the misadventures of weather boy

Note to Vermont: It's probably a bad idea to try to secede

An AP article (Yahoo|Time) notes that a growing (well 8-13%) of people support secession in Vermont. Now, it is possible to get 8% of almost any group of people to say almost anything, but some of the supporters are very serious in their desire to secede for corruption, war, militarism, unresponsiveness, etc. In a sense, it's similar to the movement of "some" people to emigrate to Canada after the 2000 election, although the last time I checked, the population flux in that movement wasn't that large.

The supporters also feel that there are ways to make secession economically feasible. Realize of course that the federal government spends billions of dollars on the States that would have to be replaced, and the government would have to pay for things it hadn't had to pay for before that any state (differentiate from a State of the United States) would have to provide. But let's set those issues to the side.

Now I will admit that the text of the Constitution makes it an open question as to whether a State may secede and whether the federal government can compel them to rejoin. But my reaction upon reading the first paragraph or so was almost identical to the reaction of Russell Walker of the Brookings Institute: "I always thought the Civil War settled that." The key is that the Union, being the winners of the Civil War, settled the answer to this question per the military conflict. Walker goes on to say that maybe Vermont would have a case if they defeated the United States but "that's not going to happen." Sections 3 and 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment skirt this issue very lightly, and they could be construed (you'd have to do this very broadly!) to mean that the Union can settle insurrections.

So here's the gist: It doesn't matter how pissed off you are about national policy--you can't secede from the Union. Trust me--a bunch of other States have thought about this and tried (for reasons on both ends of the political spectrum). With a few exceptions (and the exceptions themselves are immaterial), the States bought into this Union thing willingly, and once they've bought in, they can't get out. No, you can't declare independence or repeal the ordinance of ratification (Vermont in this case actually directly ratified the Constitution, and was admitted as the fourteenth State, so they would most likely repeal their ordinance of ratification). If you want out, you have to choose one of the following options:

• The United States consents to secession (it's a little unusual, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible).
• Repeal or replacement of the Constitution pursuant to Article V or some other means (this is more or less the mechanism by which the Articles of Confederation were replaced).
• Require recognition by military conflict. Just a little hint: this typically doesn't work well without some serious forethought, and Presidents, irregardless of political affiliation, get a little pissed off when States threaten to secede. They generally respond by threatening to march the federal troops in and putting you in the gallows.

Now while I'm sure that some people are serious about this, this kind of movement is the overall effect of frustration with progress. And in the short term, it doesn't look very good. But in the long term, these things have tended to take care of themselves, and taking steps such as "nullification" to emphasize (or distort, depending on your perspective) federalism, are counterproductive.

Labels: law, other

posted by weather boy @ 6:54 PM