Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jefferson’s voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincoln’s permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right.

That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic.

After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become

necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

And, having done so, he said, it is the people’s right

to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Contrast that clear articulation of natural law with Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, where he flatly rejected the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Instead, Lincoln claimed that, despite the clear wording of the Tenth Amendment,

no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; [and] resolves and ordinances [such as the Declaration of Independence] to that effect are legally void…

King George III agreed.

Furthermore, Lincoln claimed the right of a king to collect his federal tribute, by violence if necessary. Without even bothering to pretend such authority existed in the Constitution, Lincoln offered (and eventually carried out) a thinly veiled threat that

beyond what may be necessary for [collecting taxes], there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.

In the words of Tony Soprano, pay up and nobody gets hurt.

But perhaps, as some have said, Jefferson intended his Declaration merely as a political tool to justify American independence from Britain. He surely would never have acknowledged or defended an individual state’s right to secede from the very union he helped to found. Except that he did, in his own first inaugural.

Upon assuming the presidency in 1801, amidst severe political and sectional turmoil, Jefferson said

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the 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 free to combat it.

In light of these facts, no serious student of history or politics could believe that Jefferson and Lincoln possessed similar visions for America. Or that Jefferson would have condoned the violent subjugation of a single sovereign state (let alone 11 of them), or thought Lincoln’s disregard for the Constitution in any way legal or justified.

Rather, he would have known at once that what Lincoln spawned through his belligerence was a government capable of violating its own fundamental law at will; of using illegal force to prevent the governed from withdrawing voluntary consent (regardless of their motivation), and thereby destroying consent altogether.

Such a government is incapable of liberty, and antithetical to the very existence of Jefferson’s America.

For that reason, it is not possible to truly understand, and yet still admire, the words and deeds of both men. Despite his occasional use of the Declaration’s language, Lincoln himself despised Jefferson; demonstrating by his policies that they occupied polar opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, as do their political descendants today.

But, after decades spent trying to ignore or deny the irreconcilable disconnect between these two figures, the political class has succeeded only in perpetuating the contradictory and inherently dishonest character of modern American government. Though our system is ostensibly rooted in the rule of law and the ideals of liberty, its current nature is really embodied much more accurately by the lawless despotism of our 16th president.

We cannot continue to have it both ways. The preposterous dichotomy between America’s founding principles and the actions of her government, from the War Between the States to the War on Drugs, has predictably eroded that government’s moral standing at home, and its credibility around the world.

As a society, we cannot both revere a man whose fierce dedication to the right of political self-determination formed the philosophical foundations of our republic, and at the same time worship a dictator whose arrogant and bloody denial of that right transformed our republic into an empire.

It is time to choose. If Americans truly are heirs to the Jeffersonian legacy, than it has always been and must always be, not only our right, but our duty as citizens to withdraw consent from any government that becomes destructive of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

If, however, We the People believe ourselves incompetent to judge when that line has been crossed, then we will continue to find no shortage of political masters eager to carry on Lincoln’s legacy of contempt for our Constitution, and violent suppression of self-government.

Either way, one thing is certain: America will never regain the principles of her founding until her people muster the courage and clarity to finally separate liberty’s friends from its foes.

Josh is a proud “tenther”, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area. Josh is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center.

One thing that consistently vexes me is the amount of time the modern statists, particularly on the Left, spend labeling the idea of decentralization and secession as “kooky.” The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 – if they have read them or know about them – are often portrayed as quaint and unsophisticated pronouncements of provincialism; the Essex Junto and Hartford Convention are called the products of deranged Northern madmen; Andrew Jackson, they say, was on the right side when he threatened the use of force to keep South Carolinian secessionists in line in 1832; and of course, they revel in the ultimate coup de grâce to states’ rights and secession, the Northern victory in the War for Southern Independence. Who could root for the evil, “undemocratic slave power” clad in butternut, anyway?

This would be well and good if their arguments were logical. They of course forget that the South seceded through a democratic process, but beyond that, one only has to look at the history of American socialists and reformers to find that many of them were secessionists and viewed decentralization as the logical path to their “utopian” society.

The case of the failed “utopian” experiment Brook Farm in Roxbury, Massachusetts nicely illustrates how convoluted the Leftist argument against secession has become.

Brook Farm was established by George Ripley and his wife, Sophia, in 1841. They were transcendentalists who believed in the socialist ideology of Frenchman Charles Fourier, the intellectual progenitor of modern feminism. The Ripley’s devised an autonomous community that emphasized a communal lifestyle in the pursuit of leisure.

Every resident was to share equally in the task of growing products for market in order to maximize the time each individual could spend at leisure and learning. Sophia Ripley also ran the communal school. What they found is that most preferred leisure to work and a handful of the residents kept the rest afloat. Part of the commune ultimately burned down, and the Brook Farm “closed” in 1847.

But Brook Farm illustrated how socialist utopians viewed secession, or the removal from society, as the best means to practice their societal values. Fourier ultimately believed that no more than 1600 people should be involved in a single commune and each commune would be autonomous with only a loose confederation to oversee the entire process. In other words, there was very little large-scale centralization and tremendous decentralization, which they rightly viewed as the most democratic method of government.

Additionally, abolitionists consistently called for secession during the 1840s and 1850s. William Lloyd Garrison, for example, demanded an end to the Union in 1843. Henry David Thoreau simply seceded from society at Walden Pond. Other “reform” communities in New York’s “burnt over” district sought the protection secession offered for their way of life. Secession need not come from an established political entity to exist in fact. These groups in many ways viewed themselves as autonomous and democratic societies operating in disobedience of laws they considered unjust.

John Noyes and many of his followers were eventually run out of Oneida, New York for partaking in group marriage, a practice that violated the moral sensibilities of the rest of the state, but something the community believed was perfectly justifiable and natural. By flaunting their independent religious community and thumbing their nose at the state government, the Oneida community ultimately practiced a form of de facto secession from New York.

The same could be said for many individuals who headed west in the nineteenth century. Several towns operated outside the limits of the law, and federal or state power was often non-existent. “Boom towns” often exemplified the anything-goes spirit of the West, though in time churches, banks, schools, and other civilizing entities would show up. Even then, things remained fairly “rough” as long as the gold and silver kept pouring out of the mines.

These were virtually independent communities and many of the people who resided there were interested in evading government for one reason or another. The West offered anonymity and protection from government abuse. The Mormons, who headed to Utah after being kicked out of Illinois, chose the West for that very reason and ultimately went to war with the United States – and threatened secession – after they were placed under the federal heel. But in spirit, they were already independent and had their own laws and government in place.

These were not “right wing” groups by modern standards, particularly the “reform” communes in New York and Massachusetts, but they understood that decentralization offered a hedge against alien threats to their society and lifestyle. Thomas Naylor of Vermont, hardly a “right winger,” has been trumpeting the idea of an independent Vermont for almost a decade.

He has recognized that the lifestyle Vermont citizens want to enjoy will be consistently retarded by imperial bureaucrats in Washington D.C. This only makes sense. If Californians, for example, want universal health care, have at it, but don’t expect the people of Alabama to pay for it. If New York wants to severely curtail private gun ownership, go for it, but don’t subject the people of Georgia to the same loss of civil liberty. That is how federalism should work and is how the founding generation designed it to work.

Leftists would do well to remember that their complaints about a slow and unresponsive federal government could be solved by decentralization. They have more control over state and local governments and could implement their utopian vision of an egalitarian society more quickly and easily. And, if you don’t like where you live, you can always move to a more suitable republic of your choice. There would be plenty of “conservative” and “liberal” republics to choose from in North America.

Of course, as we all know, modern state socialism is an ideology of power, money, and statism, which is why its “champions” at the federal level, the “progressives,” will never allow decentralization to infiltrate their political vocabulary; however, if enough Americans could be rightly persuaded that Washington is not the answer, either for “conservative” or “liberal” causes, then maybe the people would be willing to part ways and allow the Left to dominate the Northeast and West Coast and the Right to control the South and Mountain States.

This is a peaceful, just, and democratic solution to a centuries-old problem. Let the people of each sovereign state decide their own fate. As Thomas Jefferson said in 1801, “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 to the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Brion McClanahan [send him mail] received his Ph.D. in American History from the University of South Carolina and is a History Professor at Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City, Alabama. He is the author of Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers (Regnery, 2009).

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry said last month that his state had the right to secede from the United States, liberals scoffed, laughing at the mere suggestion.

When polls showed that one third of Texans believed in the right of secession, one liberal blogger said it was further proof of “just how whacked out Republicans are becoming during these days of their political exile.”

When various states introduced sovereignty resolutions, including South Carolina and Oklahoma, liberals considered it childish posturing; the Charleston City Paper’s Greg Hambrick wrote, S.C.’s legislature was just “stomping their feet in dissatisfaction” with the Obama administration.

For many, the question of American secession was settled once-and-for-all by Abraham Lincoln’s military victory against the South. Not so, writes Kirkpatrick Sale, author and director of the Mulberry Institute, a pro-secession think tank: “Of course, it is true that the particular secession of 1861-65 did not succeed, but that didn’t make it illegal or even unwise. It made it a failure, that’s all. The victory by a superior military might is not the same thing as the creation of a superior constitutional right.”

Sale raises a good point. If the Founding Fathers had lost the American Revolution to Great Britain, would the colonial’s quest to secede from England have been decided forever, all because of a military loss? The idea that the U.S. could still be an outpost of the British Empire is one that many today would find as laughable as some find secession.

Consider the secessionist movements around the world the U.S. has supported in just the last few decades. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and its 15 satellite nations declared their independence, America cheered. Our military intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s found the U.S. on the side of the Albanian secessionists. On the American Left, support for Tibet’s secession from China remains a popular cause célèbre.

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Can states secede? There are three levels on which this question can be answered:

1. the inalienable right of secession,
2. the international law of secession, and
3. the US law of secession.All three say yes.

The Inalienable Right of Secession

The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America invokes the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that governments are formed to protect these rights and gain their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that when a government becomes abusive of these rights, it is the right — no, it is the duty — of the people to alter or abolish that government.

To say governments were formed to protect the rights of men would be historically incorrect. Almost all governments were formed by ruthless men exerting their will over others through the use of force. Some governments, over time, evolved toward the rule of law, perhaps only because their rulers saw that this would sanction their own continued enjoyment of the wealth that they possessed. In some instances, this evolution involved one or more “revolutions” in which those who were governed were able to better establish the rule of law.

The language of the Declaration should not be construed as an argument about the historical origins of government but, rather, as what would be true and just to an enlightened person, namely, that as persons and as communities of persons, we have the right and the duty to alter or abolish governments that become abusive of our rights. As Benjamin Franklin once put it, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

The concept of an inalienable right of secession was not original to the American Revolution. It can be traced to the scholastics, to Reformation politics, and to the most ancient Greek and Hebrew writings. Without going into a dissertation on the subject, let me simply point to the flag of the state of Virginia, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson. It depicts a female warrior (Athena) standing atop a slain tyrant (Zeus).

According to legend, Zeus, the greatest and most terrible of the gods, was supposed to be the god of law, yet he was himself lawless. When he heard that he would sire a child who would destroy him, he swallowed his wife whole to prevent it. But the child grew within him and then burst from him fully grown. This child was Athena, the goddess of victory, liberty, and peace. And, she did indeed slay her father. It should be easy to see, in this legend, how the rule of law might be established from a government formed through the use of force.

Now, does a massive increase in taxes, in spending, and in the federal deficit constitute such an abuse of the rights of men as to justify secession under the doctrine of an inherent right to secede? I don’t think so. Ask me about the inherent right to secede when the government starts to restrict our freedom of speech, to shut down the independent media, to confiscate our guns, and to take away our children.

The International Law of Secession

The international law of secession is in the process of emerging at this very time. The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicates that all people have the right to a country. A corollary of this is that no people should long be kept in nationless status, e.g., the Palestinians. A further corollary of this is that no people should long be kept in any subjugated status, such as by being citizens or subjects of a country from which they are alienated.

Now, as a practical matter, consideration has to be given to whether an identifiable people exist in an identifiable place. At least, this is the current thinking. But, if these several elements come together: an identifiable people in an identifiable place that grouse under the subjugation of the larger nation, there is a growing consensus that this people and place can be severed from the larger nation, even by rebellion and with support from outside the larger nation. East Timor, Eritrea, and the devolutions of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (including the ongoing situation in Kosovo) illustrate the development of the international law of secession.

Turning to the United States, it is now well established that the country consists of so many “red” (Republican) and “blue” (Democrat) states, along with a few “purple” (battleground) states. Even in a so-called landslide, like 2008, only a few states “flip” from Republican to Democrat, and these states go from close Republican to close Democrat. Furthermore, the whole purpose of elections has become to decide whether Democrats get to raise taxes on Republicans while adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax so as to minimize the impact on themselves, and whether Democrats get to force acceptance of gay marriage onto Republicans or whether Republicans get to force unwanted pregnancies onto Democrats. In other words, there no longer is any pretense of federalism in which domestic policy is left to the states of the Union.

Under these conditions, it can be argued that, were either party to fall into permanent minority status, and the other party to establish hegemonic control over the so-called federal government, the people in the other party could be said to be an alienated, identifiable people in an identifiable place, and could assert a right to secede under emerging international law.

The argument for secession under emerging international law might be strongest for Alaska. Geographically, the place is disjoint from the other states of the Union, making it an identifiable place. Furthermore, under their state constitution’s explicit right of privacy, possession of small amounts of marijuana is a right; yet, the so-called federal government imposes the costs of its war on drugs onto the citizens of Alaska.

Furthermore, the people of Alaska have been long frustrated in developing their natural resources because of the opposition by majorities in the “lower 48.” Indeed, as a separate nation, Alaska might be the freest place in the world, with zero taxes because of its wealth in natural resources, well-established civil liberties, and a socially tolerant, live-and-let-live attitude among its people.

Following Alaska, states such as Florida and Texas would have the next best arguments for secession under international law, since they are themselves on a seacoast and their secession would not much disrupt the road, transmission wire, pipeline or other infrastructure networks of the other states.

States such as Utah and Kentucky, being landlocked “enclaves,” would have a relatively weak argument. On the other hand, it would be relatively easy for these states to join with other states that have already seceded or are in the process of seceding, and form a patchwork of independent republics that develop compacts to facilitate interstate travel, commerce, water flow, transmission of electricity, and so forth.

US Law of Secession

The US law of secession is thought to have been decided by the US Supreme Court in White v. Texas, following the Civil War. The actual matter to be decided was relatively insignificant. The Court used the occasion to issue a very broad decision. Chief Justice Chase, speaking for the Court, said,

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.

Notice that the second sentence appears to totally contradict the first sentence.

The first sentence I just quoted invokes words such as “perpetual,” and in so doing may create the impression that the Supreme Court decreed that no state could ever secede from the Union. But, on careful reading, the relationship between Texas and the other states of the Union is merely “as indissoluble as the union between the original States.” In other words, Texas, having been a nonoriginal state, has no greater right of secession than do the original states. As to how states might secede, the second sentence says, “through revolution or through consent of the States.”

As to why a state might secede, either through revolution or through consent, Chief Justice Chase presciently discusses the 9th and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution, which reserve to the states and to the people thereof all powers not expressly granted to the federal government, and that the design of the Union, implicit in the very name “United States,” is the preservation of the states as well as of the Union:

the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government.

The so-called United States of America ceases to exist when the political majority of the country attempts to rule the entire country as a nation instead of as a federal government. In such a circumstance, the “indestructible union of indestructible states” of which the Court speaks is already dissolved.

As to whether “Texas” continued as a state and, furthermore, as a state of the United States during the period of rebellion, the Court made clear that it continued as both although certain rights that normally accrue to states of the United States fell into suspension. Presumably, if Texas had seceded “with the consent of the States,” Texas would have been able to free itself from the Union described as the “United States,” and could have considered joining into another Union described as the “Confederate States.”

Also presumably, if the Confederate States of America had been able to impose their will onto the other states of the United States through force or had been able to induce the other states to consent, Texas and the other states of the Confederate States could have seceded from one Union and joined into another. But, the outcomes of wars are problematic.

How Do “the States” Consent to Secession?

The wide-ranging discussion of the Court in White v. Texas contains a lot of intriguing and obtuse comments. How, for example, do “the States” give consent to the secession of a state? The Constitution, as the Court says, does not envision such a thing, and does not provide a process. What if the legislatures of “the States” sent delegates to a convention that drafted a constitution for a more perfect union, which would take effect for those states that ratified it, providing that at least a two-thirds majority of them did so? For those who were not homeschooled, it may be necessary to point out that this was the process through which the Constitution of 1789 was created and through which eleven states seceded from the union provided by the Articles of Confederation, leaving Rhode Island and North Carolina as the only two states in that prior union. (Those two states eventually also seceded from the prior union, thereupon making it a nullity, and joined into the new union.)

While the Constitution of 1789 required the secession of 9 out of 13 states, does this mean that a supermajority of the states would be necessary for consent? It seems to me that a supermajority would not be necessary, but only a simple majority, for a US version of what is called the “Velvet Revolution” in the former Czechoslovakia, now the Czech and Slovak Republics. In that country, dissolution involved nothing more earth shattering than a bunch of accountants who scurried about the country, totting up the value of the assets of the national government that would fall into the possession of each succeeding government so as to determine how to fairly apportion the national debt to the succeeding governments. Of course, in that case, both succeeding governments transitioned to membership in the European Union, guaranteeing the free flow of goods, labor and capital between them and the other members of the E.U., as well as guaranteeing certain civil liberties and democratic processes to the persons in each of the succeeding republics.

Looking at the electoral maps of the United States of recent presidential elections, it appears that the potentially disaffected red states of a socially liberal, economically socialist blue nation constitute a nearly compact, self-contained block from the southeast coast to the Rocky Mountain west, plus Alaska. Indiana and Ohio appear as two purple states jutting into an otherwise blue Great Lakes region.

New Hampshire is a purple state in a deeply blue New England (but, being a coastline state, it would not matter much that it was not connected by land to other breakaway states). Contrariwise, Colorado and New Mexico are two purple or blue states in the Rocky Mountain region that might wind up as enclaves of Old America amidst the independent republics of New America.

Of course, once it becomes clear that a majority of the states — and specifically those that are the most productive — are seceding, the remaining states of Old America will have to consider their options. Would they want to bail out the corporations, the unionized public-school teachers, municipal workers, and the UAW, and the bankrupt states of California and New Jersey, among others, when the burden falls much more heavily onto them?

A state like Minnesota, with a solid work ethic, which tends to vote Democratic in presidential elections, might think it could do better with New America than with the moochers of Old America. Even Iowa, where they bury farmers only three feet deep nowadays, so they can still get their hand out, will have to weigh the pros of the ethanol subsidies they receive versus the cons of the taxes they will have to pay to subsidize everybody else. Possibly, once the rush gets underway, the only “state” that will be left in Old America will be the District of Columbia.

Clifford F. Thies is the Eldon R. Lindsay Chair of Free Enterprise at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA. Send him mail. See his article archives. Comment on the blog.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

All the mainstream news outlets are laughing at the secession sentiment across the nation, so brace yourself. There are over eight state sovereignty resolutions floating about under the rubric of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in addition to nearly twenty pending resolutions in other states. The DC embrace of Obamunism is frightening plenty of folks to include state legislators and driving Montana to kick the ATF out of the state in a landmark move to completely ignore the unconstitutional and hoplophobic notions of our rulers in Mordor on the Potomac when it comes to the keeping and bearing of weapons.

Secession has been broached in polite conversation by the Governor of Texas, no less. It is not as if the notion is new since the unfortunate victory of Union/Yankee forces in 1865. New England threatened it decades before Lincoln’s War and the Great Depression spawned a variety of secessionist discontents.

We don’t have to be embarrassed by the notion of secession. We are a nation birthed in divorce from a tyrannical Crown and the Second American Revolution popularly known as the Civil War. Lincoln’s Jacobins won that fight but we don’t have to suffer that forever nor yield them a high ground of virtue.

The esteemed Donald Livingston avers:

“As part of expanding this imagination, we must work to remove the moral and philosophical prejudice against the very idea of secession. America was born in secession; secession is essential to the idea of a self-governing people; and until 1865 was widely considered an option available to an American state in all parts of the union. But secession short of national sovereignty is also possible. Parts of cities and counties may secede. A part of a state may secede and form another state as twenty-seven counties in northern California proposed to do in 1992. The mere discussion of the merits of such proposals, whether or not they succeed, will serve to detoxify the idea of secession and re-awaken in Americans the long slumbering notion of self-government induced by the opiate of the Lincolnian ideology of a modern unitary American state.”

For the first time in generations, secession can be a topic of polite conversation albeit slightly odd. We need to capitalize on this and shake Americans out of the government supremacist fever dream that has gripped these united States since the woeful conclusion of the Second American Revolution.

A number of readers have written and inquired after a basic canon of reading to reinforce the intellectual gunships of our minds for the coming fight. I have made a number of book recommendations throughout my essays and these will be new additions. I am purposefully suggesting the more arcane or unknown tomes because many writers before me have provided ample lists or annotated bibliographies. Consider this an introductory sampling to whet your insurrectionist taste buds.

First and foremost, the number one imprint in my mind for these books is Liberty Fund. I have been collecting their books for nearly two decades and the offerings are huge and may consume a lifetime of reading pleasure and exploration in the mental forests of liberty and freedom. Tall timber indeed. Start with Cato’s Letters by Trenchard and Gordon loosely credited with providing tremendous impetus to the First American Revolution. They are lyrical, witty and eminently readable despite their eighteenth-century pedigree. In Cato Number 15 (1720), to wit:

“Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius. Tacitus tells us, that the Roman commonwealth bred great and numerous authors, who writ with equal boldness and eloquence: But when it was enslaved, those great wits were no more.”

Next, I would suggest Hyneman and Lutz’ American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760–1805. Worth every penny just to read the stirring Noah Webster entry, “An Oration on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence” (1802). Take a gander at the selections available at Liberty Fund and you will find plenty of other books which speak to the issues of today despite their antiquarian vintage. There is a reason the Founders bridged back to the Greco/Roman epochs for their primary inspirations.

Now for the real intellectual heavy lifting. Start a liberty reading group and get together over adult beverages to discuss these. Look for a copy of the Anti-Federalist Papers and absorb these documents. They speak more to the libertarian mindset than the oft-quoted Hamiltonian articles and essays in the Federalist Papers.

The next volume would be a modest but important tome called Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism, 1827–1908 by James J. Martin. Martin rivals Harry Elmer Barnes as one of the most important historical revisionist influences in American letters and a bracing writer at that. He explores a relatively unheralded fight by the embryonic state resisters in the nineteenth century after the initial hopes of limited government are dashed against the rocks of statism. Martin’s books provides a wonderful introduction to the man I consider the giant of liberty in the nineteenth century, Lysander Spooner. Lawyer, abolitionist and fiery polemicist, Spooner was prolific and devastating in his critiques of the state and its predations. Spooner’s No Treason is the first stop but you will find his reasoning irresistible to pursue. In a letter to Grover Cleveland (one of my favorite Presidents), he comments on his Inaugural Speech:

“Sir, if a government is to “do equal and exact justice to all men,” it must do simply that, and nothing more. If it does more than that to any, – that is, if it gives monopolies, privileges, exemptions, bounties, or favors to any, – it can do so only by doing injustice to more or less others. It can give to one only what it takes from others; for it has nothing of its own to give to any one. The best that it can do for all, and the only honest thing it can do for any, is simply to secure to each and every one his own rights, – the rights that nature gave him, – his rights of person, and his rights of property; leaving him, then, to pursue his own interests, and secure his own welfare, by the free and full exercise of his own powers of body and mind; so long as he trespasses upon the equal rights of no other person.”

We move on to the trenchant critiques of the War of Northern Aggression of which Charles Adams is the first stop in his magisterial When in the Course of Human Events. I can recommend no more accessible and informative read for the layman than this treatise on why secession was not only justified but an imperative for survival of the Southron culture and people at the time. I eagerly await his anticipated volume on the exchanges between John Stuart Mill and Charles Dickens as the latter manned the gunwales to mount a withering defense of the Confederacy in the London papers. There is an entire cottage industry on Confederate apologia available as evidenced by the King Lincoln archives on LRC. In addition, both of DiLorenzo’s books on Lincoln are excellent resources.

I find the twentieth century is chock-full of courageous writers who speak to the individualist/non-interventionist strain of political philosophy to draw intellectual armament for the secession fight here and now. Whether it is Mencken, Nock or Chodorov; they are a sampling of the vast pool of knowledge presently in the memory hole which will lead us out of our present regrettable circumstances as a nation.

I would recommend the entire canon of my friend, Kirkpatrick Sale, leading sage of the Middlebury Institute and a keen advocate of secession. I also consider Gore Vidal’s canon to be an almost seamless narrative education in historical fiction on why the American Leviathan was destined to become the monster it is. I actually consider Vidal the keenest novelist in the twentieth century. And lastly, I would offer the fascinating ruminations of Bill Kaufmann, the iconoclastic author of Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals, an excellent writer who offers some savvy observations on America’s historical flirtation with localism and decentralist tendencies.

This list is not comprehensive by any stretch and I am sure more recommendations will follow in the future. I have arranged the books in a relatively chronological order for simplicity’s sake. America has been the most nourishing soil for individualism in the West since the Hellenic world. Individualism and the state don’t mix. The scales are falling away. Eyes front, the fight is ahead of us. Tom Paine would be proud.

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, it we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”
- Samuel Adams, article published in 1771

William Buppert [send him mail] and his homeschooled family live in the high desert in the American Southwest.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry rattled cages when he suggested that Texans might at some point become so disgusted with Washington’s gross violation of the U.S. Constitution that they would want to secede from the union. Political hustlers, their media allies and others, who have little understanding, are calling his remarks treasonous. Let’s look at it.

When New York delegates met on July 26, 1788, their ratification document read, “That the Powers of Government may be resumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; that every Power, Jurisdiction and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the People of the several States, or to their respective State Governments to whom they may have granted the same.”

On May 29, 1790, the Rhode Island delegates made a similar claim in their ratification document. “That the powers of government may be resumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness: That the rights of the States respectively to nominate and appoint all State Officers, and every other power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by the said constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States or to the departments of government thereof, remain to the people of the several states, or their respective State Governments to whom they may have granted the same.”

On June 26, 1788, Virginia’s elected delegates met to ratify the Constitution. In their ratification document, they said, “The People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will.”

As demonstrated by the ratification documents of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, they made it explicit that if the federal government perverted the delegated rights, they had the right to resume those rights. In fact, when the Union was being formed, where the states created the federal government, every state thought they had a right to secede otherwise there would not have been a Union.

Perry is right when he says that there is no reason for Texas to secede. There are indeed intermediate actions short of secession that states can take. Thomas Jefferson said, “Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

That suggests that one response to federal encroachment is for state governments to declare federal laws that have no constitutional authority null and void and refuse to enforce them.

While the U.S. Constitution does not provide a specific provision for nullification, the case for nullification is found in the nature of compacts and agreements. Our Constitution represents a compact between the states and the federal government.

As with any compact, one party does not have a monopoly over its interpretation, nor can one party change it without the consent of the other. Additionally, no one has a moral obligation to obey unconstitutional laws. That’s not to say there is not a compelling case for obedience of unconstitutional laws. That compelling case is the brute force of the federal government to coerce obedience, possibly going as far as using its military might to lay waste to a disobedient state and its peoples.

Finally, here’s my secession question for you. Some Americans accept and have respect for the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Other Americans, the majority I fear, say to hell with the Tenth Amendment limits on the federal government. Which is a more peaceful solution: one group of Americans seeking to impose their vision on others or simply parting company?

Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Walter E. Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master’s degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles.

This is a follow-on fictional treatment to the three previous essays on secession available in my archives starting with “Good Morning, Mr. President.”

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

~ Abraham Lincoln, (speech in Congress January 1848)

Idaho started the ball rolling and seceded from these united States. A total dissolution of America quickly followed as schisms and fissures erupted across North America. The collapse of the Mexican government caused a tidal wave of immigration to wash in to the southwestern portions of the former country. The great financial collapse of the world economy centered on the fiscal and monetary mischief in DC and Wall Street added yet more fuel to the fire. To tarnish the American reputation even more, hundreds of thousands of American troops were left stranded and penniless around the globe as the economic meltdown in America reduced the dollar to Zimbabwean valuations. To make matters worse, the government in DC instituted blanket loyalty oaths as a precursor for repatriation of returning soldiers who had managed to get home. This in turn caused entire National Guard and reserve units to return to their homes and assist in the buildup of forces in those states to fight the various doomed attempts by the central government to bring the rebellious states to heel.

The US followed in the footsteps of every other empire; corruption, decay and imperial overreach both at home and abroad. The District of Columbia still maintains a tenuous rump government known as the United States Socialist Republic (USSR) in control of the New England/Virginia states but power brownouts/blackouts, food shortages and insurgent activity have caused ambitions to whither to reunite the nation. Rumors of gulags, reeducation camps, oppressive domestic population controls and blanket censorship remain a common narrative for refugees escaping from the USSR. Repeated military strikes and adventures to bring the nation back to its original 2009 configuration failed and consequently, managed to cause the divisibility to exponentially expand. Total combat losses for USSR forces are unofficially estimated at 156,000 killed and wounded and a half-million missing in action. Excepting attempts by USSR guerillas to form pockets of resistance and insurrection, the entire effort has failed. There is some speculation FSA and Alaskan acquisition of nuclear devices on former US bases within their respective borders caused the USSR to pause and retreat but this remains unconfirmed.

The country has fractured into both natural and uneasy alliances. The west coast states formed a tight Green Coalition alliance in what is now Pacifica. Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Nevada have formed the Free State Alliance (FSA) confederation with very close relations with the Alaska Republic. An immense brain-drain from Pacifica to the FSA has resulted from the ecotopian experiment. The Dakotas remain on the fence as to whether they will join them or sign on with the Midwestern Alliance. The Lakota Sioux will remain their own nation regardless. The American South and Southwest are still in the throes of a multi-sided civil war. Hawaii has reverted back to its roots with the inauguration of King Kamehameha VI and the annexation of all non-Hawaiian property back to the native islanders.

Quebec has broken away and fighting remains sporadic in the western Canadian provinces as the national government continues to press for its supremacy over the rebel Canadian states in the west. There are reports of insurgent materiel and support from the Free State Alliance to British Columbia but these reports remain unsubstantiated.

Mexico has splintered into approximately ten separate states with alliances between the various 31 states that comprised Mexico ebbing and flowing on a daily basis. While the USSR maintain strict drug prohibition, the decriminalization of drug laws in Pacifica and the Free State Alliance has significantly weakened the strength of the Mexican drug cartels to finance their activities.

Fears of meddling on the part of China, Russia and Middle Eastern states have appeared to be exaggerated as those nations grapple with their own economic and social collapse difficulties.

The rapid expansion of oil drilling unfettered by confiscatory taxation and regulatory nonsense from DC has caused an economic boom that may prove to leave both the Alaska Republic and the FSA as the North American “Tigers” economically.

The following interview was granted by Governor Lutrin of Idaho and broadcast on Voice of Liberty.

“Good morning, Governor.”

“Good morning, John.”

“Ten years ago, I suspect no one would have seen this transpire the way it has. No one would have suspected that the map of America would be this different. Do you think that this has been the outcome the Founders would have wanted?”

“Hamilton would be apoplectic but I suspect that Jefferson would be pleased and, of course, Tom Paine and Sam Adams would see this as inevitable. Why it took so long for the rotten structure to sunder itself, I will never know. Mind you, I did not come into office anticipating this chain of events.”

“Has it been a rough ride for Idaho and the FSA?”

“Quite frankly, we sensed that there was nothing easy about the fateful decision to get DC out of our state and out of our lives. I was embarking on a journey that my great-great-great grandfather witnessed in South Carolina in 1860 and we were praying for better results. To say that we were stepping into a void is an understatement. Not everyone in the state agreed with our course of action but I was convinced the people hired me not only to represent them but to exercise my own moral compass and judgment much like the Founders when they seceded from the United Kingdom.

The death and destruction we suffered was tremendous as a result of both insurgents and US [now USSR] armed forces employed against us. Possibly the only thing that kept us from getting overwhelmed was the disproportionate number of US troops deployed overseas and the concomitant crisis where the currency collapse caused many of them to be stranded in Indian country abroad. That, of course, led to some bitterness. Idaho had a reputation as a rather well-armed bastion but the ensuing guerilla conflict against the Federal forces was far more than they anticipated. There were even several assassination attempts against me…”

“One of which you thwarted by killing the assassin yourself…”

“Well, I have always considered it sociopathic to outsource my self-defense to others so carrying a weapon was a daily routine even before the conflict…

I have to tell you that we would not have prevailed if other states such as Montana and Wyoming among others had not joined the fray. I have to say that the number of murdered civilians by Federal forces tipped the war in our favor. I can never mend those families but the massive indiscriminate firepower and total disregard for civilian casualties turned the tide against the Federal forces. I would think that the failures of military effectiveness in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been a consideration but the war on Americans in their own country became a very bitter contest. Federal units may have owned the roadways but once they started to step into the wilderness or hinterlands even in large formations they were picked apart and annihilated.”

“There are rumors of Federal forces still in Idaho and the FSA…”

“Very true but those incidents are getting more and more scarce as time passes. Ironically, after the major hostilities ceased nearly six months ago, almost half the Federal forces in the region deserted and joined us once we had enjoined a treaty for repatriation of families and guarantees against reprisals with the DC government during secret talks.”

“Why were the talks secret?”

“Six months into the conflict, currency collapses and corruption in DC had so stymied and hampered the war effort both here and abroad, they had no choice but to negotiate but they dare not do so in public or they would have lost electoral support and you know where a politicians’ bread is buttered. We got plenty of concessions and I was able to look the President in the eye and tell him: ‘No, you can’t!’. We could have avoided the bloodshed if we had simply been granted a civil divorce per our request in the first place.”

“How would you characterize life in Idaho and the FSA now?”

“Life is difficult especially for those who have lost family, homes and fortunes. But we are rebuilding and we are free. We now have our own private banking system employing real gold & silver to back the specie. We have shut down and sold all Federal government property and are currently starting the second year cycle to bid out all Federal and State lands to private individuals and investors. There is zero government money going into the education system.

Each of the Confederation members in the FSA, and Alaska for that matter, are experimenting with different levels of state governance. In Idaho and Montana, for instance, all the timber interests subscribe to a private consortium for firefighting. Would you invest in a timber enterprise that did not seek to protect their own investment? So we think the incentives are more reality-based instead of the perverse and corrupting laws DC forced upon us.

We have left it up to the counties and subsidiary units to figure out what works best. The Federal Register has no weight here and all the courts are being privatized. The only gun law remaining on the books is if the gun is used in the commission of a crime. We have also imposed term limits on all politicians to one term in their lifetime.

Government is a nasty habit and it will take more than a year to kill the addiction but we feel that the competitive laboratories the states are creating will give us a running start to find the best path. This is the greatest failure of DC rule; it allowed no freedom of choice in so many areas of our lives. We are now free to choose, fail and prosper. We don’t have all the answers. For instance, we have eliminated all our drug laws on the books and have decriminalized possession, sale and production. Utah has not, so we will see how that works out.

The remaining part-time politicians in the statehouse are even offered personal bounties for reducing or eliminating budget items. I would much rather give a politician five percent of a one million dollar program than spend the money on the program in to perpetuity. We are also basing their salaries on an inverse ratio. In other words, the more money they vote to spend out of taxpayer’s pockets, the lower their salaries and compensation. Would I like to close the doors to the statehouse permanently? Sure, but we aren’t there yet.”

“Governor, one term means you are out next year. What are your plans?”

“To mind my own business.”

“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

William Buppert [send him mail] and his homeschooled family live in the high desert in the American Southwest.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

There is a secession movement afoot and its proponents are determined to put a halt to the federal government’s ambitions to destroy and reconstruct an entire economy and dissolve the last remnants of individual liberty. Twenty-eight states are invoking the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, by rolling out legislation to assert their sovereignty as free states in order to keep from being undermined by the never-ending swarm of unrestrained federal decrees.

The speed with which the federal government intends to take over private institutions and usurp states’ rights and individual autonomy is unprecedented. When the Bush-Obama regime maneuvers are compared to the Hoover-FDR New Deal era, it looks like today’s hare vs. yesterday’s turtle. The state’s various propaganda arms, from big media to institutionalized special interest forces, are being empowered to publicize and sell the agenda of the totalitarian state by painting it in glossy colors that warm the hearts of unresisting Americans. There are, however, growing pockets of dissenters who conclude that life, liberty, property, and the futures of their children are more important than the trivial things that occupy the minds of the submissive class. For that reason, the state’s militarized police force, which has been given unparalleled powers by the contrived crises following 9-11, has snowballed in size and is being fortified in expectation of confronting rebellion from those citizens who intend to resist the tyranny of an over-reaching Leviathan.

Since the Bush II regime took control and 9/11 became its launch pad for sweeping hegemony, the police state has moved more swiftly than ever to demonize resistance and criminalize dissent. The most recent example is the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report that profiled individuals according to their political convictions, especially those ideas that agitate against the institutionalization of unconstitutional acts that are intended to grow state power at the expense of individual liberties. Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr (!), guns & ammo, taxes, the Federal Reserve, secession, and resistance to universal government service or anti-privacy actions – all of those topics have become keywords in the crusade to criminalize individuals who refuse to be rounded up like cattle and marched toward serfdom.

Two years ago, a similar thing happened in Alabama when its Homeland Security Department released a report pigeonholing freedom activists as “anti-government types” who “claim that the U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government’s policies are criminal and immoral.” Such groups, the report said, “May hold that the current government is violating the basic principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution…” Don’t bother to look up that report, however, because LewRockwell.com blogger Chris Brunner’s post on the Alabama report spread like wildfire ’round the Internet, resulting in that report being pulled from the website.

In addition, the MIAC report was quickly stifled by hordes of liberty activists, leading Chuck Baldwin to say, “the most effective way to fight an ever-encroaching federal leviathan is to focus on our individual states.”

The struggle for sovereignty, though begun on the part of spontaneous individuals with leanings toward the radical principles of our nation’s founding, has reached state legislatures across America in the form of sovereignty bills. According to the Christian Science Monitor, twenty-eight states are now commencing resolutions as a reaction to the sudden and massive expansion of federal powers. Even the Republic of Lakotah is declaring its withdrawal from all treaties and agreements imposed on it by the US government. The notion of state secession, once written off as a subject matter for political crackpots and eccentrics, has become a legitimate and practical solution for undoing the years of accumulated assaults on individual liberty that has come from the centralized state.

With revolutionary die-hards behind him, Mr. Pitts has fired a warning shot across the bow of the Washington establishment. As the writer of one of 28 state “sovereignty bills” – one even calls for outright dissolution of the Union if Washington doesn’t rein itself in – Pitts is at the forefront of a states’ rights revival, reasserting their say on everything from stem cell research to the Second Amendment.

…And although Pitts [state rep from South Carolina] hails from Abbeville, the place where the South’s first secession votes were cast, he insists that today’s efforts to check federal power aren’t limited to regional pockets or even political affiliation. “The mainstream media would portray some of us as rednecks, whether we’re from Pennsylvania, Oregon, or South Carolina,” says Pitts. “But this is a wake-up call. And if Washington doesn’t heed that wake-up call, revolution is on the horizon.”

That is from a recent issue of the Christian Science Monitor. Walter Williams, a respected academic and popular, syndicated columnist, declared this in his most recent column:

Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it’s the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George’s actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance – perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we’ve become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants – has made us easy prey for Washington’s tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans’ characteristic spirit of rebellion.

Emory Professor and constitutional scholar Don Livingston notes, in his Secessionist Paper No. 19: What is Secession?, “talk about secession makes Americans nervous. For many it evokes images of the Civil War, and is emotionally (if not logically) tied to slavery, war, and anarchy. That the word “secession” is laden with these negative connotations should be surprising since America was born in an act of secession.” He goes on to describe secession as an act that “does not seek to overthrow or alter the government of a modern state, but seeks merely to limit its jurisdiction over the seceding territory.”

But still, the negative connotations of secession live on, even within some libertarian circles. Perhaps the most puzzling thing I keep hearing from some libertarians is that those of us who adhere to secessionist ideas are wacky outliers who offer no value “to the movement,” and instead, we only throw up red flags that warn others to avoid us, and libertarianism as a whole. Thus we are led to believe that our founding fathers, the architects of rebellion and the champions of Jeffersonian principles, were reactionary wackos.

The anti-radical libertarians ask for practical solutions, with “practical” being the code word for something that is acceptable to the majority of the Oprahized masses. This kind of thought is known as “libertarian lite,” or as I call it, “car wash libertarianism.” The car wash libertarians persuade others – “especially those new to libertarianism – to stay away from the radical, “crazy” stuff and hold true to the agenda of getting “our people” elected through legitimate political means. The car wash libertarians still have a voice in the modern LP, which is also known as GOP 2.0. These libertarians are in the game not for reasons of deep-rooted principles and love of liberty, but for the social, bonding aspects, with some mild libertarianism sprinkled on the side. They love attending their local meetings and dinners each month and discussing who is going to run for what local post, and when, and applying strategy. How fun it all is. City council or board of county commissioners? Now those are appointments that will have a significant impact upon an America that is quickly descending into a Communistic hellhole.

Truth is, the car wash libertarians will be the ones cowering in a corner the day they come for our guns (under a massive, federal gun control act) and our children (under federal, child “protective services” laws or a national service act). But they may have a post or two at some tiny township, with such important duties as arranging for an annual dinner at the VFW or setting up the car wash fundraiser to pay for new lamp posts along Main Street. The car wash libertarians tend to have scant knowledge of history, monetary policy, constitutional disputes, and the political philosophers who have, over the years, defended states’ rights and the natural rights of the individual against the totalitarian, centralized state. In fact, they tend to shy away from the intellectual life because it’s not as fun, or as social, as the monthly meetings and supper club invites.

In spite of the radicalism of many of the early LP’ers, in 30+ years the LP has made no advances whatsoever, except that a few of them hold feeble local offices where it is their brand of politics in charge as versus the other guy’s rules. One guy’s coercion in place of another guy’s coercion offers us no progress whatsoever in terms of quelling the federal expansion that is speedily choking off life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The rapid-fire socialization of America, I hope, will have the effect of turning many of these libertarians toward more radical plans of action.

The Feds are engaged in a sweeping series of measures to take complete control of the financial system (which is forever destroyed) and selected business entities; ratchet up plans for perpetual war; socialize health care; further implant federalized education and criminalize homeschooling; grab guns and ammo; remove children from the homes of dissenters; commence race wars and class wars; force young adults into mandatory state service camps; send protesters to FEMA camps; and on and on and on.

At this point, none of this can be undone through time-consuming, political means. Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and the other agents of Obama’s unfreedom brigade were brought to Washington D.C. for one very specific purpose: to centralize every last bit of property and life and put it all under federal rule, from money to education to personal behavior. Note the condescending and arrogant behavior of King Obama on the 60 Minutes television show as he laughed at the inability of majority opinion to do a damn thing to stop his freight train of power grabs and federal takeovers.

Perhaps the most significant move on the part of the Feds, outside of crushing the free market through rapid nationalization, is the move on the part of the centralizers to extinguish the single most important characteristic of a free society – the right to bear arms. A society in which individuals cannot bear arms is a society doomed to eternal serfdom and oppression from self-serving overlords. Attorney General Eric Holder has long been an advocate of snuffing out gun rights, yet he got through the confirmation process with nothing more than a few feeble whimpers from helpless Republicans playing partisan games. Even worse is a recent occurrence that is perhaps unprecedented on the part of modern presidential administrations. Rahm Emanuel, in his capacity as Chief of Staff, is being utilized outside of his official role and is acting in the role of propagandist by lobbying for absolute and unconditional gun control. Emanuel, an Israeli citizen, is attempting to target gun owners by categorizing them in terms that will brand them as terrorists (the government’s favorite buzz word) in the eyes of their fellow Americans. Yet there has been no challenge to Emanuel for stepping outside his role and becoming an official flag-bearer for the disarming of America.

Gun rights is one of the most visible issues causing states to retreat and claim the federal government has gone way beyond its limits. In Montana, elected officials have signed a resolution declaring that any ruling by the Federal government on the Second Amendment violates its statehood contract. In fact, Montanans are moving to add more lenient concealed weapons laws to what’s already on the books. In Tennessee, state Senator Doug Jackson, a Democrat, has filed legislation that would ban the sale of micro-stamped firearms and ammunition. Such laws will mean a federal registry of gun owners, and Jackson calls this insanity “a preamble to gun confiscation.”

The other prime mover spurring claims of sovereignty on the part of states is rejection of the Federal Reserve and its illiberal policies that enslave the citizens of states by locking them into its inflationary fiat money machinations and debases their currency. Legislators in some states, such as Georgia and Montana, have agitated in favor of throwing off the Federal Reserve in favor of instituting a sound money policy advocating the use of gold and silver as opposed to the Fed’s legal tender notes. In Montana, Representative Bob Wagner introduced a sound money bill (HB 639), though it later died in committee along partisan lines. As times go on and the economic landscape becomes even gloomier, we are more likely to see many more of these kinds of initiatives on the part of state legislatures.

Gold, as such, is a tool for protection against the collapse of the dollar, which is why opponents of the Federal Reserve desire to buy it and hold it. Guns are the tools with which you defend yourself, not only from the local criminal who wants what you have, but even more so, they provide free men with the capability for physical resistance from a federal government whose expansion of powers and oppressive tactics are out of control. Think Rahm Emanuel and Eric Holder, and ask why it is that they champion an agenda that puts guns only into the hands of the government and its approved agents.

The only way to get this oppressive tyrant – known as the federal government – off our back is to break away from it and start anew. That twenty-eight states are starting to fan the flames of rebellion by moving towards a sovereign itinerary is fairly remarkable. States and people must declare their sovereignty and remove the tentacles of the federal government’s oppressive laws from their necks. Only a breakup of this monstrous and out-of-control, despotic giant can restore freedom and keep us all from descending further into the federal government’s grip.

Karen De Coster [send her mail] is a Certified Public Accountant, has an MA in Economics, and works in finance and accounting in the securities industry. See her website and her blog.

Copyright © 2009 Karen De Coster

The Establishment Media is hyping the dire prophecy of a Russian professor that the United States will have a bloody civil war and “disintegrate,” after which the secessionist regions will be absorbed by other nations. The Establishment Media Moral: we must patriotically embrace our federal government or face horrendous consequences.

Certainly a full-blown civil war would be hellish. With modern weapons the casualties could exceed all our other wars. The disruption of food production and distribution chains in our specialized economy could trigger famine. To be imperially dominated by other nations could well mean the loss of our civil liberties.

However, our political establishment is playing a rhetorical game when it strives to link secession and civil war. There won’t be a civil war if we the people support a constitutional amendment to allow the fifty states of the United States to peacefully become fifty independent nations through voluntary disunion.

And why should we do that? Because unlike Alexander Hamilton in his parlor-game speculations known as The Federalist Papers, we’ve had generations of firsthand experience with the defects of federal government. We see today that every alleged benefit that Hamilton hypothesized for federal government has been perverted in practice.

Hamilton proposed that a federal government would resist foreign domination. In reality, our politicians prostitute our superpower military at every sufferance. We fought one world war to make the world safe for Imperialism and another to make it safe for Communism. Today our politicians bow to Israel, tomorrow possibly China.

Hamilton’s strength-in-numbers argument failed during the Cold War, when our military stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons yet still feared a first strike attack. What if, though, Massachusetts had seceded with only ten warheads? Wouldn’t the Soviets have refrained from attacking sovereign Massachusetts for fear of losing ten of their cities?

Disunion would protect the planet from thermonuclear destruction. By consolidating our vast arsenal of nuclear overkill under federal command, however, we equip a lone fallible human to destroy civilization – a power we would not want in the hands of the wisest saint, and wise saints aren’t elected President.

We witnessed the crippling weakness of centralized command in the 9-11 attacks, when the Commander-in-Chief was too busy hiding to bother with scrambling interceptors. And if it can’t protect its own headquarters from airline hijackers, what does a superpower military protect us from?

Moving to economics, Hamilton warned in The Federalist Papers that if the states remained independent, they would enact high tariffs that would cripple prosperity. A federal government, he asserted, would promote free trade. That myth, of course, didn’t survive the first session of Congress.

With Congress as battlefield, every state wages perpetual economic warfare against every other state. Our representatives legislate national tariffs (and regulations, subsidies, and import quotas) to benefit producers in their home states by afflicting consumers in other states, and then compete for “pork barrel” appropriations that loot the national treasury.

As one observer remarked, the attitude of the Michigan automakers in seeking a federal bailout is, “You won’t buy our crummy cars, so we’ll make you pay for them anyway.” Under federal subjugation, the citizens of forty-nine other states must endure such exploitation with little recourse except vengeful reciprocity.

Hamilton also claimed the national debt would encourage the wealthy to “Invest in America.” Instead, politicians “invest” in their patrons at the country’s expense. Raise taxes to pay off debt, and politicians borrow more. Hamilton called the national debt a “blessing,” but aren’t state and local debts “blessings” enough?

Today’s federal government infringes citizen rights far more than did the British Crown of Hamilton’s time. Hamilton’s fantasies about the benevolence of an all-powerful central government may be excused as historical naïveté, but today anyone who insists the federal leviathan is other than maliciously imperious is either blind or bribed.

How can anyone not recognize the monster is uncontrollable, when governors must resign over petty corruption but a President deceived us into war and bankrupted the nation yet stood divinely unimpeachable – as if the ancient pagan ritualism that equated kingship with godhood never went away.

An America of sovereign states, whose governments are more human-sized, will dismiss egomaniacs who proclaim that a citizen’s “glorious duty” is to sacrifice in “full measure” to the Federal Imperium. Let’s abolish the Cult of Federalism, before our wannabe-caesars can extract more of that kind of blood-drenched “glory” from us.

Today it is our corrupt federal government that drags us toward collapse. Disunion will help us become more secure and prosperous, and affirm the ideals of liberty for which the American Revolution was fought. To accomplish this won’t require civil war – just a constitutional amendment, and common sense.

Joe Schembrie is a writer who lives in Bellevue, Washington.

Copyright © 2009 LewRockwell.com