The problem with this notion of secession is that secession by definition means the withdrawing by a geographical section from the Union.
In 1860 this was feasible. In most of the states that later seceded Lincoln did not receive a single vote. The division was almost entirely sectional, except in the border states and a few other areas.
In our present country, the division is primarily ideological. It is sectional simply because one or another ideology predominates in that area. In even the most conservative parts of the country there is a large and active liberal minority that would, understandably, resist secession. In contrast to 1860, the highest vote totals Romney got were in Utah (72%), Wyoming (69%) and Oklahoma (67%). Most of the old CSA states came in with substantially smaller majorities for Romney.
So any seceding state would not only have to fight invading federal forces, it would at the same time have to fight an internal civil war to suppress dissent.
And since the American way for which conservatives would be fighting is based on the idea of the people ruling themselves, crushing dissent by force is pretty much a betrayal of that for which we would fight.
Loyalists had to be killed during the secession from England as well..
F—k it.... We are screwed anyway... We might as well go down swinging lets give it a shot.
I'm behind enemy lines, in MA, and there is a good conservative minority here. Thus, any breakup would lead to clashes within both seceeders and seceedees.
Things are so distorted here that in a recent state senator race, the 'R candidate got 35% of the vote with NO money, no name recognition, no bumper stickers/lawn signs/phone calls or standouts; no campaign whatsoever. It's just that a frustrated conservative minority will vote against the single communist party here, no matter who or what is on the ballot, in pure disgust.
So any seceding state would not only have to fight invading federal forces, it would at the same time have to fight an internal civil war to suppress dissent.
The core deep southern states = LA/MS/AL/GA/SC all have state populations >30% black, and increasing. There continues to be a significant population shift where black Americans are moving to the south.
“In most of the states that later seceded Lincoln did not receive a single vote.”
It has occurred to me that maybe the Democrats lost the election of 1860, had a hissy fit, and decided to take their marbles and leave. Were any of the governments of the seceding States not run by Democrats?
“In even the most conservative parts of the country there is a large and active liberal minority that would, understandably, resist secession.”
I haven’t seen any election maps from 2012, but from the 2004 and 2008 elections I noticed that making the red vs blue divide at the county level and then stirring would result in a lot of purple states rather than red or blue states. A war of secession is liable to be fought at the neighborhood level rather than the State level.