Out of curiosity, if 1 of 50 states voted today to peacefully secede, what would the rest of us do?

If I understand correctly, the Civil War hostilities escalated as a function of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, not necessarily because of Southern votes of secession (History majors correct me if I'm wrong here).

A DU post today about Arizona got me curious. If a State legislature actually voted to secede, say Arizona's, what would the Federal government and other 50 states do? Legislative response? Meeting between the President and the state governor for negotiations? Military response? Can any constitutional experts tell me if there is a constitutional response to such a move? What do you think?

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:cry:

Remove all US military presence, border patrol, etc.

Stop doing business with businesses from that state.

Reroute water supplies.

Close any US ports operating in that state.

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There's a very sober secessionist sentiment in Vermont.

When it's Arizona or Texas, the undertone is all about conservatism and neo-Dixie racism. In the case of Vermont, it opens up a rational discussion of pros and cons of continuing the Union as we've come to know it.

Don't get me wrong -- if Texas ever actually does secede, I'm on the last chopper out of Austin.

:yoiks:

Sorry, Texan DU'ers!

If a red state goes, we can just make DC into a state.

highways and airspace for importing the goods they need to survive. We can also charge them a tax for the dams and waterways owned by the federal gov't that supply their scorched-ass-Earth state with water.

Once they get good and thirsty they'll come crawling back.

close the boarders immediately. BUILD THE DANG WALL!

the Glen Canyon Dam. As it happens, the vast majority of the water it holds back is in Utah.

I suspect Utah is likely to succeed as well if AZ does. All those landlocked teabagger states in that part of the country are rectangular anyway, thus easier to build walls around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Canyon_Dam

http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Facility.jsp?fac_Name=Glen+Canyon+Dam&groupName=Overview

No state is going to secede.

To quote "Granny" from "The Outlaw Josey Wales"

"All that big talk don't mean doodly squat"

which is no pipsqueak.

escaping the tyranny of universal healthcare.

at 6.

I can prepare a mean bowl of Irish oatmeal and chicken and dumplings, too. :hi:

It's all good

:rofl:

Anybody take in a boarder who is allergic to cats and dogs???

I love dogs but I'm allergic to them. No smokers either. No smoking cats or smoking dogs.....

You feed them once and they will be dependent on you. Well, they can't survive without the money that comes from the Federal feed trough. Think about it. I had a couple goofy conservanazis that were estatic about Texas' gov. goodhair perry saying Texas could succeed. Texas would not survive long. It's up to it's eyeballs in debt and gets billions and billions for all the military bases and for Federal highways. In order to keep up it's lifestyle, taxes would go through outer space. Besides that, Texas would probably be part of Mexico in less than ten years. My little conservanazi friends didn't like that answer.

So, if it were to happen, watch the Federal government starve it. It couldn't survive. There would be mass exodus from that state.

Don't allow any immigrants to cross our border!
 

all of one year. Businesses that wanted to sell to the world would abandon Arizona. Fortunately, there are sane people living Arizona, I don't see a secession vote going far, least yet getting approved.

I'm no scholar on the issue, but isn't being a member of the United States a voluntary choice on the part of each state, and, I guess, the federal government as well?

These nutbags would do it to another state if they didn't agree with it.

:D

because even a crumbly island in the Pacific of what's left of CA will be better than most of the USA. :evilgrin:

As an ex-Californian who fled to Thailand some few years ago, I can appreciate that. Experienced many a lively shake over the years I was there.

Take back all the NIH grants from their medical school. I could use the money.

If it were say... MA, I would probably move back there, on the other hand, I can think of a few red states that I would just say good riddance to them.

according to Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional while commenting that revolution or consent of the states could lead to a successful secession.

SNIP

Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) was argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The Court held in a 5–3 decision that the Constitution did not permit states to secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null". However, the decision did allow some possibility of the divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States".<36><37>

But why wouldn't we?

for losing other states.

George W. Bush was president when he wasn't and determined that corporations are now people. At some point, relevance does come into play.

It's an interesting question. I'm surprised it isn't getting more thoughtful discussion.

The two big ones we all talk about are Arizona and Texas. Arizona has seven Department of Defense bases, and Texas has fifteen. There is a LOT of other federal land in both states, land the government would be loathe to cede to a rebellious state.

Oh, and it's unconstitutional to do this.

Depending on the state I might move there

Yes would include Vermont and Oregon
No California, South Dakota, Texas and South Carolina

if they so much as reach a toe across the border.

And maybe offer to hire them as cheap labor.

I'm so using that one. Thank You

Oh, and declare their citizens exempt from the 14th Amendment. No more "anchor babies" FOR YOU.

RW idiots behind as easily as the other way around.


mark

from lack of fundamental services. The Confederacy would have collapsed with or without the war, because no country can be strong and united without a strong central government I'm sorry it just doesn't work.

and their share of federal pension obligations, and so on. "Footing the bill" means paying all the salaries of all government employees who have to work out how to do the secession, compensation (including legal costs) for any companies or individuals who are adversely affected by the split ... and seize the legislators' personal assets if they refuse.

You'd have to make them realise that there would be a literal cost to pandering to their political posturing.

Remember that map after the Kerry/Bush elections? We would get the whole NE and West Coast, plust most of the Midwest.

It would just be the SOUTH, with a few MidWest and Mountain states. Who do you think would be able to survive as a country?

If any of the rest of them seceded (or better yet, were expelled from The Union) we'd all pay less taxes.

Texas gets back 98% of what it pays out. You are right that Texas is the ONLY donor red state. California, by comparison gets back a paltry 42%. California would be well advised to secede.

beggar red states. Secession sound like a good deal to me as I sit in my blue state. We will take in the DUers from red states and move forward.

Maybe build a border fence.

"Arizona license plate? Arizona license? Sorry, you're not allowed on American highways. You sandbacks are gonna have to turn around and go back to the country you come from."

:party:

Texas can go without war..

You'd fight to keep Alabama, Kentucky, or Idaho?

Texas has a clause that allows them a legal out..

There is a highly popularized bit of Texas folklore that implies TX has the means and the right to leave the union, but that's simply an urban myth; although there is a clause which would allow TX to divide into five separate states, but I don't see that happening...

We've read our history books. We had a go at being an independent republic, but we're not all that good at independence. Texas is at its best as a state, even if it is an ornery state.

and give it equally to the states that border the one that doesn't want to be a state anymore....or if they don't want it or as an alternative, give it back to it's original residents, the Native Americans.

there would be some type of an organized federal police response, after all other peaceful options and communications had ended---c'mon

No time limit, payable on delivery.

I want there share of the defense budget back for their entire statehood, adjusted to currect dollars.

I want their share of interstate highway money.

I want their share of FAA, FCC, FTC, FDA, USDA, EPA, and DoD money.

Given that bill, they might have to think twice about the "peacably" part of your question. And, it they leave anyway, and refuse to pay, we invade and restore the union.

You don't get to take advantage of the union for 100 years and then just leave without paying back what you owe.
GAC

:yoiks:

Lots of those snowbirds would be moving back to where they came from, i'd think.
GAC

People do not need to reside within the US boundaries to receive the SS benefits they have earned.

Such an act would simply be ignored by federal authorities and agencies and any attempt to enforce secession by this state would be opposed by the overwhelming force of the federal government.

The absolute loons in the new teabagged NH legislature appear to be out to test the theory of state supremacy, so you may get a partial experiment in the practical meaning of the supremacy clause.

I do not believe that there is a single state that is even close to such a thing. The Tea Party morons talk a lot about it, but when it came right down to a vote, I don't see secession happening anywhere.

In my opinion, it's not really worth spending any time discussing this.

This answer would shock the average conservanazi teabaggin' kkklucker from Arizona.

http://itbegsthequestion.com/archives/3351?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ItBegsTheQuestion+%28It+Begs+the+Question%29

Do we really want to have the same policy as a freaky totalitarian cult?

That is an analogy so silly that i'm shocked to see it on DU. Seems like something one would see on FR, because it's so vacuous.

Any such state has already benefitted in massive ways by it's association with the rest of the union. To simply decide they don't want to be part of the "club" anymore would, be any reasonable view, require compensation for the benefits already received.

This is particularly true of states that would be most likely to secede, because those regions have, for DECADES, received more governmental funding than paid in. And, the TVM on those dollars would probably exceed the gross state product value of the state. (See Arizona, for intance. The TVM on dollars already spent, above revenues rec'd by the U.S. gov't exceed the state GDP by a factor of nearly 3.)

This is argument about economic reality and fairness, not about some silly analogy about a cult that demands you pay them with no true benefit except some fantasy about being taken off the planet in a speaceship.
GAC

I just think having a blanket ban on disassociating from the union is neither internally consistent with the principles said union ostensibly stands for, nor practical in the long term as regions and society changes. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure a federal system of government is practical with so many people over such a large geographic area. The whole enterprise would probably work much better as a confederation of regional powers (not necessarily individual states) than as one big unitary federal state, which is what we've essentially become.

I will admit that "club" was poor word choice on my part, but I still think that the analogy of not being able to leave an organization of one's own free will is sound. That was my primary point. I will also admit that the financial end of things does complicate matters, but not impossibly so. If Arizona wants to leave, I see no problem with Arizona leaving - if they're that serious about it, they'll work out a financial arrangement. It's infinitely preferable to both sides refusing to admit they're wrong and a civil war resulting.

I think any state is free to leave as long as they make compensation, with interest based, at least, on average cost of capital over that period of time, and the immediate withdrawal of ALL citizen protections rooted in federal dollars, like the EPA, FDA, USDA, DoD, DoT, DoE, etc.

And, while i think we agree in principle, i don't think we agree on just how a state would be able to make such a financial arrangement. For many states, the figures would be in the trillions of dollars. Who would help fund a state with no extant trade agreements and a debt 8x GDP? The Chinese? THe people of Arizona, even in a zeal to secede, wouldn't want to sell themselves to the Chinese. That would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

The financial benefit that nearly every state (with the exception of several northern states and California) have FAR, FAR exceeded the cost. And, my state of Illinois is one of those who have paid in more than we've received in funds or services for decades. And nobody here is talking about secession.

The rhetoric comes from the nutcases in states that would still be uninhabited wastelands if it weren't for their association with the other 49.

We agree that they should be free to leave, but only after we're financially even. And, there isn't a one that could do it, except MAYBE California.
GAC

International law since the Atlantic Charter has recognised the right to self-determination of all peoples. Which means that if a majority of the residents of, say, Alabama decide not to be part of the United States anymore, they're free to go. And the idea that the individual states should owe compensation is the most nonsensical part of your position; how much benefit, in terms of infrastructure and expenditure, did the former territories of the British Empire gain from being colonised? Should they have had to pay compensation for those expenditures? That position is logically inconsistent and irrational, and probably not legally enforceable under international law.

To suggest that these do not make up for highway funding is kind of insulting.

divide into 4 smaller states, which would still be part of the United States of America.

That way they can't get here illegally.

And we instigated the carve out of Southern Sudan, it seems to me we would have to go along.

The national debt would have to be re-assigned on a per capita basis, and the new nation to be borne out of the seceding state would have to be given time to come up with their own currency and work out details such as electric grid separation (or payment system), as well as get new passports for their citizens, etc.

Any citizens of the seceding state not willing to participate in such secession would of course be entitled to secede from the seceding state, take a chunk of it out, and have it join the union (the USA) if they wish.

If they have a civil war over such secesion, then of course we would have to intervene, and because we would be defending US citizens (in the sector seceding from the seceding ex-state), then we would have the right to bomb the crap out of the bad guys - we would just need a bit of time to demonize them and make sure the people in the other 49 states are OK with the use of violence against these "foreigners".

You can join but you can't leave.

"The problem changed on the ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation."

Grant speaks at length in his autobiography about the legality (and lack thereof) of secession.

:spank: