So California is just the latest state to consider secession; Texas talked about under President Obama, and since the 90s there have been active secessionist groups in several states. They would do well to consider the lesson from history by studying what happened to South Carolina in 1860. In November 1860, immediately after the election, the state leadership called for a statewide convention to decide on secession. They had just elected a new Governor, Francis Pickens, who was the grandson of General Andrew Pickens who played a key role in the Revolutionary War Battle of Cowpens. Governor Pickens laid out his intentions clearly in his inaugural address.
“Under all these circumstances, we now have no alternative left but to interpose our sovereign power as an independent State, to protect the rights and ancient privileges of the people of South Carolina.”
Of course California was never one of the original 13, as the South Carolinians liked to trumpet. But if I am hearing the current California Governor correctly, even if he has not come out publicly in support of secession, he does seem willing, even eager, for some sort of showdown with the US. He is probably thinking just like South Carolina. Look how Governor Pickens thought:
I think I am not assuming too much when I say that our interests will lead her to open her ports free to the tonnage and trade of all nations, reserving to herself the right to discriminate only against those who may be our public enemies. She [SC] has fine harbors, accessible to foreign commerce, and she is in the centre of those extensive agricultural productions, that enter so largely into the foreign trade and commerce of the world; and from the basis of those comforts in food and clothing so essential to the artizans and mechanic laborers in higher latitudes, and which are so essential to the prosperity and success of manufacturing capital in the North and in Europe.”
In other words, we are rich. We are well situated geographically. And other states and nations need us. Unfortunately for the Governor and the citizens of South Carolina, the government of the US wasn’t prepared to let them go. After General Sherman brought war and ruin to the state in 1865, the state, once a leading state in the Union, sunk to depths it has not really recovered from since.
But South Carolina had one advantage that California does not. The citizens of South Carolina was universally in agreement with this course of action. That wasn’t true in every state that seceded to join the CSA. That isn’t California’s story today. Over 4 million people voted for President Trump in California. Most of the northern third of the state went for the Republicans.
See, this is the issue that so many are missing today. We are equally split. And, unlike in 1861, we are mixed together. That’s actually a good thing, if we will stop shouting at each other, or rioting like hellions (uh, Berkeley…free speech, remember…even those that you don’t like). Sure, Texas is mostly Republican, but places like Austin, Houston and Dallas are not going to just magically go away.
I mean, does Governor Brown assume he can just order the 4 million citizens to flee the state unless they abandon their “hateful and foolish support of Trump”?
Yes, there are deep divisions in the country that have been growing since President Bush was elected. Obama’s administration made them worse, and that 50% of the electorate that voted for Trump were just as horrified in 2008 as my liberal friends (the 50% that voted for Clinton) feel today.
Secession feels good. It has a long history. It was Thomas Jefferson who first gave it legs when he suggested such could happen in 1798 after the Federalist Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts (hmmm…sounds familiar to the outcry right now). James Madison did talk him out of including secession in his final wording, but he did push for the ability of a state to nullify the action of the Federal Government. That was the choice of South Carolina the first time they tried their hand at some independence in 1830. It backfired then too. 130 years later, George Wallace of Alabama made the same attempt, drawing clear and correct scorn from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in his famous “I have a dream” speech.
Remember?
“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
Dr. King was forcefully noting that nullification was not a tact used by a statesman, but rather the childish act of some when they don’t get their way.
California doesn’t need to secede. They also need to stop ruinous rioting and violent chaos. And instead, powerful leaders with grace and insight, need to help lead the country to a conversation about our issues.