I have seen this before, but hidden in the humor may be a fairly clear idea of how secession will actually occur in North America in the near future.
December 16, 2008
Transcript of a phone conversation between Mark Sanford (roman) and President George Bush (italic):
“Good Morning, Mr. President. This is President Mark Sanford of the Independent Republic of South Carolina. I hope you’ve seen a copy of the diplomatic instruments we delivered last night to the State Department and—”
“Listen, Governor, this whole thing is an outrage! If you think—“
“I am a president, Mr. President, as you will see in those instruments. The people of South Carolina elected me to head the new constitution they approved when they voted so overwhelmingly for separation. Let us treat each other with the respect do to equal sovereigns.”
“Equal, what the hell do you mean equal?! You’re the tinpot head of an illegal and unconstitutional state, I’m the head of the mightiest army in the world, and you ought to be damn thankful that we haven’t bombed you to the Stone Age.”
“We are grateful for that, Mr. President, though of course you know that well over two-thirds of the military personnel in this state—including all of the 27,000 Reserves and National Guard, are supporters of secession, are happy citizens of the new South Carolina, and would not have been a part of any military operation you might have thought of launching. Besides, we have established a kind of camp for the soldiers who did not want to become citizens, and we will ship them wherever they want to go, at our expense, as soon as possible. They, and all other Federal personnel who chose not to take citizenship, are being treated very well and will soon be repatriated.
“And while we’re on that subject, Mr. President, I trust you have read in the documents where we have offered extremely handsome sums for the six Federal military bases. Similarly with Federal office buildings. The Interstate Highways, as you know, are state property, but if you want a return on your original investment in them, we can negotiate that. And as for the national park lands, in the interest of burying the hatchet we will not seek compensation for your seizure, use, and long tenure of them, and just call it even.”
"Listen, Sanford, all this is a load of cow-poo, as we say in Texas. You can’t secede from the United States. It’s illegal, and we proved that 150 years ago.”
”No, Mr. President, it’s not illegal, not even unconstitutional—go read the thing, it says nothing at all about secession—and all you proved back then is that a government that turns dictatorial can carry out the wishes of a rising corporate plutocracy at the cost of an incredible, and incredibly stupid, loss of lives. And you’re not going to do that again.”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because, sir, you are discredited and disgraced, your Administration has no moral authority whatsoever after your illegal wars, your economic meltdown, your lies, and your shredding of the Constitution--and your military would not obey any orders from you after your thoroughly contemptible conduct as commander-in-chief. Besides, before we declared independence we made sure to get backing for our cause from the United Nations Human Rights Council and thirty-five nations which themselves were created by secession, including all of the former Soviet republics, all of the former Yugoslav states, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Panama, Taiwan, East Timor, Singapore, Portugal, and Ireland. It would be beyond even your crude unilateralism to go up against that much world opinion. Even if you could.”
“Listen, Sanford, we have no intention of letting you get away with this. If I can’t use military force, then we’ll try something else. How about a boycott—how’d you like that? A call to Bentonville, Arkansas, and there goes your Wal-Marts. Another to Minneapolis, and no more Targets. How you people going to like that, Mr. Secession?”
“Go ahead and try it, won’t worry us. Why shouldn’t Wal-mart want to keep on doing business here, in another foreign country, like they do around the world? No never-mind to them that we’re not part of the U.S. Except that they could figure that people would have a whole lot more disposable income if they weren’t sending off $23 million in taxes to Washington, DC every year. That might make them very eager to do more business with us.”
“You think I’m a Texas knuckle-knocker, boy? I know full well you get a lot more money from us up here than you pay in. You’re not getting that any more. You’ll be living in tin-roof shacks.”
“Well, that is one thing you’re right about, Mr. President. In fact we get about 25-35 cents back for every dollar we send you in taxes. But in the first place, we’re no longer a part of that failed economic system you people put together, and that odious trillion-dollar bigshot bailout, no longer liable for the immense debt you ran up, no longer going to even be using American currency, and we’re not going down your dollar-based rathole. Second, you forget that most of that money that comes from Washington goes straight to the military establishment here, doesn’t do much for the wider economy, and we won’t need to be supporting that military any more cause we have our own national guard, so we just don’t need the money. And to top it off, we now no longer have to pay all that money to follow all the rules and regulations you’ve put on agriculture, and businesses, and industry, and schooling, and everything else the Feds put their noses into, and we’ll have a whole lot of extra money."
“All in all, Mr. President, we figure we’re going to be a little Southern Switzerland, running our own economic affairs for our own benefit, free and transparent banking, small markets with a lot of self-sufficiency, proud and prosperous and, may I say, palmy.”
”You sunuvabitch, you won’t get away with this. We’ll—"
“Forgive me for interrupting, Mr. President, but it might be wise for you to take some time to reflect on what I’ve said. Perhaps get some of the wiser heads in that city together and let them tell you not just how legal and permissible is what we have achieved, but how right and just and proper, and how it may even point the way for other states to follow our lead and allow your rotten and incompetent Federal government to shrink to a reasonable size where democracy and accountability can be restored.
“In sum, Mr. President, we ask you to remember the flag that was created for the first American Navy at the beginning of the War of Secession in 1775 by an honored son and delegate of the South Carolina colony by the name of Colonel Christopher Gadsden, a copy of which was also given to the South Carolina legislature to fly at the capital. It showed a fierce eastern diamondback rattlesnake—an animal that did not exist in Britain—whose tongue was flickering and hissing, with the words beneath—and I would like to impress them on you, Mr. President—DON’T TREAD ON ME.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
And that’s the end of the transcript.
Virtual buckeye to Kirkpatrick Sale at the Middlebury Institute.
6 comments:
FYI
it is illegal and unconstitutional to leave the union
Robert:
Prove it.
Harold
hard to do, so Let's assume some things
1) The constitution does not out right ban nor allow leaving the union
Thus, we must assume based on clues in the Constitution
2) I assume you do not see Texas V. White as a good decision, so we must avoid that
3) I know there is a law banning it (the illegal) but can not find it, but the Constitution trumps it
We can assume, if the Constitution allows for the stopping of rebellion by revoking rights, that it is against rebelling:
' The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. "
We can assume that if states can ot enter into confederations or allnces with others, then they are not allowed to leave:
"Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. "
Ditto for the war part (rebelling means war):
" No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. "
Arguably this part (ignore WV for this) means that if Congress okays it they can leave
"Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. "
1) The constitution does not out right ban nor allow leaving the union
Correct. It is silent on the matter.
Thus, we must assume based on clues in the Constitution
2) I assume you do not see Texas V. White as a good decision, so we must avoid that
Correct again. I grant that it is considered the precedent for making secession illegal, but it was delivered by the Supreme Court as a political decision in the heat of Reconstruction. Usually, when the law is unclear, judges will look to the intent of the legislators. This will lead you to Federalist #39:
"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered a sovereign body independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal, not a national constitution (italics Madison's)."
Remember that at the time, there was considerable sentiment against ratifying the Constitution because of the power it would give the Federal government. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay had a tough job selling the Constitution against those who thought it was a threat to the liberties of the people. If the prevailing opinion at the time was that a State could not leave the Union, the Constitution would never have been adopted.
I know there is a law banning it (the illegal) but can not find it, but the Constitution trumps it
I am not aware that such a law exists. I know that Congress attempted to pass such a law in 1861, but it failed because it was considered to be clearly unconstitutional.
Perhaps you are confusing this with a law against advocating the overthrow of the United States government by force or other unconstitutional means (which is the definition of sedition). The secessionist position is not seditious, because the Feds are free to rule forever, only not over us.
We can assume, if the Constitution allows for the stopping of rebellion by revoking rights, that it is against rebelling:
Abraham Lincoln to the contrary, there is a difference between rebellion and secession. To consider secession to be "rebellion" you would have to believe that sovereignty rests with the national government. Madison made it clear (as did, by the way, the writers of Ohio's Constitution in 1851) that sovereignty rests with the states and with the people.
"' The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. "
Okay, and your point is...? Lincoln called it a rebellion, so he could justify suspending the writ of habeas corpus on that basis. That doesn't make it legal.
We can assume that if states can ot enter into confederations or alliances with others, then they are not allowed to leave:
"Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. "
I don't know how you can make that assumption. Article I Section 10 applies while the State is in the Union, and was intended to prevent States in the Union from undercutting the Federal Government, which makes sense because it would harm the interests of the other States.
Ditto for the war part (rebelling means war):
" No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. "
Again, applicable only while the State is in the Union.
Rebellion, as you said, does mean war; but secession does not mean war, unless the Union chooses to make war with the seceding State, in which case the onus is on the Union to justify its aggressive action against a State leaving it according to its own law.
Arguably this part (ignore WV for this) means that if Congress okays it they can leave
"Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. "
This passage only refers to the division of States requiring the assent of Congress. It has been used only once, in the creation of Maine from Massachusetts in 1820, which was agreeable to Massachusetts, as well as Maine; and which was also politically expedient for Congress, because politically, slave state Missouri had to be accompanied by a free state into the Union to keep a balance between them in the Senate.
West Virginia was admitted on the pretext that it was agreed to by the "legitimate" government of Virginia, which was nothing more than a Unionist rump of the Virginia General Assembly meeting in Wheeling.
To assert that a State, once it voluntarily decides to enter the Union, cannot voluntarily leave it, is to suggest that accession to Statehood is like joining the Mafia. You can join, but you'll never leave alive.
Robert:
One more thing. If we applied your logic to American secession from Great Britain in 1776, and it prevailed, we would be singing "God Save the Queen" as our national anthem.
Harold
The rebellion is irrelevant
that said, I think we are misunderstanding each other
I believe that if a state requests to leave (or part of it, and the rest of it okay by that) that congress can say okay. In that situation (whichis what your site proposes) I think it is Constitutional
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