Nothing secedes like excess
By Patrick Kelley
Originally published 02:22 p.m., October 11, 2007
Updated 02:22 p.m., October 11, 2007
It is almost as though 1865 never happened. Last week, a secessionist convention was convened in Tennessee.
Yes, secession, the issue that nearly ripped the nation apart almost 150 years ago, that cost the United States hundreds of thousands of dead in the Civil War, is still a hot topic for a few folks in the South and — surprise — in Vermont.
Down South, it is the League of the South, which thinks the nation is too soft on issues such as immigration and suggests allowing southern states to leave the union and become their own nation.
But farther north, the Middlebury Institute thinks the national government has gotten too conservative and warlike and Vermont and other New England states would be better off without having to put up with foolishness from Washington, D.C.
In secession, these two groups — which are the ultraviolet and infrared extremes of the national political spectrum — have found common cause. Last week, they got together to talk about it.
Don’t expect any state secession conventions anytime soon, except perhaps as public relations events. In spite of its inclusive title, there is nothing to indicate that the League of the South represents more than a few disaffected spirits who want to recreate the antebellum South. The Middlebury Institute represents another micro-minority.
Last week’s convention seems to have been a matter of the mice banding together in hopes of passing themselves off as a lion.
In the absence of huge popular demonstrations or impassioned speeches in the halls of Congress, the secession movement must be considered one more public outbreak by the lunatic — or at least loopy — fringe.
There is no law against talking secession, and no harm in it, either. But just talking is not going to get the secessionists what they want — a country of their own.
Perhaps the nation they scorn could help them out.
Since the liberal and conservative secessionists get along well enough to meet together in Tennessee, perhaps one new country could do for both.
Given the current size of the movement, about 10 square miles ought to do the job. A little patch along on the Canadian border in northern Idaho ought to do, or some of that empty desert down along the Mexican border in New Mexico.
No use hanging on to the secessionists if they are determined to go.