had voted to stay in the Union. In the case of Kentucky the vote was 3-1 in favor of staying in the union.

Make it clear that if allowed to go the seceded states will stay out of the business of the states that remain behind. In 1861 the Confederate congress passed a resolution that Confederate agents could still go into northern states to retrieve runaway slaves. This law was insane for two reasons. First it could never have been enforced if the Union were a separate country. Two it only served to anger the Union and convince them of the need to fight.

The hardest of all is to give the other side an honorable way out. War is emotional as well as military. Any coach will tell you that you don’t go on TV and guarantee victory before the game or hurl personal insults at the players on the other team. Yet this is exactly what the Confederacy did again and again. Sure the Union threw back as many insults, but the Union’s goal was not a negotiated settlement. There was no chance of Robert E. Lee marching into New York and Chicago. The Confederacy should have known that the war was going to end at a bargaining table, not on a battle field. And under such circumstances it would be best if the other side was not needlessly antagonized.

On the day Georgia left the Union an Atlanta newspaper published an article claiming that the need not fear a Yankee invasion as any Southern farm boy could whip ten Yankee factory workers. Knowing the fate that awaits Atlanta at the hands of those Yankee factory workers their statement seems a bit ironic. For a nation obsessed with honor the South did everything imaginable to offend the honor of the Northerners. The day before fort Sumter was fired on the Union officer commanding the fort, Robert Anderson, told his old friend, the Confederate commanding officer Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard [CS], that he could not surrender the fort under threat of arms without loss of honor, but that he would have to abandon the position due to lack of food in a few days. Unwilling to wait the Confederates fired on the fort the next day. Imagine if instead the Confederates had offered to buy Fort Sumter and Pickens as a face saving gesture to the Union. President Buchanan would have had the choice of a long, expensive war over a fort, that he couldn’t possibly hold in any case, or to accept peace and a big pile of money.

The South mistreated prisoners. Sure the Northern prisons were no picnic, but the North wasn’t seeking a negotiated settlement, they were crushing a rebellion. It is always important to remember your goals, and not to simply react based on emotion. Live, healthy Union prisoners were a bargaining chip. Dead and starving prisoners in Andersonville were just reasons for Sherman to send his avenging army into Columbia South Carolina.

The goal in a session should be to unite your own side while striving to divide those who are against you. The South’s effort to have it all, on their terms, and without any concessions, and without any respect for the humanity or honor of the Northern citizens served only to unite those who stood against them.

[Non-Sequitur]

oops.

[Vision Thing]

Well we don’t have to ‘imagine’ what it would be like relying on the blue states for protection. We can look to recent history. The 9/11 terrorists targetted blue-state planes, blue-state citizens, and blue-state locations. We all know how well they were defended.

[desertfreedom765]

“Of course, the side of freedom lost in that war in tyranny prevailed but slavery is used as a convenient rhetorical dodge to cover that.”

Oh Please... The south were slavers..Not exactly on the side of freedom. If the South had one they intended to create a huge slave empire including Mexico, and the Caribbean.

If you want to argue about the right to legally succeed I might listen to that (don’t agree) but don’t pretend the South was on the side of freedom.