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.”
“Since the secession wasn’t proven, there was no secession.”
Yes, it was. You are misunderstanding what “prove” means in that clause. It does not mean that the States have to submit every act to Congress for approval, since that is never done and it would obviously completely dilute any power the states have. It merely states Congress must provide the general method for States to prove to other states that something is a valid act. This is a general process, as stated in the Constitution, so there is no special process for acts of secession, it would be the same as any other act. As long as the states published their acts of secession as they would any other law, then they satisfied that section. Even if they had not, it would not make the acts invalid, it would simply relieve the other states of their responsibility of giving full faith and credit to those acts.
Your post makes no sense. It was the South that fired the shot.
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Your post is ignoring my questions.
I already agreed that the South fired the first shot. Aren't you even curious as to how that happened. Don't you ever even wonder if there was a way to have prevented war?
The union forces at Fort Sumter didn't have a prayer of holding out, because they were almost out of food and ammo. Lincoln knew this. He could have withdrawn the forces without incident, and let the South go its own way. The commander at the Fort was also given ample opportunity to leave.
Historical accounts portray the leaders from both sides as being particularly amiable toward each other even in surrender.
Now, what if Fort Sumter had not happened? Do you think that Lincoln would have just let the South go? Wasn't he determined to keep the union together? Was there anyway to prevent the South from secession without war?
I always thought it was a good thing the Union remained together, but it was a bloody war, and I do wonder if there was any way to avoid it.
So they declared themselves seceded from the union even though they knew it was a provocative act. The soldiers that were stationed in the area - who were Americans BTW - instantly became "the enemy" (even if they were southerners). The townspeople and local militia immediately became hostile and belligerent. Anderson, not wishing to ratchet up tensions decided to retreat to Sumter until he had clear orders to withdraw but Beauregard insisted that he quit the fort. Ultimately the southerners fired on the fort until the union forces surrendered.
The southerners deliberately instigated the hostilities which inevitably led to the war. THAT was an act of war.
Well, you’re leaving out the part where the folks in Washington DC decided to not give the order to withdraw troops, but instead decided to try to resupply them, knowing full well that such an act was the equivalent of throwing a match at a powderkeg. The southerners held their fire until that act, which made it apparent that the US had no intentions of ever withdrawing their troops.
if the North allowed the South to secede, the Federal Government would have gone bankrupt and the North would have collapsed economically. “There would have been grass growing in the streets of New York and Boston.”
At that time, the South provided about 60-70% of of the Federal Government’s revenue through duties and tariffs (no income tax, remember?). The South would have controlled the mouth of the Mississippi through which most of the commerce of the West and Midwest flowed. The South planned to levy a 10% tariff in its ports (tariffs were the largest part of the reason the South seceded...), greatly undercutting the North’s tariffs.
That, more than any other reason, was the reason for the Civil War.
That sounds good, but my concern would be keeping the cockroaches IN California and New England. They will invade and infest their neighboring states just like illegals do now.
Why should they withdraw? The fort belonged to the federal government.
“Why should they withdraw?”
Well, maybe to avoid starting a war. That wasn’t their intention, though, so they did not.
Withdrawing wouldn’t have avoided anything. Doesn’t take a genius to realize that the fire-eaters were hell-bent for confrontation - which is exactly what they precipitated and exactly what they got.
This from the most consistently ignorant poster on FR.
Can't read, huh?
Article 4 says the Congress has the right to prescribe the manner in which a state proves its acts. Secession is an act of a state. Simple.
It looks like to me that states have the right to secession, but they must run it through the Congress to prescribe the manner and then get terms of separation. Having a rabble-rousing rally and then going on a stealing spree doesn't qualify as a legal secession. If it's not done legally, then there must be the military might to make it stick. This was accomplished with the colonies, not with the South.
There is federal property involved with a secession of a state, property paid for by all the states. Therefore a state must allow the Congress to prescribe the manner in which a state proves its act of secession.
I know the details.
Don't you ever even wonder if there was a way to have prevented war?
If the South wanted to prevent war, the first step would have been not steal property, and then not fire on the other side.
The union forces at Fort Sumter didn't have a prayer of holding out, because they were almost out of food and ammo. Lincoln knew this. He could have withdrawn the forces without incident, and let the South go its own way. The commander at the Fort was also given ample opportunity to leave.
Why leave? It was federal property.
Historical accounts portray the leaders from both sides as being particularly amiable toward each other even in surrender.
So the cannonballs weren't really cannonballs?
Now, what if Fort Sumter had not happened? Do you think that Lincoln would have just let the South go? Wasn't he determined to keep the union together? Was there anyway to prevent the South from secession without war?
We'll never know.
I always thought it was a good thing the Union remained together, but it was a bloody war, and I do wonder if there was any way to avoid it.
Don't secede for the abominable cause of slavery.
The Declarations say it was slavery.
If it was just about slavery, the North could have let the South go. The South’s declarations were about slavery. The North went to war about money.
“There is federal property involved with a secession of a state, property paid for by all the states. Therefore a state must allow the Congress to prescribe the manner in which a state proves its act of secession.”
That’s just speculation on your part, the Constitution says no such thing. As I said, Congress already prescribed the manner in which acts of state are proved, and it can only prescibe that in general laws, according to the Constitution. It cannot make a new, specific law governing secessions separate from the rest of the acts to be proved. If the Acts of Secession were passed lawfully, and published to the rest of the States and the Federal Government by the same process as any other law, then they fully satisfied this condition.
That’s probably nobody ever cites this as some kind of barrier to secession, because it just isn’t.
Secession was for slavery as the Declarations say.
Article 4.
As I said, Congress already prescribed the manner in which acts of state are proved, and it can only prescibe that in general laws, according to the Constitution. It cannot make a new, specific law governing secessions separate from the rest of the acts to be proved. If the Acts of Secession were passed lawfully, and published to the rest of the States and the Federal Government by the same process as any other law, then they fully satisfied this condition.
Not when there is federal property involved. Congress needed the opportunity to prescribe the manner in which that act would be proven.
That’s probably nobody ever cites this as some kind of barrier to secession, because it just isn’t.
The conversation never gets that far. Rebs say a state can, patriots say a state can't. That's as far as it gets.
I have an honesty test for you: The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. There was a concern in California that it would be next. According to you it was OK for the South to do what it did, declare the Union dissolved and seize federal assets within the borders of the southern states. Could California have done that on Dec 8, 1941? Could California have held a meeting, sent a letter to Congress saying the union is dissolved, seized all ships at the San Diego, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles naval bases, and seized all the buildings at all the naval bases in order raze all buildings and scrap all the ships to show Japan it was neutral so as to not have Japan attack them? You say it was OK for the South...would it have been OK for California?
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