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To Readers: For several years this website has presented columns about the body, brain, and behavior. Here is something a little different. Let me know if you like the occasional “public issues” column such as this. My email address is drstephenjuan@exemail.com.au
Stephen Juan
SECESSION IN THE U.S. IS A POSSIBILITY
Stephen Juan*Early signs are present of the dismantling of the United States of America as we know it. A republic of 50 states administered by a federal government in Washington, D.C. may end by local government first turning their back on Washington and then seceding. It is not a far out prospect. Who would have thought two years before it happened that the Soviet Union would break-up?
To a growing percentage of those in the U.S., the federal government is seen as distant from average people, unresponsive, uncontrollable, and hopelessly corrupt. 80 per cent of those in the U.S. no longer have faith that Washington is capable of solving the massive problems facing the U.S. according to an April survey by the Pew Institute. Most in the U.S. see Washington as not only failing to fix the problems, but causing them too. Populist movements of which the Tea Party is the most notable are growing rapidly. They are largely disorganized and ill-focused now, but they are united in their contempt for all things Washington. Such movements and the feelings of disaffection that propel them grow at the rate of 1 per cent per month. 35 per cent of those in the U.S. say the Tea Party represents their view better than anyone else. For many, the last straw is the perception of betrayal by President Obama on genuine health care reform (60 per cent favoring the “public option” that was excluded even from the negotiations in the bill just passed), ending the imperial occupations in the Middle East (they have expanded), ending torture (it continues), closing Guantanamo (it remains opens), easing unemployment (it remains at record levels), and helping economically struggling families (one in five mortgages are in serious danger of default (unchanged in two years) while the unpopular bank bail- out to help Main Street only helped Wall Street), and many other believed betrayals, failures---call them what you wish.
The upshot is that most are fed up with fed goof up. They are demanding change. Their voices grow louder. As in all political change, words precede action.
States and cities are beginning to go it alone without Washington. As the infrastructure of the U.S. collapses with states and municipalities on the verge of bankruptcy, public schools closing (there are now only four public schools in New Orleans), and roads, highways, bridges, water and sewer systems desperately in need of repairs, states and cities are learning to ignore Washington. Washington will do nothing for them and nothing to them, so why pay attention to Washington at all?
Take what is now happening in Detroit. Totally abandoned by Washington, Detroit is the most notable U.S. economic basket case city with unemployment at 25 per cent (probably higher) and its population reduced to less than 1/3 of what it was 30 years ago. Mayor Dave Bing (a former NBA basketball star with the Detroit Pistons) is placing city employees on involuntary unpaid “furlough” three days per month, knocking down entire suburbs (6,000 houses this year), abandoning street repairs (“dirt tracking” it is called), and returning much of Detroit to “the prairie from which it emerged” as the Detroit Free Press described. Mayor Bing has decided to “do it on our own without Washington” and has initiated the “Motor City Makeover”, “Detroit Turnaround”, “Adopt a Block”, and other local initiatives to regenerate the city. There are now 800 community gardens throughout Detroit as agriculture is again emphasized as it was 200 years ago when Detroit was merely a distant military outpost. This is truly ironic in a city world famous for its auto- manufacturing industrial might. As Detroit and other local government entities ignore Washington, it will not be long until the talk of secession from Washington is put into action.
A 2008 Zogby International poll revealed that 22 per cent of those in the U.S. believe that “any state or region has the right to peaceably secede and become an independent republic”. 2010 polls show this figure is now 36 per cent and continues to grow. At this rate, within the next five years the percentage will become a majority and secessions will start to take place.
From the founding of the U.S. republic in 1787 until the present day, secession attempts have been a regular feature of U.S. history according to Donald Livingston (“The Secession Tradition in America” in Secession, State and Liberty edited by David Gordon , 1995). The U.S. Civil War of 1861-1865 resulted in the crushing of the Confederate States of America the result of a secession movement by 11 southern states. The Civil War brought about the death of 1 in 20 adult males, the military occupation of the southern states for a decade, the economic ravaging of the country from which some argue it never recovered, but also the freeing of 3 million slaves (about 10 per cent of the then U.S. population).
It is surprising to many to learn that it is not necessarily illegal for a state, a city, or entire region of the U.S. to secede from the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court in two post-Civil War rulings has allowed the opening of the door to “legal” secession under the Constitution. In Texas v. White in 1869, the Court allowed some possibility of “divisibility through revolution, or through consent of the States”. In Williams v Bruffy in 1877, the Court suggested that whether or not secession is legal “depends entirely upon its ultimate success”, thus leaving the states to have the option of attempting new forms of political organization.Less well known are many other attempts at secession.
- In 1846 Texas was a republic before it became a state. Texas may legally break up into as many as four states while remaining within the United States or perhaps secede and become a republic once again. Its present Governor Rick Perry suggested just such an action in 2006 and again in his recent re-election campaign. His landslide victory was believed to be fueled by “Texas independence” sentiment.
- In 1850 California was also a republic before it became a state. California may divide into two states if its legislature or its population votes for this by a simple majority. If California secedes from the U.S. and becomes an independent nation it will be the sixth largest world economy.
In 1861 during the U.S. Civil War, the western counties of the state of Virginia seceded from Virginia to become the 35th U.S. state when Virginia joined the Confederacy. This was the last successful secession of any kind. It set a legal precedent that states or even regions within states have some degree of self-determination in matters of secession. - In 1946, although not secession per se, the Philippines was a U.S. territory until it was granted independence after World War II---the only U.S. territory ever to do so. The legal precedent set by this in establishing that Washington as well as states may seek and legally recognized independence has not been lost on legal experts.
- In 1977 Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket attempted to secede from first the state of Massachusetts and then from the U.S.
- In 1988 Staten Island in New York State attempted to secede from the U.S. by vote of its local council. The attempted was legally blocked by the state of New York under New York law of “home rule”.
- In 2004 members of the Second Vermont Republic movement issued a statement of intent called “the Middlebury Declaration” aimed at eventually bringing about the secession of Vermont from the U.S. and serving as a model for other states to secede.
- In 2006 the Supreme Court of Alaska ruled that Alaska could not legally secede from the U.S. under Alaskan law. The Alaskan Independence Party remains a factor in state politics.
- In 2006 the Hawaii sovereignty movement won concessions from the Hawaii state government. The movement now advocates secession from the U.S.
- In 2008 the state of Montana attempted to secede from the U.S. as 60 elected state officials petitioned the U.S. government to allow Montana to do so. Their petition was rejected on a legal technicality.
- In 2008 Long Island attempted to secede from New York state with the comptroller of Suffolk County, arguing that the state takes more in taxes than it gives back in aid in violation of law. A movement now exists to make the same case against the U.S. government and secede from both the state and the U.S.
- In 2008 the Jefferson movement was resurrected in northern California and southern Oregon. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, an attempted was made to bring together the northern-most counties of California and southern-most counties of Oregon into a new state or nation called Jefferson. The movement abruptly ceased in 1941 with the U.S. entry into World War II.
In 2009 a movement in San Francisco seeks to establish that city and county of California as an independent nation modeled somewhat on Monaco but without a royal head of state. - In 2009, in what may be the most provocative act by a state legislative body in the matter of secession, the Georgia Senate passed a resolution 43-1 stating that if the U.S. government “took certain steps” such as restricting firearms or ammunition the state of Georgia would consider that “the United States government would cease to exist”. The state of Georgia would thus become an independent nation. Many in Georgia still yearn for independence from the U.S. since this idea was ingrained in them as children by parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents who reminded them of their humiliation when the Confederacy was defeated and the victorious Union army burned Atlanta to the ground.
Other so-called “lost states or nations” include proposals for Absaroka, Deseret, Lincoln, Superior, Texlahoma, Transylvania, among others. Secession has always been in the back of the mind as a reasonable option should the U.S. government warrant rejection.
The view that the federal government in Washington should be weak in relationship to local government is known as the “States rights” view. It has a long history in the U.S. and continues today. The concept of the states of the U.S. has a longer history than the concept of the U.S. itself. The American colonies were each settled individually in what are roughly the U.S. states of today along the Atlantic seaboard. When the American colonies gained independence from Britain in 1781, a loose organization of 13 states under the Articles of Confederation was established. Under the Articles, states had great power. They could conduct war, establish their own currency, postal systems, road networks, and regulate interstate commerce. This quickly proved unworkable as disputes between states often arose. States nearly went to war several times over such disputes. Enough thought government under the Articles so unworkable that a convention was held in Philadelphia in 1787 and the current U.S. republican government with a stronger federal government under the U.S. Constitution was established. The Constitution was narrowly ratified by the then soon-to-be U.S. states but this by no means ended the debate.
As the disaffection with the U.S. government continues to grow and as Washington ignores Main Street in all but its rhetoric, the real question will be how this anti-federal government attitude will translate into political action at the various local government levels.
Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon secession in the U.S. is a possibility.
*Stephen Juan, Ph.D. is an anthropologist, author, and Ashley Montagu Fellow at the University of Sydney (ret.)
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