Publisher’s Note: Today, 2 July 2022, is the 247th Anniversary of what we consider the correct Independence Day for the thirteen nations of British North America that became the first United States of America.
It has long been a tradition of the Liberty Round Table for the Knights of Non-Aggression, including Mama Liberty (whom we usually referred to as “Lady Susan”) to celebrate with a nice meal and lots of noise of various calibers and styles – and some additional fun noisemakers. That was, of course, a longstanding American tradition, especially in the West but actually originating on those first thirteen States on the Atlantic Seaboard.
Why? Because it was on July 2, 1776, that delegates at the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia officially separated the 13 American “colonies” from Britain by approving a motion for independence advanced by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. John Adams, for all his many faults, was one who considered it the “real” day.
On to some brief thoughts about secession:
Independence Day (NOT “the Fourth of July”) is all about secession. Twelve or thirteen totally separate colonies of the Mother Country – all from Britain or taken over by that kingdom deciding enough was enough. That it was time for a divorce from an abusive parent. And figuring it made sense to do it together, to “hang together rather than hang separately.” Stupid as that has turned out.
(Oddly enough, no one else ever did that to Britain. The closest was (southern) Ireland. But Canada didn’t, Australia and NZ didn’t. They can pretend that India (and Pakistan) and South Africa did – but they weren’t really colonies as much as conquests. Today people can pretend that is what Scotland may be stumbling towards, but in reality if they “free” themselves from London, they’ll just be another servant to Brussels. More transnational socialism: Tranzis in all but name.)
Of course, that is inevitably linked (at least in my mind) with what the GOP did in Houston last month (adding a call for a secession question on a statewide ballot to their platform). So, I figure, after the GOP making it more “mainstream” to even TALK about leaving the rapidly-mortibund Union, it should be of interest to readers to discuss a few issues.
- Can States secede? This, we are constantly told, was “decided” by the Chase Court in the 1869 case, White vs. Texas. We are told that the decision claimed that Texas legally had never left the Union, either when it seceded in 1861 (in response to Lincoln’s and Congress’ treatment of the first six States to do so) or when it was de-facto demoted to a territory, and a military-occupied territory at that, in 1865. Beyond the obvious immoral consideration by what was a kangaroo court in which virtually every member should have recused themselves, the decision (and all the concurrences and dissents and such) really doesn’t say that. Although none of us here at TPOL are attorneys (Praise the Lord!), as we understand it, the closest thing to concensus was that Texas didn’t actually secede because it FAILED to succeed! And therefore its action was, post ex defacto, a traitorous act. But the Constitution neither explicitly or implicitly provides for or prohibits secession. Therefore, the Tenth Amendment DOES retain to the States (and/or their People) the power to leave the Union. White v Texas reminds us that such a decision, whether by a vote of the people of a State, a State convention, or by the legislature and executive of a State, MUST be made with the understanding that the departure from the Union almost certainly will require physically defending it with violent force – and being victorious.
- Why would a State secede? I know, this is an obvious and perhaps silly question. But we definitely should ask and answer it. The FedGov was created by the original Thirteen States to be their servant, NOT their master. Actually starting before the War between the States, that role was rapidly reversing. Today, ALL Fifty States act as though THEY are the servants of an all-powerful FedGov with a few modest restrictions on what it can do. Is it any surprise that that is viewed by at least some people as an intolerable situation in 2022? States were created by the agreement (in general, we know, and in flawed ways) of the people of that State, and were (and morally and legally are) sovereign. They should be governed (if at all!) by the will of their people restrained by a moral and social obligation NOT to infringe on God-given rights, as typified by the non-aggression principle: no initiation of violence or threat of violence. No matter HOW many votes and bullies you have. As such, the States as voluntary organizations and members of a dying Union now have a moral obligation to protect their own people from a tyrannical and merciless FedGov and its co-conspirators and minions and masters. Secession is one method of meeting that obligation.
Well, that is a start on our discussion on this 2nd of July, Anno Liberatus 246. As news and time permits, here are some other questions to consider. If readers have more, please suggest them!
- What would happen if Texas seceded?
- What would happen if California seceded?
- What would happen if BOTH Texas and California seceded?
- What about that war between the States?
- What about the American war of independence?
- What about Brexit?
- Can communities or regions secede?
The Price of Liberty 
I remember discussing secession in high school in a class called Current World Problems, which was basically Civics, but it covered governments of a number of nations, not just America. At the time, we discussed the patriotic thing that Michigan, the state that I have lived in my entire 62 years, is one of the best prepared states to secede from the union, due to our many positives that would prepare us to be independent. For example, our worldwide automobile reputation at the time, was second to none, at the time. Our agriculture was and is, among the top in the nation, as far as apples, cherries, etc. Dairy and beef cattle production, while no threat to some of the big producers, is pretty good, and our other industrial facilities were all combined to make Michigan a solid state, with no need for federal help.
Looking at things now, it has changed completely, of course. The auto industry is pretty much in the toilet. I am not sure the exact number of our population in 1978, but now I think it is around 10 million or so, down at least several million. This due to the collapse of our status as an industrial state and our conversion to a tourist state. This was done in part for political reasons. By changing to tourism as the big dollar maker for the state, the corporations don’t have to pay people like me, a retired foundry worker, who spent 35 plus years making steel for the investment cast and aerospace industry and thus not a job that someone with no intelligence and a strong back could do, but you needed both. They had to pay me much more than they paid tourism workers.
Of course, now that has changed, and here in Muskegon they are starting out fast food workers at as high as 15$ per hour. But the world has changed now anyway, and manufacturing has changed with it.
Before NAFTA, I was working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for sometimes months in a row, only getting time off when I took vacation. We made metal for the golf club industry, and we had a very huge contract with a number of companies. The place we shipped to was in San Diego. After NAFTA, we still shipped to San Diego, but then they trucked it down to Mexico, where they melted the metal and poured the castings, instead of doing it in the states, saving some money. We just made the steel.
Well, of course, we were still doing the same amount of work, the places in California were screwed. Within a year of so, we started to slow down. Eventually it dried up, and we were no longer making any metal for golf club heads. It seems that Mexico was also shut out of the industry, this time by China, who under bid us, by a significant amount. We used to get the old golf club heads back that the company didn’t sell, to be put on shafts, and so we would melt them back down, to be made into the next model. I happen to have a very nice set of Lynx Parallelax Irons, from 1-9, plus 4 or 5 wedges of varying lofts. They sent them back in boxes, complete sets. Just the heads, you would have to put the shafts on yourself or take them to a proshop.
Shortly after we started to get the very nice ones back, the company said that we could not take them out anymore, the customer didn’t like it.
The way things are now, I think that the only way that a secession would work is for a group of states with like interests to band together and do it all together. Because as you mentioned in your first point, leaving the union would require defending that decision. And the more states that are involved, the less likely the military would be to want to get into a shooting war, since the military draws from every state in the union. My son was in the U.S. Navy, during the Trump administration, and his ship held approximately 500 sailors, and he told me that most of them, male and female, said that they felt that they would not obey an order to attack their own countrymen, as they thought it would be an illegal order, and they would be dutybound to disobey it. Plus, they didn’t like the idea of shooting their own people like that anyway.
So the only problem with that is, while Texas and California are the obvious choices to build a new nation/state around, they are totally at odds politically. I see Texas as being similar to California in this one way. California could be considered as two separate states. You have a liberal part, from probably San Francisco south, and north of that, it actually becomes pretty conservative, comparatively. In Texas, while you would think that they are conservative, you have to consider Houston and the area around it as being pretty liberal. Given the realities of the modern world, and the need for defense against other nations, and the need to govern for both handling negotiations with other states and other countries, there would have to be some type of government. I know that no matter what kind of system you set up, it will be ripe for abuse. But there are smart people, who go into our government with the best intentions at heart, but who run quickly into the brick wall of reality. If Texas, California, and the western states, along with some of those in the midwest could be brought together into a coalition that was big enough to stand up and stand together, it is conceivable that they might secede and be successful. The first thing that they would have to do is to begin work on a treaty with the remaining states to agree to defend each other ala NATO.
Of course, this is just an academic exercise, since none of the people in any state could get enough people to agree to leave and then actually plan on it, before others stepped in and arrested the leaders and put them into a hole someplace with the people who protested on Jan.6. Never to be seen again.
I still like that old idea of getting enough people willing to move to a state to effect change, but not by voting for it. Just simply by moving to that state, and refusing to allow yourself to be ruled by the government any longer. Find a state that was appropriate, buy land close enough together, that you could help each other, and start to move. Again, a mental exercise, because people have become so beaten down, by promises of, ” well, if we just vote for this guy, or that woman, it will get better”. And then, we find ourselves 10-15 years later, and nothing changes other than it is worse, and the same people who are rich have gotten richer. A member of the House on a salary of 174,000$ a year suddenly has amassed a nest egg of 8 million dollars, and nobody thinks to ask how. Or if they do, no answers are forthcoming. And another friend of the Clinton’s bites the dust. I swear, if I ever saw them headed to my house, I would lock the door, or run out the back, as fast as I could.
And again, I find I have rambled too long. Happy Independence Day. May we one day find our independence from our own government.
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I could not have said that any better! Here in Texas, we do still have the capability to stand on our own. Despite the “liberal world order” attempt to hamstring the petrochemical industry, we could easily bring it back. Texas still has the 11th largest economy in the world all by itself. We’re hoping to get a vote in front of the people of Texas someday soon. If a majority want to separate, we will do it. True, there will be a thousand problems. The major cities, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin are all marxist-controlled, by design I’ll wager. Midland-Odessa is a bastion of conservatism and the home of oil and gas production. I’m hoping that if we vote to secede, the socialists will know that their federal money may go away, and many will just leave. All will be against us, including the US government, most of the media, and social media. We’ll see a tide of bad press coverage that will probably exceed that of the UK and Brexit. If we can weather that storm, Texas will raise its head once again among the family of nations. (to borrow from Sam Houston) If the next two US elections are obviously rigged like the last one, I think that will be our tipping point.
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Many of us with a West Texan heritage, although many of our ancestors came from further it – places like Palo Pinto and Groesbeck and Marshall – consider the big urban areas of that end of the Republic to no longer be authentically Texan. They have betrayed their origins, sold their birthrights for a mess of federal porridge. But that could change in a 2nd Republic.
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Nathan,
I haven’t been here in awhile. It seems fortuitous that I came here today. The question about secession is such an important one, to many, and yet also a hard one. Because while we would perhaps like to deal with the nation that the founders envisioned, we must deal with the nation that we actually have.
The founders saw, from what I believe, a nation of loosely bonded states, surrounding a weak federal government, put in place basically to act as an arbiter of disputes, a central clearing house of paperwork to facilitate trade within the states and between other nations, and as a means of defense, in the event that another country made aggressive moves towards any individual state of the country itself.
What that evolved into, almost from its very beginning is the corrupt, bloated, and ever self feeding balloon that must one day, it appears, collapse under its own weight. Like any other bureaucracy, its first move from its creation is to build a strong defense, and only then will it consider the function for which it was created. Sometimes, that function is ignored, in favor of continued defense of the bureaucracy. That is obviously what happened with the Republic, that was handed to the first generation of Americans by the founding fathers.
In truth, they probably never had a chance. Any government designed by mankind is ultimately doomed to fail. As a Christian, and a student of the Bible, I am familiar with the story of the nation of Israel, and the dealings that they had with God. The Lord intended that He would be their God and that they would be His people. And that was how it went, for quite some time, until they saw other nations, that they conquered, under God’s direction, and how those nations had a King.
The children of Israel became jealous, thinking that they somehow needed the same thing. That by not having an earthly King, they were second class people. This of course, caused God much pain, yet he acquiesced, and let them have an earthly King, Saul. God warned them that it would not turn out well, in 1st Samuel, but they would not hear of it. Samuel had judged the nation of Israel and led them, but he basically got old.
I am not saying that the idea of leaving King George was bad. It was, of course, the only course for a freedom seeking people. But just that I don’t think that any government designed by mankind will succeed in the long run, because it is going to be run by fallible humans. I know that is sounds fatalistic, but in reality, there is hope in that message, if you are a Christian. I will end with this quote from the Bible, that is often used as a memory verse for children, but we would do well to remember.
Romans 12:2: And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
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Excellent points, and I am glad you have been able to rejoin us.
There absolutely IS hope, and we have that hope: secession IS a part, but only one of many steps necessary to reclaim the liberty to which we were born. Please let us know your thoughts on the other parts of this liberty-independence arc of commentary! Thanks!
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You probably already know this, but just in case, have a look at tnm.me. It was our group that pushed so hard to get those two planks into the Texas GOP platform. We get the same questions you have asked, and the website covers it. It can be done! Many thanks for even asking the questions, WSS
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Dear William:
Thank you for reminding us here at TPOL and our readers of the website, which does indeed answer many questions that people are constantly asking. It does seem to cover it all. Why do we ask? Because we know our readers will think a lot about them, and be active in both spreading the concept and challenging each other in a constructive manner!
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