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Guest Article: Reflections on Secession, by Partisan
Sure, I signed my state’s petition to secede. (Coincidentally but not at all comparable, an ancestor signed the Ordnance of Secession of Georgia.) Most people correctly realize that these petitions are symbolic of our frustration with and desire to reject federal statist policies affecting all 50 states. Still, there are those who act as if these petitions are the spark that will somehow ignite nationwide revolt. In and of themselves, these petitions are a circus detached from reality and they’re a distraction from a real solution.
I believe that secession can be a real solution but, as you’ll see, it carries an enormous cost and doesn’t necessarily make life any easier. The quality of life under the secession solution is questionable but I’ll state the case for the American Redoubt.
For those unfamiliar with the American Redoubt, it’s a region including Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, eastern Washington and eastern Oregon first theorized by James Rawles of SurvivalBlog. The majority of citizens vote Republican, are fiercely independent, are more self-sufficient than the average American, and I think are more politically hostile toward the .gov behemoth. This doesn’t describe all citizens of the American Redoubt but it’s a start for a good many of them. Theoretically, if we arrived at a conclusion that secession was a realistic option, that it was adequate at solving the issue of federal dominance, and that the quality of life in the Redoubt would greatly improve; we would still require both a bombproof legal basis for secession and the ability to enforce the decision and protect our sovereignty.
For the sake of academic exercise, here are two issues that the American Redoubt, among other regions, would need to address should we ever secede.
Balancing Governance and Defense.
There’s seemingly no end to the list of maladies that plagued the Confederate States of America (CSA) after secession (chief among them was the “peculiar institution” of slavery). Had they not held the infinitely heavy burden of fighting a war, the Confederate government may have been able to fix these problems. Had the CSA successfully defended the South, the Confederate government would still have faced the critical task of ensuring good governance, along with the insurmountable odds of ending hyperinflation that plagued its citizens and economy.
I would not expect the federal government to allow a region to withdraw peacefully from the Union. Likely targets for arrest would be elected government officials and military leaders. Under a highly structured and centralized organization, if leaders critical to mission success were removed, then the entire movement would fail. How many times and how often can you replace a governor? How many times and how often can you replace a president? But under an organization that favors decentralization with a ceiling at the state level (insofar as wartime is concerned), there is no one head of the snake. (There’s no need here to get into a strategic level debate of defending the Redoubt.) Even then, a state alone could still function without a governor so long as county and local government continued.
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