Title: Break It Up
Rating: 4 Stars
Everyone has heard of The Civil War. I remember visiting Foyle’s. It’s one of the more famous book stores in London. It’s spread over something like five floors. As I was perusing the history section, I was interested / amused to see an entire book case devoted to the American Civil War. Not just one book or a shelf; it was an entire book case.
The mythology of The Civil War is pretty set. The South was very protective of the practice of slavery. They were convinced that the radical abolitionists would somehow assume national power and would immediately abolish slavery. Accordingly, over a period of decades, the South made various threats to secede whenever they felt that their peculiar institution was under threat. With the election of Lincoln, even though, being a strict constitutionalist, he was not against abolishing slavery where it was already being practiced, the South saw it as the mortal threat and promptly seceded, before he was even inaugurated.
With Lincoln firmly committed to preserving the Union, it took a bloody four year battle costing 620,000 lives to end the secession threat. The extinguishing of that solitary secessionist threat cemented the idea of The United States as one people.
What if I told you that that wasn’t the only secessionist threat that the US has faced? What if I told you that the United State is, right now, pretty much as disunited as it ever has been?
That’s the thesis of this book. For the rest of this post, I’m going to list the various attempts at secession that various factions of our country has attempted.
I know that people today are aware of the red state / blue state divide or the rural / urban divide. This is more than that. These are people seriously talking about splitting the country up. They had plans. Some had constitutions. If this seems odd to you, I’d strongly advise you to read American Nations, by Colin Woodard (I wrote about it here). Woodard’s thesis is that we’re not just one American nation but eleven, each established at different times by different people for different reasons. Our history can be understood as these various nations battling each other for national supremacy. If you understand that, then the various attempts at secession begin to make much more sense.
Onto the various attempts at rebellion or sedition. Rest assured that this is by no means a complete list.
Did you know that, in 1777, Vermont broke free of New York and declared itself an independent republic? It was a sovereign entity for fourteen years. Its constitution was the first one among the states that abolished slavery. It joined the United States in 1991.
A recurring theme in our history is western territories thinking that they are being ignored or, even worse, abused by eastern governments. Around 1776, portions of western portions of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia decided that they had enough and created a new territory called Westsylvania. This effort continued off and on until 1782.
After the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, all was not well. The army, ill treated during the best of times, was now no longer being paid and promised pensions were not funded. An anonymous letter was circulated among army officers stationed at Newburgh that could be interpreted as encouragement for a military coup. In an emotional address, George Washington was able to suppress the rebellion.
During that same time, and for similar reasons, 400 Continental army soldiers surrounded the building where the congress met in Philadelphia so that their demands could be heard. The congressmen escaped through a back exit.
In 1786 there was Shays’ Rebellion. After the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of hard currency. Forcing people to pay hard currency was a severe hardship, especially for the rural population. Lacking access to currency, rural farmers were losing their farms and their other possessions. Thousands of them formed an impromptu army. They marched to an armory to get weapons. A hastily arranged state militia met them there and drove them away.
If you think that, in 1789, all of the colonies were excited about becoming a big old united country, let’s start with the first words of the Constitution. “We, the People” makes a bold unifying statement. Well, that wasn’t the first draft. The original draft said “We, the People of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (yes, that was it’s original name), Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, etc” (I’m too tired to write it all out). I think that’s hilarious. From the get go, no one really wanted to swear allegiance to this larger institution.
When the Constitution was approved, it was not the Southern states that were the most opposed to it. New York barely approved it. When approving it, New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island all explicitly reserved their right to secede.
The Whiskey Rebellion started in 1791. A tax on whiskey was seen, once again, as an affront upon the western population by eastern governments. Westerners used whiskey as a medium of exchange. This led to an armed insurrection and several battles. At one point, Washington himself, as President, was in the field to inspect the army. The rebellion was eventually suppressed.
In 1803, alarmed that the Louisiana Purchase might dilute their power, leaders from New York, New Jersey, New England proposed a Northern Confederacy with Canadian provinces.
In 1805, on the run after shooting Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr ended up in the West. Under at best murky circumstances, it would appear that he had at least some idea of breaking off some of those territories and forming a new country with himself, naturally, at the helm.
The War of 1812 was unpopular in the Northern states. Specifically, the New England states actively opposed the war via smuggling, tax boycotts, and anti-recruitment riots. Meetings were held to discuss secession.
I’d never heard of some of the secession movements. For instance, who has heard of the Republic of Indian Stream? In 1832, in northern New Hampshire, there was a border dispute between the United States and Canada. Sick that London and Washington couldn’t figure it out, the very few settlers that lived there declared the sovereign and independent Republic of Indian Stream. They had a constitution, levied taxes, and established courts and schools. In 1835, the settlers agreed to annexation to the United States.
OK, this post could go on forever. There’s so many more that I could talk about. There’s the secession threats that rose out of the Fugitive Slave Act. There was the brilliant idea that the Southern states had of, instead of letting Texas into the US, joining the Texas Republic instead. California and Utah, disgusted at political antics that they were witnessing from afar, gave serious thoughts to creating their own respective countries. Wanting to distance themselves from the rabid abolitionists of New England as well as the brutal slave holders of the deep South, a Central Confederacy composed of the mid Atlantic states and the border states was proposed. There were attempts to establish New York City as an independent free city.
Even today, there are varied attempts to secede. Some are ethnic. There have been proposals to create a Black American republic. Given the fact that so much of our land once belonged to Mexico, there have also been attempts to create a new country for Hispanic Americans. There was even a proposed nation exclusively for women.
Among the states, at various times, there has been secession saber rattling from the likes of California and Texas. Once independent, Vermont occasionally makes noises about going it alone again. In my old neck of the woods, there is an active movement proposing the new country of Cascadia, composed of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.
I know that a country that has been around for coming up on 250 years seems somehow indestructible. This book makes the very real point that it has lasted this long almost by happenstance. There are an everchanging sea of forces that is tearing at it.
I was listening to a podcast that makes the point that change always seems to be impossible until one day, it suddenly happens. So it would seem with the United States. There is nothing inevitable about the states, with their so many differences, staying united.
dorkenstein 