Americans question the state of union

Steven Stanek, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: May 15. 2009 1:36AM UAE / May 14. 2009 9:36PM GMT

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, hinted last month that Texans were so unhappy with federal tax plans that they might prefer secession. Harry Cabluck / AP Photo

WASHINGTON // The Republican Party’s favourite campaign slogan in last year’s presidential race was “country first”, but the party faithful in some US states may be operating under a different banner.

A poll of 600 likely voters conducted last month by Research 2000 – and commissioned by DailyKos, a liberal website – showed that nearly half of Texas Republicans think their state would be better off leaving the United States and becoming an independent nation. A similar DailyKos poll in Georgia showed that 43 per cent of Republicans believe their state would also be better off on its own.

It is highly unlikely that any of the 50 American states would secede; the last time that happened, the result was civil war. But if secession seems like an extreme way to deal with one’s grievances – and it is – that has not stopped some, including the governor of Texas, from talking about it like they mean it.

Last month, Rick Perry suggested that Texans were so unhappy with the Democrats’ tax plan that they would support an effort by the “lone star state” to, well, go it alone.
“We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that,” said Mr Perry, who has since pointed out that he never specifically mentioned secession, though the reference seemed unmistakable.
“Texas is a very unique place and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

Larry Kilgore, a candidate for the US Senate in Texas last year, seems proof of that. His campaign as a “secessionist” candidate won him nearly 19 per cent of the vote. He is running again, this time for governor, in 2010 on a slogan of “Yes We Can … Secede”.

Other states, while not outright embracing the idea of secession, have recently taken steps to challenge the authority of the federal government. “State sovereignty” resolutions – essentially saying that states should be able to ignore federal laws they find objectionable – have been introduced in 35 states. Four states – Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota – have passed such measures, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, an activist group that tracks sovereignty legislation.

Christopher Ketcham, a US journalist who is writing a book on modern secessionist groups, criticised Mr Perry’s secessionist talk. He said the Texas governor and some other Republicans are “faux secessionists”, or those who are less interested in separating from the United States than they are in expressing pointed opposition to Barack Obama’s policies. They are in stark contrast to “real secessionists”, Mr Ketcham argues, or those who see no possibility of reform in either political party and only one viable political option: divorce.

Secession has always been a part of the United States – the country was established when a group of colonies broke away from Great Britain. Some New England states mulled the possibility of secession over their opposition to the War of 1812. Eleven southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America in 1861, starting the US civil war.

But over the past century or so, few have considered the prospect of secession realistic and many have even called it treasonous.

Even if the vast majority of citizens are quite happy to be Americans, some simply are not and see secession as the only answer. In November, secessionist groups from across the country met in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the third annual North American Secessionist Convention. The attendees signed a declaration proclaiming that the United States “is bankrupt in every way – financially, economically, politically, socially, academically, militarily, spiritually and morally”.

While secession groups can agree on some things – such as their desire to be rid of the federal government – their politics are hardly uniform.

Free Maine, for example, is a liberal-leaning grassroots group seeking to establish “Free Maine Republic”. The newly minted nation would also seek diplomatic relations with Vermont and New Hampshire and might consider joining the United Nations, according to the group’s website.

The League of the South, a “southern nationalist” group, hopes to form an independent southern republic to fly the confederate flag and adhere to strict Christian principles. To the north-west, several secessionist groups want to fashion a new country out of Canada’s British Columbia and the US states of Washington and Oregon. They call it the Republic of Cascadia.

Last year, the Middlebury Institute, a “think tank” for “the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination”, sponsored a Zogby poll of 1,200 US citizens that showed one in five adults believed that any state or region had the right to “peaceably secede”. Eighteen per cent of Americans, the poll showed, would support a secession effort in their state.

“The driving force is that we don’t want to be part of this empire anymore,” said Thomas Naylor, a former economics professor at Duke University and founder of the Second Vermont Republic, a secessionist group. Mr Naylor objects to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and worries that corporate greed will destroy America.

“The question is do you go down with the Titanic or do you seek other options while such options are still on the table.”

sstanek@thenational.ae