With the recent vote in Scotland over independence from the United Kingdom, Reuters decided to gauge American attitudes about the union of states. According to their
new poll, about a quarter of Americans are open to the idea of their state seceding from the United States. The exact wording of the question was, “Do you support or oppose the idea of your state peacefully withdrawing from the United States of America and the federal government?”
The last time that sort of thing happened it wasn't peaceful and more than 600,000 people died. However, no one seriously believes a fracture is going to happen anytime soon where the south rises again, Texas lets its swagger go to its head or the southwest tries to break away to become Aztlán. Because the other way of reporting Reuter's poll is three out of four Americans either don't support secession or think it's a shitty idea.
But beyond that, it's interesting to look at the 20 plus percent that answered in the affirmative and ask why? Is it a reflection of frustration with the current national political climate? Is it the result of decades of politicians portraying themselves as outsiders running against an out-of-touch Washington, D.C. that's the "enemy" of the people? Follow beneath the fold for more ....
From Scott Malone at Reuters:
The failed Scottish vote to pull out from the United Kingdom stirred secessionist hopes for some in the United States, where almost a quarter of people are open to their states leaving the union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Some 23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion ... Long-running Washington gridlock had prompted them to wonder if their states would be better off striking out on their own, a move no U.S. state has tried in the 150 years since the bloody Civil War that led to the end of slavery in the South.
"I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference anymore which political party is running things. Nothing gets done," said Roy Gustafson, 61, of Camden, South Carolina, who lives on disability payments. "The state would be better off handling things on its own."
Of course, since South Carolina has no statutory disability programs, Roy's disability payments come from Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability programs from the federal government.
Among the poll's internals:
- 53 percent of people who identified as Tea Party supporters agreed with secession.
- Support for secession was highest in the southwest and Rockies. Some of the most notable incidents with the Sovereign Citizens movement and citizen militias have originated from the area (e.g. Clive Bundy, Oath Keepers, etc.).
- 29.7 percent of Republicans support the option of secession for their state, while only 21 percent of Democrats were willing to go along with the idea.
Even in Texas, some respondents said talk about breaking away was more of a sign of their anger with Washington than evidence of a real desire to go it alone. Democrat Lila Guzman, of Round Rock, said the threat could persuade Washington lawmakers and the White House to listen more closely to average people's concerns.
"When I say secede, I'm not like (former National Rifle Association president) Charlton Heston with my gun up in the air, 'my cold dead hands.' It's more like – we could do it if we had to," said Guzman, 62. "But the first option is, golly, get it back on the right track. Not all is lost. But there might come a point that we say, 'Hey, y'all, we're dusting our hands and we're moving on.'"
- People in lower income brackets are more likely to support secession than those at 1% levels. How many politicians blame bad times on Washington, D.C.? We live in a political culture based on campaigns which pivot off of the federal government as a nebulous, bureaucratic entity that doesn't care about people, that's the blame for all problems and is in constant need of reform and change. So is it that surprising that people on the low-end of the totem pole are more receptive to the idea of going it alone?
From Jim Gaines at
Reuters:
Followup phone calls with a small, random sample of pro-secession respondents to the Reuters poll, however, suggest that while their wish to leave the union may not be quite what it appears, it is not amusing at all.
Those we spoke to seemed to have answered as they did as a form of protest that was neither red nor blue but a polychromatic riot — against a recovery that has yet to produce jobs, against jobs that don’t pay, against mistreatment of veterans, against war, against deficits, against hyper-partisanship, against political corruption, against illegal immigration, against the assault on marriage, against the assault on same-sex marriage, against government in the bedroom, against government in general — the president, Congress, the courts and both political parties.
By the evidence of the poll data as well as these anecdotal conversations, the sense of aggrievement is comprehensive, bipartisan, somewhat incoherent, but deeply felt.
Beyond the slights and frustrations that give rise to this sort of notion, do people really think it's a good idea to have an option of peaceful secession on the table in the abstract? Should a majority, even a super-majority, of any state really have the option to break up the United States? I don't think my right to live in my home, in my state of residence, and my right to be an American should be something left to the whims and vicissitudes of 51 percent or even 60 percent of the people of a given area. I just don't. Moreover, I don't think the union of the United States should be like a pick-up game, where if someone doesn't get their way they can grab their ball, go home and pout like a child.
"We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled do declare and ordain … that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the 'United States of America,' is hereby dissolved." —South Carolina Declaration of Secession, December 20, 1860
To give a little bit of a historical background on this, as a result of the Civil War and
Texas v. White 74 U.S. 700 (1869) in constitutional law, any unilateral attempt by a state, or group of states, to secede from the United States is not permissible.
Chief Justice Salmon Chase's majority opinion was based on an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and the earlier Articles of Confederation as creating a perpetual, "more perfect" union that's composed of states joined in "indissoluble unity." A key concept validated in Texas v. White is that a state is distinct from its government, rather than being a government. Since Article Four, Section 4, Clause 1 (aka the Guarantee Clause) guarantees to every State in the Union a "republican form of government," the federal government has the power to intervene and invalidate actions that are in conflict with representative democracy and the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, when a state's government or citizens take actions which attempt to impair the relationship of the United States government to its member states, like ordinances of secession, those acts are "absolutely null" and "without operation in law."
Last year, the Obama administration cited Texas v. White when responding to secession petitions on the White House website.
Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States "in order to form a more perfect union" through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot -- a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all.
But they did not provide a right to walk away from it.