Time For a Serious Discussion on Secession

It is with a heavy heart, I have undertaken to start a serious national discussion on secession as, perhaps, the only means by which we can restore the balance to our nation and preserve for our posterity the freedoms given to us by our Founding Fathers and passed down to us for the last 239 years. I have reached the conclusion that our nation has passed the tipping point which the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Toqueville warned us would lead to the death of our republic: when a majority of people believe they can continuously vote themselves more benefits from the Treasury.

Although the Republican Party regained control of the United States Senate in the last mid-term elections, they have shown a complete lack of political will in opposing this President on all fronts. They have handed him a fait accompli on amnesty for illegal immigrants, and a permanent voting majority that will keep the flood gates of uncontrolled immigration open and lead to a long term tyranny of the majority feeding at the trough of government largess.

You will find below the first chapter of my new book, Liberty Shrugs: A Political Argument for Preserving Our Liberty and Constitutional Freedoms Through Secession. (I hope all of you will forgive this vanity excerpt as my contract with Amazon Kindle precludes posting more than 10% of the book in any forum.)

I also understand how personal this national issue is for many. I fully expect many will choose to disassociate themselves from me for this book. I expect many friends may become former friends and there will a fair number of fellow Veterans who will want to stand me against a wall for it. If you need to distance yourself or publicly denounce me, I understand.

However you may feel about the possibility of secession, please know that it is with profound respect for you and a love for the idea of what this great nation should be, that led me to write this book

Like so many Americans, I mourned the terminal diagnosis my county handed itself on election night of 2012 when it re-elected Barack Obama as President. As I listened to the major television network pundits expound on the commentary that America’s demographics had changed and that the Republican and TEA Parties had become a minority of old racist rich people, I felt like a father who had just watched his eighteen year old daughter pack her bags and get in a car to drive off with a known pimp and drug dealer.

In the days following the 2012 election, over 1 million people from all 50 states signed secession petitions on the White House website. Every single one of those petitions opened with the words of our Nation’s Founding document, The Declaration of Independence. They expressed the dismay they felt with the direction the Obama Administration was going with its tyranny of the “majority.” But few believed these declarations would manifest into actions of actual secession from the Union. There were no clear political paths to put them into action.

I held on to the hope that, somehow, our beloved nation might find its way back from this binge of populist class warfare focusing on racial and ethnic divisions. Like most people who believe in the founding principles of this nation and the preservation of our freedoms and the responsibilities that come along with it, I held on to the belief that while we had reached Alexis de Tocqueville’s tipping point, we could still regain our balance. I believed that we still had the ability to slowly restore the balance and structure our nation so desperately needs. The 2014 elections gave us a glimmer of hope.

However, that glimmer was short lived. Although the Republican Party regained control of the United States Senate in the 2014 mid-term elections, the majority is not strong enough to pursue impeachment for the repeated high-crimes and misdemeanors of this President nor to over-ride his Presidential vetoes of Congressional bills written to reflect the will of the people. Worse, the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate have shown a complete lack of political will in opposing this President on all fronts. They have handed him a fait accompli on amnesty for illegal immigrants, are moving to approve yet another Attorney General whose background is clearly one of racial and leftist activism, and have banished any discussion of the possibility of impeachment.

In spite of their losses in the 2014 mid-terms and current turmoil within their party, the leftist leadership of the Democratic Party is seeing the fruition of a decades long strategy to achieve permanent political power. The most recent border crisis with the influx of a new wave of immigrant children, most of whom do not speak English and almost half of whom are males between the ages of 14 and 17 (the primary recruiting demographic for gangs like MS-13), and the executive granting of amnesty, a path to citizenship & voting rights, and large payments in federal benefits to the over 12 million illegals already in the US, will guarantee the Democratic party a permanent voting majority. This majority will be secured with life-long dependencies on payments from Federal benefits programs and will be bent on keeping open the flood gates of uncontrolled immigration from third world nations. The Constitutional checks and balances of the three branches of our government, as well as the two/multiparty system, have been nullified. There is no way of turning the tide through our skewed electoral system.

This permanent voting majority has been further secured with ideologies ingrained through our public educational systems. These ideologies and the groups promoting them, are teaching current and future generations that government programs are the cure for our societal woes, that America’s success is based on racism and conquests, and that we must atone for sins of our ancestors while ignoring the founding principles of our nation – the same principles used to end slavery and open opportunities in our society to all races. They are exponentially increasing the class warfare rhetoric against the producers of our nation’s wealth through their allies in the teachers unions and the media.

These groups are actively energizing the people who have entered our country illegally to vote Democratic using blatantly racial dogmas portraying conservatives and those who want to control the flow of immigration as anti-Hispanic bigots. We are seeing today a culmination of this strategy to change the demographic makeup of the United States to ensure a permanent Democratic voting majority and fundamentally change the principles of our nation’s founding. This strategy continues to play on and exploit racial divides and class warfare.

Those of us who believe in the founding principles of our nation must always adhere to the spirit expressed by the great abolitionist, college professor, and hero of Gettysburg, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin and recognize the “Divine spark” in every individual. Our movement must never allow itself to descend into racial based dogmas. But at the same time, self-preservation and prudence dictate that we cannot ignore the racial messaging of groups like La Raza (The Race), “Civil Rights” pundits like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and even the President and his Attorneys General who continuously promote a rhetoric of “white privilege” and anti-white hatred. They often claim racial victimization while loudly accusing those who hold opposing opinions of racism. They paint conservatives as old white racists and openly promote group actions and protests which frequently lead to racial violence against innocent victims. Then, they denounce those who maintain a right to defend themselves against such attacks as vigilante profilers who just want to shoot minority children.

For far too long Republican politicians have tried to compete within the Democratic established framework and agendas by supporting measures which further the political goals of the Democratic Party, such as the current form of Immigration reform. As a result, the Congress has allowed the Executive Departments of the Obama Administration to rule by Executive Order and regulations without Congressional oversight. They have become the enablers in the destruction of our Liberty. Their capitulation has allowed abuses of our freedoms, excessive and burdensome regulation of businesses, and harassment of citizens and their livelihoods by agencies such as the IRS, EPA, FCC, and the Justice Department.

Over the last few decades, those members of the Legislature and Presidents who wished to increase the power of the Federal Government to impose their will on the People have packed the Judicial Branch with activist judges of similar minds. So, when the People have expressed their desires for the traditional institutions, by establishing laws and appointing new legislators and executives on the local, state, and national levels by popular election, the new laws and measures established by them are struck down by unjust judicial fiat.

From the skewing of our electoral system, to the imposition of overly burdensome taxes and regulations, to the exponential increases in our national debt, to the failure to protect our nation’s sovereignty while treating patriots who love the Constitution as enemies of the State, to fanning the flames of racial divisions to the point of violence, it is clear our system of government is crashing. – A crash which could see the complete breakdown of law and order, with the Government oppressing the rights of the citizens and declaring those who defend their Constitutional rights as criminals; a crash which could see intervention by foreign governments and entities seeking to “protect” the rights of their ethnic or religious groups or their nation’s “investments” against the American people.

The Republican majorities in the House and Senate have repeatedly failed to act on the authorities the American people gave them in the 2014 elections to curb the Constitutional abuses by President Obama. It has become necessary for the people warn the Congress, the President, and the Courts that if they fail to act to preserve our Republic and restore the Constitutional rule of law, the PEOPLE WILL DO SO.

For those who have not read them lately, it is imperative to read The Declaration of Independence(APPENDIX III) and the United States Constitution (APPENDIX IV). These baseline documents of our nation are the most perfect of imperfect human endeavors to establish and safeguard Freedom. It is because the imperfections of those documents have been subverted to ensure the continued reelection of the most corrupt of power seeking individuals, that this discussion is necessary.

The Democratic Party, as a whole, has been using the treasury to buy the votes of the most irresponsible of voters whose only concern is what the government can do for them. They have repeatedly used their manipulation of the economic structure to steer large portions of the economic strength of our nation into unviable sectors and industries in which so many of them find employment after leaving office. Their repeated engagements in “crony capitalism” have undermined the freedoms of the open market and damaged the abilities of small businesses to operate in our economy. They are handing multiple advantages to monopolistic companies, giving them control of larges sectors of the economy to include medicine, labor, manufacturing and the internet through massive and complicated laws, regulations, and taxes. Activist judges holding lifetime appointments use their positions to strike down the counter moves by conservative lawmakers.

The Republican leadership is no less corrupted. They have become beholden to the “donor class” for political funding which has allowed them to fund and advertise their positions with their constituents and win elections on positions popular with the people. However, they continually betray the people who vote for them by stifling, undermining, and compromising the positions they were elected to support through back-room deals. Their capitulation on Obama’s executive amnesty for illegal immigrants is the most recent and, perhaps, fatal blow to our Republic.

This perpetual cycle of benefits for votes, voter fraud, crony capitalism, and judicial activism has made it nearly impossible to restore the balance of our political system within the framework of our Constitution without strong and fearless political will – something the Republican “leadership” is sorely lacking in. Those in the leadership of the Republican Party fear the loss of funding from the donor class, but they feel no fear of the voters supporting the rule of law and dedicated to the Constitution and the Found Principles of our nation. They seem to believe they can continually out-maneuver and manipulate those voters opposed to the policies promoted by the Democrats in the political processes; that they can use their votes to get reelected, but then sell out to the donor class and crony capitalists.

We must have a concrete plan to put real political strength behind the efforts to stop our nation from listing out of the control of our Founding Principles. Failing that, we must have a means to preserve those principles as our nation moves beyond the point where the restoration of balance is possible. There are many people arguing for the use of Constitutional amendments by the processes laid out in Article V Amendment of the US Constitution. While there is a historical validity to those processes, we are well past the point where those means can be used to save our Republic.

All the Amendments to our Constitution were produced by the first process articulated in Article V in which amendments were forwarded for ratification by 3/4 of the States with a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate. It would be impossible to get any Amendments limiting the powers of the Federal Government through our current Congress & Senate. It is extremely unlikely that any future Congress elected with the influx of new voters produced by uncontrolled immigration will ever vote to limit their own powers.

There is a current movement to produce Amendments to the Constitution through a Constitutional Convention requested by the legislatures of two thirds of the states. However, this process, which has never been successfully used, is subject to many of the same pitfalls, short cuts, lawsuits, and backroom deals which any other legislative move is subjected to. In Federalist Paper No. 85, Alexander Hamilton noted “the utter improbability of assembling a new convention under circumstances in any degree so favorable to a happy issue as those in which the late convention met, deliberated, and concluded.” While Hamilton stated this in discussing the argument of whether states should hold another convention to address changes before the original ratification of the Constitution, his observation continues to ring true with regard to a Convention of States.

One only need to look at the current status of the call. Although 34 state legislatures have standing calls for a convention as of April 2014 , the Speaker of the house has yet to determine if this is sufficient to meet the Constitutional mandate for the Congress to convene a convention. Even if the Speaker calls a convention, there are groups such as Occupy Wall Street’s Wolf Pack which will attempt to high-jack the movements to preserve states’ rights through a balanced budget amendment with riders and amendments to limit the freedom of political speech for corporations.

Some readers will point out that Hamilton also vehemently argued that Article V negates the notion that “persons delegated to the administration of the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority of which they were once possessed. ”

However, Hamilton also acknowledged that this “political truth could be brought to the test of mathematical demonstration.” Applying the mathematical lessons from examining the many tricks and short cuts of our “well defined” legislative process to pigeon-hole and negate popularly demanded legislative actions, it is clear that a less well defined process of the Constitutional Convention would be easily nullified. Those persons who are use to skirting the rules to keep their power, will be far more adept at crashing a system without defined rules, than those who play by the rules are in making a successful legislative outcome in such an undefined process.

The time has come to consider political secession as a credible means to preserve our Liberty and Constitutional protections, and put an end to the downward spiral of our nation.

For those who will argue that adopting a new constitution through popular election at the local levels is egregiously un-Constitutional, it must be stated that it is no less Constitutional than the usurpation of the Constitutional rule of law by many of the current occupants of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our Federal Government.

It is imperative that any discussion of restoring our Republic through secession have a sound moral-political basis and structure. Otherwise, any movement which springs from the discussion runs the danger of becoming a lawless, immoral series of mob actions. It must begin with an understanding of the principles in our founding documents.

This plan is presented with the hope that it will never be fully implemented, but with the hope that the credible threat of its use will place a steel fist into the velvet glove of our Founding Principles and ensure that our Republic can long endure. Its goal is to shore-up the political will of the Republican leaders in resisting the tyranny of the special interests. Barring this, to provide a means by which our precious freedoms may be preserved and our Constitutional Republic reborn while avoiding the ravages of mob violence, civil war, and foreign invasion.

As someone from a family with a long tradition of serving in the defense of our nation and its Constitution, it breaks my heart that secession, and all the risks that come with it, may be the only option by which our culture of Liberty and Freedom can be preserved. I can only liken the heartache I feel to that of medical doctor parents who must consider amputation and intensive chemo-therapy as the only apparent and viable options to save the life of their child. – Even worse, they must do so as the only doctors available to do the surgery and treatments because there is no Mayo Clinic for the treatment of Liberty. If their child survives, would she forgive her parents for the pain, and the scars and the loss of her limb and be happy to be alive? Or, should they just enjoy the remaining time they have with her, although they know she will die without the treatment?

As a father of two very real and beautiful children, I must consider such radical measures for my country so that the Constitutional system which codified and protected our unalienable rights can be preserved and passed on to them. I cannot stand by and spend my remaining years enjoying the small enclaves of freedom I can create in my own life, with the knowledge that the cancer of progressive populism, governing the creation and implementation of our laws with all of the ugly symptoms of racial discord and freedom consuming regulations and taxation, will destroy those freedoms and make my children into criminals if they attempt to preserve them.

If secession is to be seriously considered as a means to preserve our culture of true Freedom and Liberty, we must first define what it must NOT become. It cannot take the form of fringe “militia” groups storming the local court house. It cannot take the form of supremacist groups descending into mob and vigilante violence. Such actions would only serve to destroy the moral authority of any such movement, and possibly the very fabric of American society and culture. It would deny any such movement any vestige of legitimacy on the international scene.

If we are to preserve the Freedoms imparted to us, while removing the levers used to destroy our Liberty, we must do so in a manner which preserves those Constitutional and governmental institutions that maintain civil law and order; a manner which provides the greatest probability for a successful transition characterized by the use of ballots, and not bullets. We must do so in a manner which maintains civil structure, an adherence to the rule of law and protects the rights of all Americans (even those opposed to such a movement), provides a means by which financial and economic functions can be preserved, a means by which certain assets of the Federal Government (to included military and nuclear weapons) may be safely transitioned, the sovereignty of the United States protected from foreign invasion, and the legitimacy of the Representative Republic of the United States be recognized internationally.

When most Americans think of secession, they recall the Civil War. They think of it as occurring at the regional and state level (North verses South), and attribute to it all the negative vestiges of slavery and racial hatreds.

But America has changed significantly in the century and a half since then. We no longer tolerate the subjugation of peoples based on ethnicity as our Constitution guarantees everyone the freedoms passed on to us. Also, the demographics have shifted, grown, and expanded. The point of political divide is no longer along clear state or regional lines (with a few notable exceptions like Texas and Oklahoma).

When we look at the state by state results of the 2012 Presidential Election, it appears that America is almost equally divided along political lines with what the more populous and traditionally Democratic states (New York, California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Illinois) clearly supporting the reelection of Barak Obama.

The state by state secession of the 1860’s with clear regional divisions is not a possibility given the changes in America’s political geography with major city centers emerging and dominating the political environment in many of the states. Even if one considers the electoral map of the 2012 election published by the New York Times, the idea of separation on the state levels does not seem to work out given that so many states were narrowly won by one candidate or the other.

Another obstacle to the historical idea of secession and its equation to the Civil War, is that most people have very clear visual images of the cost and carnage of modern civil wars brought to us on our television screens. Few who might be politically inclined to separate and insulate themselves from the tyranny of the left, would consider a plan which did not have a very clear political course of action with a strong possibility of avoiding massive rioting, mob violence, or armed conflict between the people and the Federal Government. The popular notion circulated in the press was an armed takeover of a county courthouse by militia radicals without any real political continuity, as conjectured in a paper put out by a staffer from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 2012.

However, there is a means by which a successful rebirth of our nation can be achieved. When we look at how the election results of 2012 played out on the county level and consider where people live, we get a different picture. Even heavily blue states like California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Minnesota have vastly different make ups. The “swing states” of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Florida have similar demographics. The left leaning voters of the “majority” tend to be heavily concentrated in the major metropolitan areas or along the coasts.

There are 3,141 counties and county equivalents in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. When we look at the map showing the county by county results of the 2012 Presidential election, the concentration of left leaning voters is clearer. A look at the county results published by the Washington Post also shows much greater variations in the margins of victory for each candidate within the counties, from 10 to 90 percent versus the typical one to five percent of most state results. A visual count of the map showing these counties reveals that Obama won less than 650 (only 20%) of the 3141 counties or county equivalents.

Source map reported by the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/president/ (Click on County Results tab).

The map shows how city centered “majorities” in relatively small geographic areas dominate the political landscape of dispersed areas within the clearly “blue” states as well as on the national level. It is the true map of the “Two Americas.” The geographical and political structures of the counties provide the blue print for a peaceful renewal or reloading of our nation’s political operating system while maintaining law and order during a transition by preserving the local civic structures and authorities.

Through initiatives placed on the ballots of any county or city in the United States, the people may adopt the Declaration of Independence (Chapter II) from the United States at the county or city level and adopt the proposed Constitution of the Representative Republic of the United States (Chapter III).

The new Declaration and Constitution are not revolutionary. They are simply the original documents updated to address and relieve the grievances which afflict our nation. The Declaration lays out the injuries imposed by the last century of progressive governance which has led to the destruction of families and freedoms. The proposed Constitution is the original Constitution of the United States with changes to clarify the intent of the Founding Fathers by removing the levers of debt, low-information voters, class warfare, activist judges, and anchor babies which have been used to subvert the electoral process and grow the power of the Federal Government well beyond its intended purpose. It highlights with bold clear language a respect life, the importance of families, the rights of the States, and the wisdom of a republican form of government. It clearly establishes that our unalienable rights are granted by our Creator and that governance should be in harmony with the laws of nature and nature’s God. It provides a template to provide for a peaceful transition to a more responsible governance protecting the rights of all citizens, while removing the inherent burdens which the founders and de Tocqueville warned us of: the public voting themselves benefits from the Treasury.

The original texts have been kept as much as possible, to include original spelling and capitalization. In the Constitution, certain passages referring to the presence of slavery at the time of the Founding are removed and references to Air and Space Forces have been added to reflect the advances in technologies.

These are the changes, and some of the highlights of the proposed Constitution of the Representative Republic of the United States:

Pre-amble: The phrase “with the recognition that our unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator” is added to clarify that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are granted by a higher power, which no government has the right to deny.

Amendments: Incorporated into the main text of the Constitution. --Amendments 1 through 9 of the Bill of Rights are placed in new Article V The People, sections 1 through 9. --Amendment 10 is placed in Section IV The States. --All other Amendments are placed in the Articles and Sections they effected with the exception of the 16th (Income Tax), 17th (Popular Election of Senators), and 26th (Lowered the Voting Age to 18) Amendments which are deleted.

--The Congress shall pass no law, to which the Senators, Representatives, and the members of their staffs shall not be subject.

--Incorporates the proposed Balanced Budget Amendment (H.J. RES. 1 [Report No 112-117]) into Article I, Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto.

--Adds air and space Forces to discussions related to the land and naval Forces.

--Allows for “certain combat exclusions based on sex” in the regulation of the land, naval, air, and space Forces.

--The 16th Amendment is repealed, eliminating the federal income tax. (Article. VIII. Transition establishes the Fair Tax.)

--The 17th Amendment is repealed, returning the election of senators to the state legislatures as per the original language of the Constitution.

--No industry, trade, or commercial company shall be favored over another in the free market place through subsidies or taxes, except for direct purchases authorized by the Congress for the good of the Republic (no more subsidies or bail-outs).

Article. II. The Executive Branch: Requires proof of Citizenship for service as President.

Article. III. The Judicial Branch: Federal Judgeship appointments are changed from lifetime to 12 years adopting the language from Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments.

--Amendments 1 through 9 of the Bill of Rights are placed in sections 1 through 9.

--Section 2 (Amendment 2) “citizens” is substituted for “the people” to ensure the rights of the individual (as opposed to the collective interpretation of “the people”) to keep and bear arms is clear.

--Section 7: The threshold for a right to jury trial for civil suits is raised to two thousand dollars from twenty dollars.

--Returns the voting age to 21 and requires two years of voluntary & honorable active service in the Militia (this can include Federal, State, or Local military, law enforcement, or public health & safety) prior to becoming franchised. – No more ACORN registrations of people whose only interest is voting themselves money from the Treasury. – Current US citizens (Naturalized Citizen awarded citizenship before January 3, 2009) of voting age are grandfathered, requiring only an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the Representative Republic and a reserve appointment in the Militia.

--The definition of life (beginning at conception and ending at natural death) is inserted into the language from the 14th Amendment.

--The definition of Natural Born citizen is limited to the children (born anywhere in the world) of at least one citizen of the Republic, or of permanent legal residents within the territories of the Representative Republic. “Anchor Babies” are eliminated for illegal immigrants, tourists, and foreign diplomats and invading armies. Establishes a clearer and stronger Constitutional framework for Immigration and naturalization.

--Establishes the family as the most important building block of society. Defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Allows parents to raise and direct the education of their children without government interference, except through due process, and attaches all government support of education to the child (vouchers).

--Prevents the any changes to the apportionment of Representatives (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) and Transition (Article VIII) until after the second census.

--Does not allow for any changes to the number of Senators allotted to each State.

--Accepts the debts for payment of military retirements and pensions and bounties to Citizens of the Republic for services in the enforcement of laws and protection of the people of the United States, and the payments of the old-age and survivors insurance trust fund (Social Security), the hospital insurance trust fund, and the Federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund (MediCare) benefits to those Citizens of the Republic born before January 1, 1962.

--The disability insurance trust fund (Social Security Insurance) shall also be honored for those Citizens of the Republic who were qualified for and receiving payments under the laws of the United until such time as the Congress shall establish new laws governing disability insurance.

--Absolves the Representative Republic and its Citizens of the debts or obligations incurred by the United States after January 3, 2009.

--No benefit shall be paid for non-citizens of the Republic, unless specifically authorized by the Congress for the good of the Republic for a term no longer than two years without renewal.

Article. VIII. – Transition Upon Ratification of this Constitution: Provides frame work for the transition to the new Federal Government and protection of the sovereign territory of the Representative Republic of the United States and the United States, and international diplomatic recognition of the Representative Republic of the United States.

--Maintains Posse Comitatus (no powers of arrest/ law enforcement authority by the military).

--Provide political structure for maintaining the civil rights and law & order under existing county civil governments while providing for protection from existing federal agencies of the United States under the authorities of county sheriffs.

--Provides means to establish new State Legislatures and Governors through election by elected county officials until popular elections can be held in the next election cycle.

--Provides means for which State Legislatures and Governors may elect/appoint members of the House of Representatives and the Senate from their States to serve until the next election cycle.

--Provides a means by which the House and the Senate will elect a President to serve until a President may be elected by popular vote in the next election cycle.

--Provide for transition of Military and the nuclear weapons stockpile to new Federal Structure to defend and maintain the territorial sovereignty of the United States.

--Immediately implements the Fair Tax (HR 25, 2015) until such time as the Congress alters or implements a new tax system.

--Provides for the continued use of the United States Currency until such time as the Republic establishes its own currency.

--Provides a means to achieve international diplomatic recognition of Representative Republic as a sovereign nation.

For those who would wish to rewrite and add their own additions to meet the desires of the many varied groups and districts which may consider this Constitution, I again revisit the arguments of Alexander Hamilton:

“…I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all the collective bodies must necessarily be a compound. The compacts which are to embrace thirteen [all] distinct States [and counties] in a common bond of amity and union must as necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection spring from such materials?”

In other words, an imperfect but workable common plan (with mechanisms for change built in) adopted and put into immediate action will alleviate the many risks and tumultuous arguments which would come with attempting to collectively develop the perfect plan that is all things to all people in the contentious political environment we are in. It is far easier and safer to enact a single common plan and adjust from it, than to develop and adopt multiple plans, each of which must be reconciled for common acceptance. There is room for individual counties and cities to add grievances to the County/ City Declaration of Independence. However, it is imperative to keep the language adopting the Constitution and the Constitution itself free of alteration.

A common Declaration of Independence which presents a clear and resounding list of the grievances and violations of the Freedom of our Republic and adopts a common Constitution, placed on the ballots of one or more counties in each of the states, will send a resounding political message to those in Washington. It will require one of two reactions from them which will affirm our wisdom. It will force them to make real changes to protect our Freedom and ensure that measures are voted down. Or, they will react with further violations against the people to subjugate them to the will of the government. Either action will morally vindicate those supporting this political move.

State by state secession is the only way to go. The state legislatures have an obligation to nullify the Federal govt when they over step their bounds,even to the point of secession. If it means war so be it.

Look at the map it is South mid west vs east - west. Your plan has too many moving parts. Sorry you can't pussy foot your way out of the Suicide Pact that the USA has become. I will not buy your book. But we are sort of on the same side.

"The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language."

"Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people ."

"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are Sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a Sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever."

"The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena." Jefferson Davis, address to the Mississippi legislature - 16 years after the wars end.

"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form."

President Davis

If succession succeeds it marks the beginning of a host of problems as each remnant is weaker and more vulnerable but if Article V produces real reform it marks the dawn of a better day.

There isn't going to be any choice in the matter. The USA will splinter along state lines when the world wide economic calamity causes the Greatest Depression ever seen. The states will leave the USA and try to survive on their own, shedding the debts and obligations accursed over 200 years of fiscal abuse.

It is going to happen whether anyone likes it or not.

Fyi: It is secession not succession. :)

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