"The denial of the right to secede from a voluntary union is itself a primary justification for secession"
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Index of Secessionist Papers
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Secessionist No. 1 by El Cid
Not since the crisis of 1861 has a moment more clearly presented itself for the heirs to the birthright of the Republic formed in 1789 to reassert the principles of our founding. The various liberties and inalienable rights enjoyed by The People as a natural result of God's gift to man and the sovereignty of the several States has been gradually eroded over the course of the history of this nation. Those that have stood on the principles of States Rights and individual liberty have always suffered the disadvantage of lacking the moral high ground in their cause. It was thus in the 1860; and it was so in the 1960's. Without the power of legitimate moral issues and principles efforts to assert the Sovereignty of the States has failed. These failures have created a set of precedence that has allowed the power of the central government to usurp the State on more trivial and mundane matters. The sum and total result is a current federal government that lives and operates far outside of the bound envisioned by our founders. To the State this means a loss of sovereignty and freedom of action. To the individual this means tyranny imposed by a government that is far removed geographically and indifferent to the needs, values and principles of the individual. Read More...
Secessionist No. 2 by El Cid
The Right to Govern,
Free men have always understood the inherent evil nature of government. Governments weld tremendous power over those whom they rule. Invariably all systems of government that are restrained in power solely by the government itself move from liberty to tyranny. Historically this has always been so. When those that control the government establish that the government is superior to the creators and act as the sole judge of the propriety of expanding governmental power tyranny has already begun to take hold. Read More....
Secessionist No. 3 by El Cid
A brief early history of secession in America
Our American history is filled with secession and movements toward political autonomy. Most Americans understand and celebrate many of the aspects of this fact. We understand that the early colonist to this land came seeking economic, religious and political freedom. Their desire to remove themselves from the clutches of a government that they felt did not represent their desires and values is something we look upon with admiration. So too do we celebrate the actions of the Thirteen Colonies in their efforts to declare themselves free and independent states. While most Americans understand that these were each efforts to leave one form of government and establish another the connection between those concepts and secession is lost on most Americans. Read More...
Secessionist No. 4 by El Cid
Secession as the ultimate test of democracy
The fact that the concept of justice and democracy are not always compatible is a notion that we seldom ponder. In a system where 51% of the people are able to obtain what they want and 49% are consistently unable to influence the political process justice is an unobtainable goal. This assumes more than the loss of one particular election. I am speaking of a minority within the general population that holds values and principles at such variance with the majority that they may never hope to significantly influence political outcomes. When the difference in the values and principles of a segment of the population varies so greatly and minority groups are consistently left without an effective voice the will of the majority becomes tyranny for the minority. Read More...
Secessionist No. 5 by El Cid
The Illegitimacy of the 14th Amendment
The issue of the illegitimacy of the 14th Amendment is not one of North versus South. This is an issue of Constitutional principles and the legitimacy of government to govern. The methods used to enact this amendment and the tactics of extortion used to force acceptance of states and people opposed to it are pages torn directly from the history of any empire. The (il)legitimacy of the entire federal government rest on this action. Read More...
Secessionist No. 6 by Brian McCandliss
Were the States Sovereign Nations?
A defining – but so far unasked – question regarding the Civil War is the political status of the states: specifically, was the "United States of America" indeed, as our popular Pledge of Allegiance claims, "one nation, indivisible?" Or was it, rather, a union of sovereign nations, bound only to each other by mere treaty, as with any other treaty – such as the current United Nations? (As a point of fact, the term "union" is the only term used in the text of the Constitution to refer to the United States, while the word "nation" never appears a single time). Read More...
Secessionist No. 7 by Michael Peirce
Considering Secession
In America – we the people are the state, and we live in a constitutional republic which has been usurped. Ours is a voluntary union of states – an old and familiar argument, in no way obviated by the ruthless application of coercive force applied by the central government against us in 1861. We are indeed remiss, but only in that we have failed in our first duty which is to govern ourselves responsibly. Read More...
Secessionist No. 8 by Dr. Walter Block
Given, then, that secession is a human right, part and parcel of the right to free association, how can we characterize those who oppose this? Who would use force and violence, of all things, in order to compel unwilling participants to join in, or to remain part of, a political entity they wish to have nothing to do with? Read More...
Secessionist No. 9 by Hugh Williamson
Taking Secession Seriously: A Primer
As we ponder the necessity of revitalizing the role of states and – especially their interposing and amending power so implicit in the Constitution – we could only augment authentic popular rule by allowing for a greater diffusion of authority. The critics of secesson have argued that restricting the ability of the general government to act might in some fashion produce its own variety of hegemonic or tyrannical rule. Unfortunately, these assessments misrepresent secession as a political concept destined to undermine the structure of the American regime. In actuality, secession may actually allow for the preservation of the original balance of authority and the fortification of a political system against the obstacles it faces. The vindication of a Southern defense of diffused authority can be witnessed in the negative effects of the centralization of political power in America and the world throughout this century. Read More...
Secessionist No. 10 by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Secede!
This is precisely the point. Any effort to recover the old American republic must begin with its constituent parts, the states. And any serious thought on the subject must come to grips with the intellectually rigorous contributions – ranging in subject matter from the political theory of secession to analyses of devolutionist rumblings in Quebec and in Europe – to Secession, State and Liberty, a unique scholarly volume on a subject rarely accorded serious academic treatment. As Professor Wilson puts it, "It would be a shame if, in this world-historical time of devolution, Americans did not look back to an ancient and honorable tradition that lies readily at hand." Read More...
Secessionist No. 11 by Kevin L. Clauson
Secession: A Biblical Defense of Localism
Likewise, it is folly to counsel a legitimate political entity (e.g ., a state) that no matter how much its sovereignty is trampled upon it must remain perpetually in "the union," that no matter how much the larger government breaks the civil covenant the state must go along. (This is as bad as a local church knowingly remaining within a denomination which has clearly become a "Synagogue of Satan" for the sake of peace and unity.) Let not secession be used lightly and for transient reasons. But where called for, as Patrick Henry said: "Give me liberty or give me death." Read More....
Secessionist No. 12 by Kirkpatrick Sale of the Middlebury Institute
Small is Powerful
The response to the last presidential election in this country has been regional and holds the seeds of a real separatist movement. A group on the West Coast called MoveonCalifornia was established in November 2004 and has since been holding meetings under the rubric of a “Committee to Explore California Secession.” The League of the South, which has been pressing for Southern secession for some decades, has found renewed fervor for its cause. A group in New Mexico has proposed a “Republica del Norte” that might include Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and southern Colorado. Hawaii has three secessionist organizations and there’s a move to have a statewide referendum on a return to the independent state it once was. The Alaska Independence Party has been a real force in the state for years—it even got Walter Hickel elected governor on its slate in 1991, though he soon rejected the party—and now has grown to more than 20,000 members, the largest statewide third party in America. And a group in New York City, connected to a weekly called the Brooklyn Rail, has been writing and meeting and propagandizing for a Free NYC movement. Read More....
Secessionist No. 13 by Kirkpatrick Sale of the Middlebury Institute
The Case for American Secession
The Tenth Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the U.S. to the states or the people, so states may act unless specifically prohibited. The Constitution in fact says nothing about secession, and as Confederate states were seceding Congress considered an amendment forbidding secession, which means that the principle wasn’t there in the first place. Three of the original thirteen states (Rhode Island, New York, and Virginia) kept an explicit right to secede when they joined the Union, and since that was never challenged of questioned it must be a right that all states enjoy. And in the 19th century, before South Carolina began the bandwagon of secession in 1860, seven states (Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Vermont) enacted acts of nullification—meaning their refusal to recognize some or all of the powers of the national government—without any retaliation by Washington. Read More....
Secessionist No. 14 by Kirkpatrick Sale of the Middlebury Institute
Seeing Red—and Seeing Blue
Isn’t it obvious that a dissolution of this system would be to the advantage of all? The evangelicals wouldn’t have to live with the godless, the pro-choice people wouldn’t have to keep fighting the pro-lifes, the families frightened by homosexuality wouldn’t have to worry about Will and Grace, the creationists could have their intelligent and other designs all to themselves without threat of Darwinists, the people who find the Iraq war not only illegal but inane wouldn’t have to send their sons and daughters, the states that want to follow Kyoto protocols and establish wind farms and strictly oversee organic standards wouldn’t have to follow a government that doesn’t. Read More....
Secessionist No. 15 by Kirkpatrick Sale of the Middlebury Institute
‘Things Fall Apart,’ Ready or Not
Whether or not secession in the U.S. is practical, as a number of perfectly serious hard-headed people are saying, may not actually even be an important question—it may simply become necessary. For one thing, as hurricane Katrina has glaringly shown, the Federal government is a clumsy, bureaucratic, politicized, and insensitive instrument (and as the rebuilding will show, corrupt as well), and states and localities that give themselves over to depending on it are in real trouble. If communities or states want to survive an emergency of any kind, they are going to have to develop agencies and institutions of their own, grounded in local realities, resources, and capabilities. This is exactly what a secessionist state would be best able to develop, at an efficient and democratic scale. Read More....
Secessionist No. 16 by Brian McCandliss
....therefore, the states currently exist, legally speaking, under an order of pure suppression, whereby their true legal rights and status as separate, sovereign nations-- equal to that of any other nation to be free from coercion by the US government-- are censored via ongoing occupation, backed up by threat of military retaliation for dissent or disobedience by any state. Read More....
Secessionist No. 18 by Thomas J. DiLorenzo July 4, 2006
Happy Secession Day
Jefferson defended the right of secession in his first inaugural address by declaring, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." (In sharp contrast, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln promised an "invasion" with massive "bloodshed" (his words) of any state that failed to collect the newly-doubled federal tariff rate by seceding from the union). Read More....
North American * Secession and Independence Movements
*Hawaii and Puerto Rico are obviously not part of North America, no offense intended
Active Secession Movements Around the World
One Nation Indivisible? A Study of Secession and the Constitution