Separatist/Secessionist Movements in America

[Inquisitive Lurker]

I'm interested in learning about the separatist/secessionist movements in the United States. I know there's a strong movement in Montana and Texas, and there even is a movement in the Pacific Northwest.

All these are rather small and fringe.

What I am really interested in is separatist/secessionist movements in California. Does anyone have any leads on this?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm interested in learning about the separatist/secessionist movements in the United States. I know there's a strong movement in Montana and Texas, and there even is a movement in the Pacific Northwest.

All these are rather small and fringe.

What I am really interested in is separatist/secessionist movements in California. Does anyone have any leads on this?

Idiot liberals who blame "red-states" for the political climate in this country sometime talk about secession, but they aren't serious. The only semi-serious movement I know about is the "State of Jefferson" people who want northern California to secede from the rest of California and form a state with Oregon. They don't want San Francisco and Los Angles to run them, they want their right to be run by the logging industry instead.

[Nolan]

The Vermont people? Neo-confederates? Pacifica? Puerto Rican secessionists?

[Nolan]

Idiot liberals who blame "red-states" for the political climate in this country sometime talk about secession, but they aren't serious.

Lol, my impression is that it wasn't the liberals.

I mean check out this from my state: http://ohiorepublic.blogspot.com/


The purpose of The Ohio Republic is to provide information that will help Ohioans regain the freedoms they were guaranteed by the Constitutions of the United States and of Ohio. It does so by providing news and comment about liberty, the Tenth Amendment, nullification, and secession as actual and potential strategies for regaining our freedom.

Then there's the odd Texas governor that talks about it once in a while. And the Alaskan movement.

[The Douche]

There are liberals who occasionaly talk about separatism in the northeast and the west coast.

I live on a peninisula which is comprised of parts of three states (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, aka DelMarVa.) and the culture and politics of the area are very different from the rest of the state (virginia, less so) and there used to be talk about a delmarva statist movement.

Those who live on the "eastern shore" as it is called are not viewed very highly by people who live "across the bridge" (a reference to people who live on the other side of the chesapeke bay), the governor of maryland once called the eastern shore the "toilet of maryland".

[Pyramid]

Many of the issues relating to your interest can be found by examining the language of the United State's Constitution's Article IV, Sections 3 and 4. They are hardly ever read because their subject matter has never come into use, with the slight exception of 1861 - 1865.

It would be nearly impossible for any state or portion of a state to separate from the United States. The state militia and the forces of the United States are simply too powerful for such a thing to happen.

Constitutionally, if a rebellion breaks out in a state, the state has to "ask" the feds for help, and while deciding whether it wants that help, that state would send out its own militia to deal with the matter.

In Lincoln's First Address as president, he expressly stated no state could leave the United States. Period. (There is no constitutional method for a state to separate from the U.S.) Since the only experiment of this kind was met with force; that is, with Lincoln raising an army to challenge the C.S.A., one has to assume any sitting president would copy Lincoln. The alternative would be to be the president who allowed the indivisible United States to divide.

The United States can act without the state's approval, to maintain statehood, should the state itself attempt to leave the U.S., or should that state be invaded by a foreign power, but the feds can't act where there is merely domestic upheaval, unless the state wants the U.S. to act.

Now, about the outright separation question. Section 3 can easily be interpreted to prevent any part of a state from leaving the United States. Even though its language is not precise, the Supreme Court has a history of not interfering with "political questions", where the matter is clearly one of the executive or legislative departments.

California has a few "joke" separatist movements, and two real ones:

The joke ones, which include the "San Francisco International City" movement, and similar city movements sponsored by nut jobs, whether leftist or facsist, can't be taken seriously because they can be surrounded by a militia and cut off from supplies.

Serious Movement No. 1 - Let's call it the Far Northern California Movement. This is more in line with an Ayn Rand outlook on things, where the anti-U.S. feelings are based on one acting as a privateer, and joining up with similar people in Oregon, Washington, and maybe Alaska. It would of course become an area of part successful privateer/anarchists, but would in many areas be controlled by local facsists, like "The Postman" novel. It would be a mixed bunch of nuts.

Serious Movement No. 2 - Let's call it Reconquista de Aztlan Movement. There are many of Mexican background, by no means a majority, who would prefer they not live in a nation under the Stars and Stripes, but would rather choose an authority more Chicano oriented. In the late 1960's, a group of students and intellectuals meeting in the area of the University of California at Santa Barbara, published a lengthy opinion arguing for a new land between the United States and Mexico, called Aztlan. For some, this already "exists", and is philosophical in nature, where those who are La Raza, that is, of Mexican background, should work to advance only others of Mexican background. That is, success of the Race, and not of Mexican-Americans as Americans. Generally speaking, this group has lost much political following during the past 15 years especially. The newer, young generation does not see itself as working for a future where they are not United States citizens. However, there is definately a hard core element of La Raza, which would work for the creation of Aztlan in a LITERAL way; that is, a land mass that would not be part of the United States, and used to be part of California, or Nevada, or Arizona (and perhaps New Mexico and Utah, because some in the movement paralell the land mass with the land Mexico lost to the United States after the Mexican War in 1847.)

It is this, Aztlan movement, that has members more closely aligned with Marxist views. (Though many would prefer a socialism that included full elections.)

For either of the serious movements to occur, the United States would have to be in such upheaval, that the President would be dealing with crisis after crisis, preventing him/her from stopping such separatist movements from occurring.

It is my personal guess that it be more likely Cuba enters the United States as a new state, before we'd see the day a state would leave the United States.