What Is Secession And What Would It Look Like?

The chaos in Washington, DC today did not surprise me. Recently I’ve heard and read quite a few references to “secession”. What is secession? Secession is defined as “the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state.” Why are people bringing this up? Primarily because America is as socially and politically split as it’s EVER been since the LAST secession which occurred with the start of the Civil War. Is it actually possible? Absolutely! Is it likely? Less so.

So what did the last secession look like? In 1860 eleven southern states seceded from the Union. These were the slave states and it occurred after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Hmmm….after an election year…..sound familiar? Between 1988 and 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated into 15 sovereign states. A secession can be violent or peaceful, but the goal is independence from the group it secedes from.

Would a secession of a group of states from the United States be legal? Well it depends. The Constitution does not directly mention secession. In the case of Texas v. White in 1869, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote that, “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.” So revolution could be how it happens! Another argument against secession centers on the language of Article I, Section 10, which declares that “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….”  In 2006 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued that a the question was “not in the realm of legal possibility because 1) the United States would not be party to a lawsuit on the issue 2) the “constitutional” basis of secession had been “resolved by the Civil War,” and 3) there is no right to secede, as the Pledge of Allegiance clearly illustrates through the line “one nation, indivisible.” These arguments seem like a fairly strong case against secession.

Have there been any recent attempts at secession? There was an attempt by Staten Island to break away from New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading to a 1993 referendum, in which 65% voted to secede but the effort was blocked by the State Assembly. California has been talking about secession for a decade! Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Oregon have all had small grass roots secession groups in the last 20 years. Some of the reasons were issues like gridlock, governmental overreach, the Affordable Care Act and a loss of faith in the federal government . A September 2017 Zogby International poll found that 68% of Americans were open to states of the USA seceding.

I think an attempt at a full blown secession is unlikely but I have read some interesting articles on variations. Neil Howe, an author and expert on generational cycles wrote in the 90’s that 2020 would be a time of crisis for America.  Howe and his colleague, the late William Strauss, observed that “every generation of Americans fits a particular archetype that influences the personality and practices of subsequent generations.” Some examples of this would be “The greatest generation” of post WWII, The “silent” generation that followed, then the “Baby Boomers”, Generation X, and then Millennials. Howe and Strauss concluded that every 70 to 80 years or so, this generational cycle reaches a tipping point. The Millennials are now the “crisis” generation that wants to “sweep away many established norms and institutions and open the gates to social, economic and political changes that carry the nation forward on a new path.” And here we are in 2021.

One of the most fascinating articles I’ve read was by Kyle Chan, a PhD student at Princeton in April, 2020 entitled “How to Divide the United States into Two Countries”. Fascinating! He does a great job of attempting to maintain political neutrality and divides America on the basis of Blue States and Red States. ” Blue America would create a universal public healthcare system, raise taxes on the wealthy, and open the country to immigration. Red America would drastically cut personal and corporate taxes, restrict immigration, and shrink government spending.” ” Federal resources would be apportioned by population or economic size, including military assets (including nuclear weapons) and strategic stockpiles. Some matters would need to be negotiated such as overseas military bases and the national debt.” Why not??? Creative for sure! Read more here https://medium.com/@kyle.i.chan/how-to-divide-the-united-states-into-two-countries-f388903876b

Tonight America continues in it’s quagmire of social, political and Covid pandemic insanity. Hypocrisy reigns supreme where half the population wants to blame someone else while they ignored the chaos of the “Summer of Love” in Portland, Oregon. I believe America is at the least, already well into a social civil war. As I’ve said before, Trump is not the cause, but the fuse that was lit over 5 years ago as a result of the direction America has been taking for the last 25 years. Once he leaves the White House there will still be over 74 million voters that are unlikely to EVER support the progressive agenda of the Democratic Party. I wish I was more optimistic…..but I think you’ll hear the word secession a lot more in the coming year.