Subject: [theseries] Secede: New England Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 16:54:46 -0700 From: "Shamayim" Only way to go. Democracy does not work on a large scale. That fact has been proven. Shamayim http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_rockwell/20000309_xclro_secede_new.shtml Secede, New England! John McCain won four New England states in last Tuesday's Republican primary. The vote totals in Massachusetts (two-thirds for McCain) were exactly the inverse of Georgia (two-thirds for Bush), nicely illustrating the huge politico-regional divide that is still a living reality. As the liberals constantly remind us, this is a hugely diverse country. Why, then, should we be living under a single political system? Clearly, many people of these states want the chance to elect McCain as president, while the rest of the country wants to deny them the chance to do so. This is a terrible situation, the very definition of political oppression. One's heart breaks for these poor souls who want to be ruled by McCain, and also for McCain, who so badly wants to rule them. Will they never get the leader of their choice? Democracy is supposed to mean majority rule and minority rights. New England is in the minority here, but these states have no rights. Why should they put up with this? Indeed, they shouldn't have to. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont should not have to accept someone else's choice of presidential contender. They should be free to exercise the right of self-government, and to live under a president of their own choosing. Our forefathers decried being taxed to support a government that ruled without consent. Their solution was to declare independence from Great Britain. A long train of abuses and usurpations convinced them it was time to exercise the right to abolish that particular form of government and establish another. They did so in a peaceful act of secession. If the Brits hadn't objected, the transition would have been an easy one. Secede, New England! Form your own country. Declare your independence. Lay out your grievances and decry the tyranny of living under the rest of us. Invoke the rights of man and decry inequality under the law. You have the natural right to pursue happiness in a manner you see fit. You don't even have to pledge your lives, fortunes, or sacred honor. Most everyone will be glad to see you go your own way. Skedaddle. No objection here. You have a thriving economy, a marvelous history of civic involvement, and a regional consciousness that befits a free and independent people. You would become one of the wealthiest places on the face of the earth. Free of the burden to support us poor Southerners, fund vast national parks in the West, or pay for highways you don't use, you could have a tax cut and your new government would still be awash in revenue. The McCain administration could accomplish wonders once free of the evil forces of Bible-Belt yahooism. But isn't secession a radical step and a total departure from history? Not if you look at New England's history. The idea of secession was hatched there. When Jefferson was elected in 1800, he was denounced by Yankee preachers as the Anti-Christ because he favored the strict separation of church and state. "He was hated with an unholy hate," writes a Jefferson biographer. There was also an ethnic dimension: most New Englanders were of English stock and they were terrified of mixing with the German, Irish, and Scottish blood predominant in the lower states, to say nothing of the blacks in the deep South. Tensions between the Yankees and the rest of the country grew until New Englanders threatened secession in 1803, barely one generation after the Constitution had been ratified. They objected to the expensive and expansionist Louisiana Purchase, and truly they had a point. This executive usurpation dramatically altered the relationship among the states. Worse, Jefferson undertook it without consulting Congress and without attaining agreement among the states. Under the plan, the New England secessionists didn't envision economic isolation. They wanted free trade with the rest of the country but no entangling political alliances -- exactly as George Washington proposed with regard to the rest of the world. Separating right then would have spared decades of heartache to follow. Alas, it was not to be because Aaron Burr, the secessionist point man, lost his race to be the governor of New York, and his victorious duel with Hamilton discredited their cause, for the moment. Jefferson fulfilled the worst of New England expectations when he imposed a trade embargo in 1806, in retaliation for a British capture of an American ship. But what was New England to do without trade? Why should its commercial aspirations be sacrificed at the hands of a tyrant? Secessionist tempers already inflamed, matters got worse under James Madison, who in 1809 imposed a rule that permitted the arbitrary seizure of goods. The Yankee secessionists struck back with a declaration that "any state is at liberty by the spirit of (the Constitution) to withdraw itself from the union." Darn right. The next major attempt at New England secession was over the War of 1812. By the time Washington, D.C., was captured and burned by the British in 1813, New England was in an uproar. Most historians say that nearly everyone wanted to form a New England Confederacy. The result was the great Hartford Convention of 1815, but the political leaders betrayed the just aspirations of the citizens who sent them there. Still, they took step after step closer towards full secession, but by the time it appeared close to becoming a reality, the war ended. Later, New England abolitionists in the American Anti-Slavery Society found they could not, in good conscience, be part of a country that permitted slavery. At the same time, they didn't want to risk mass immigration of blacks into their neck of the woods. The Society passed a resolution: "Resolved, that secession from the United States Government is the duty of every Abolitionist." They further said that the dissolution of the American Union was "one of the primary objects" of their anti-slavery agitation. As Thomas DiLorenzo explains in Secession, State, and Liberty, it was only later that the Southern states caught on to the secessionist idea, finally deciding they had had enough of the huge Northern-imposed tariff burden that injured their trading relations with the world. The South had the courage and foresight to carry it through. As with the earlier declaration of secession from Britain, all would have been peaceful, were it not for the unconstitutional and brutal armed attempt to prevent it, the bloody conquest, and the military dictatorship called Reconstruction. But there's no reason to repeat the ghastly mistakes of the past. If New England wants to secede this time, and avoid oppression by a country that clearly does not share its values, it should be free to go. No questions asked. Go your own way. We can all still be friends. We can still trade. The United States is vastly too big as it is. It should have been broken up into a few pieces much earlier. We could use a little more competition between independent political units. There are a lot of folks in the South that would like the idea. Just the other day, 4,000 people joined together in Montgomery, Ala., to demand cultural secession from the North, as a first step toward full-blown political secession. The League of the South is right to argue our forefathers never envisioned a union by force; the Constitution was supposed to be a voluntary compact among the states. Show us the way, New England, and secede now! What about states like Maine that went for Bush? Should they be forced into the McCain governmental orbit solely because of an accident of geography? Of course not. Non- contiguous nation states are perfectly feasible, especially with modern communications technology. For that matter, there is no reason to limit the right to secede to states. Extend it to cities, neighborhoods, even households. Everyone should have a government of his own choosing. In the end, the principle that should dictate the future is the one laid out by our first secessionists: it is the right of a people to alter the form of government under which they live if it no longer protects their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Secede, New England! You have nothing to lose but your chains! Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He also edits a daily news site, LewRockwell.com.