I'm there.
Posted on 06/06/2012 6:18:45 AM PDT by CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – Nearly one-quarter of Americans believe that states have the right to secede, according to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports -- up 10 percentage points in two years.
The latest poll is just one of many that shows that Americans have “serious and growing concern about the federal government,” according to Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports.
According to the phone survey released Sunday, 24 percent of Americans believe that states should be able to withdraw from the United States to form their own country, if they want. Nearly 60 percent (59) of Americans say they don’t believe states have the right to secede, while 16 percent are undecided.
“We do see that people are concerned about the federal government in a variety of ways,” Rasmussen told CNSNews.com. “51 percent believe that it’s a threat to individual liberties.
“It may just be part of a growing frustration with other aspects of the federal government,” he said.
“But I think it’s important to keep it in perspective, growing to 24 percent still means that only one out of four Americans think that states have the right to secede, it’s not that they’re advocating for it,” Rasmussen said.
Though a minority, the number has been growing. In 2010, when Rasmussen first conducted the poll, only 14 percent of Americans said states had the right to secede. A year later, the number was up to 21 percent.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults between May 29 and 30, asked, among other questions: “Do individual states have the right to leave the United States and form an independent country?”
Only 10 percent of poll respondents said it was likely a state would attempt to secede in the next 25 years -- “a pretty generous time frame,” Rasmussen said. “So it’s not seen as a very realistic possibility,” he added.
The survey also asked whether the federal government is a protector or a threat to individual rights, to which a majority -- 51 percent -- said the government presents a danger to liberty.
“[O]nly 34 percent of adults in this country regard the federal government more as a protector of individual rights,” according to the poll.
“More Americans than ever are expressing strong concern that the federal government will run out of money,” according to Rasmussen Reports, who also found that 64 percent of Americans are at least somewhat worried that the U.S. government will run out of money. 43 percent are “very worried” that the U.S. government will run out of money, while 31 percent of adults are not worried and 10 percent are “not at all worried.”
The total federal debt currently stands at $15.8 trillion.
Rasmussen told CNSNews.com that recent polling shows that Americans have a “growing frustration” with the federal government.
“What we’re seeing in a whole range of surveys is serious and growing concern about the federal government, about the role of government in American life,” he said. “Only about one out of five Americans believe the government today has the consent of the governed. People believe that America’s best days -- about half the nation believes -- America’s best days have come and gone.”
“Only 16 percent believe that today’s children will be better off than their parents,” he said, “that’s a horrifically low number for America.”
“And then you’ve got individual proposals, [New York City] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg’s proposal of banning large sugary drinks is supported by 24 percent of Americans, 2 out of 3 oppose it,” Rasmussen added. “So there’s this frustration that’s been building.”
I'm there.
"How" is well known, even identified in a decision written by Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Salmon P. Chase (next paragraph). You declare your independence, and then you fight a war if the tyrant in our White House or his replacement refuses to give consent to the separation and tries to compel your state(s) to remain under his thumb. I like the fact that South Carolina held a formal vote and that it was 169-0 in favor of independence, rather than a single official making a unilateral declaration. I hope that we can avoid that path, although a peaceful separation is immeasurably better than the trampling of individual, God-given, constitutionally-protected rights that Obama is attempting to implement (no comment on whether a second civil war is also better). A mandate that employers provide abortion, contraception, or any other morally repugnant and religiously prohibited element of "medical care" crosses a clear line, as does a mandate for pharmacists to stock abortion pills, and any other government action restricting the free exercise of religion.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) "When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation . . . The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
According to historian Robert Calhoon, between 40 and 45 percent of the white population supported the Patriots' cause in 1776, between 15 and 20% supported the Loyalists, and the remainder were neutral or kept a low profile. I haven't found a similarly well-supported estimate for the South, but it seems to have been roughly the same. Keeping in mind how quickly public opinion can swing, I hope Obama will restrain his big government urges enough that he doesn't push another 15-20% of Americans across the line. Given today's global problems and dangers, this would be a dangerous time for another civil war, and I hope Obama will permit us to avoid that catastrophe.
Sorry but I think that you have it backwards. Ownership of slaves was protected by both the Declaration Of Independence and the US Constitution. But the act of secession was never defined in either document (except rhetorically in the DOI).
The south had the "right" to secede by virtue of the human right to rebel, but what they did and how they did it was extra-legal and the root cause of the Civil War.
Great Britain salivated at the prospect of a US internecine war and stood on the sidelines eager for the opportunity to reestablish control in America. Weakened by the conflict, even had the csa prevailed over the union they would have been ripe for the picking of the brits.
Secession is in the American bloodstream
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I agree with that statement. The way I see it Lincoln in his attempt to “preserve the nation” really brought about the demise of our freedoms in this country and the era of centralized government was ushered in. Thanks a lot Abe!
Secession isn’t the answer.
EJECTION of new England and California would do much to clear up the current mess.
Everyone seems to miss out a point on the founding of this country, if you look at the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers didn’t want to leave England, just felt that there was no longer any choice. The Declaration of Independence has a long list of the wrongs that the English crown had done to the colonies which became the United States of America. If those colonies had been treated far better, a seperate United States of America may have been long in coming. I challenge anybody to come with a similiar list of wrongs that the Federal government did to the Southern States prior to the Civil War of 1861-1865
Good point.
Well, theoretically the South had the right to secede. Nothing in the constitution said they couldn’t. They probably wouldn’t have signed up, if they thought they would not be allowed to change their mind.
However, governments don’t take kindly to challenges to their authority, so splitting up often means war, and Mr. Lincoln’s Administration was no exception.
It really wouldn’t bother me if the blue states seceded, as long as they take their share of the debt with them. Then the red states can get back to honoring and restoring the system to what it should be.
What are you going to use for $$$$
Same problem the south had —confederate $$$$
Lincoln NEVER believed in State rights to do anything at all unless it was only done inside an individual State and the USSC court case cited above merely echoed what Lincoln destroyed a nation for, a massive central State:
“[O]ur permanent part; ... the land we inhabit; ... our national homestead ... demands union, and abhors separation,” Lincoln argued. “In fact, it would, ere long, force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.”
Lincoln’s concept of nationality demolished the underpinnings of state-sovereignty constitutional theory. Quite simply, “[T]he Union is older than any of the States.” The states did not create the Union; an American people created both states and Union, and the states never had any existence outside that Union. Thus, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people”—not the states—”who inhabit it.” They might alter its government through amendment or revolution, but whether creating the Union or destroying it, it was they, not the states, who were its constituent elements. To Lincoln, it was not the southern states but individual southerners who were in rebellion, and he could ask the question, “By what principle ... is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation?”
“[T]he Union is older than any of the States.” The states did not create the Union; an American people created both states and Union, and the states never had any existence outside that Union. Thus, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people”—not the states—”who inhabit it.”
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0010.103?rgn=main;view=fulltext
“If it wasn’t allowed then, why would it be allowable now?”
Allowed by whom? Whom does the Constitution give authority to over whether states are allowed to secede?
It really wouldn’t bother me if the blue states seceded, as long as they take their share of the debt with them. Then the red states can get back to honoring and restoring the system to what it should be.
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That is the best idea. We could prove to the libotards that their way is wrong while red states thrive....and we wouldn’t let them back in either after they declare bankruptcy. I’ll move out of NJ for that reason - even to a place without the ocean. South Carolina, Georgia and Texas would be likely candidates.
If at first you don’t secede, parachuting probably isn’t for you.
Just because it would be a new country should not mean there should be a problem with having a viable currency. Using your logic, the US nor any other emerging nation would not have successfully come in to existence either.
“I guess the South had every right to secede. They just didn’t have the right to enslave humans”
“even if the North had allowed a peaceful secession, the South would have been an undeniable threat “
Total BS. That liberal public school propaganda really got to you.
The North had slavery, too. Hell, it was still in the US Constitution at the time of Civil War. Not even Lincoln wanted to end slavery and he had even worked to ensure freed slaves were never allowed in his home state of Illinois! The Civil War to Lincoln was about his railroad partners needing to keep the union together. Lincoln even wrote that States had the right to leave the union.
Just how was the South an “undeniable threat”? What threat? If it is so “undeniable” then point it out.
“I challenge anybody to come with a similiar list of wrongs that the Federal government did to the Southern States prior to the Civil War of 1861-1865”
Then you haven’t studied history. The northern States routinely made laws in Congress to the detriment of the southern States.
The civil war was conducted because the aggressors didn’t want to let the seceding states out from under their thumb,
and the same thing would happen today.
LOL. Somehow I always think Texas might be the best. Somewhere in my history classes, long ago I was told that Texas preserved the right to secede before they decided to join.
I have no idea if that was true or not, but I always expect Texans to rebel and just ignore what the Feds say at some point. LOL.
Their Declarations of Secession state clearly slavery was the reason. They didn't want to be part of the Union because the Union was getting rid of slavery.
Not that I'm an advocate of secession (yet), but if a state wants to secede they better not do so in the name of the attempted slavocracy of 1861. Rather a state should want independence for noble causes such as there were when we declared independence from Britain.
The South fired first at Sumter.
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