Secessionists are gaining followers

Some prominent voices in California are calling for a "Calexit," the secession of the state from the Union to form a new, independent nation.

It's gaining ground in the state because the words "president-elect" precede the name, "Donald Trump," of course.

The group leading the charge, Yes California Independence Campaign, assembled long before Trump's surprising victory. Its aim is to hold a referendum in 2018 that, if passed, would make California an independent country.

The idea of secession has a long history in the United States. The first secession movement was born in the very early 1800s in northeastern states that opposed westward expansion of the country into the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. It never gained much ground and finally sputtered out.

In our own day there has been a low-level secessionist movement in Texas for many years. One volunteer in the Texas Nationalist Movement put it this way:

“We see Washington going down a road that’s away from the Constitution, away from limited government, away from individual liberties. And we’re like you know what, um, you can do that if you want, but that’s not what Texas signed up for when we joined the union, so we’re going to part ways at this time.”

The Houston Chronicle says that there are secessionist movements in 15 other states, too, including in Vermont, where some Vermonters want to unite with Canada.

So how would a state secede from the Union? Well, it helps to remember that it's been tried already and did not turn out well. As far as secession having a Constitutional basis, legal minds and historians and politicians have been all over the map since the dawn of the Republic. The only Supreme Court ruling that addressed secession was Texas v. White, 1869,

The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit directly with the United States Supreme Court, which, under the United States Constitution, retains original jurisdiction on certain cases in which a state is a party. 

In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that, legally speaking, Texas had remained a United States state ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally 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".

Now, parse this carefully: Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, writing for the majority, declared that,

When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. ... There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

What did Chase say? He said, incredibly, that no state may secede from the Union -- unless it does. In other words, if a state's secession is either by consent of the other states (Chase did not explain how) or is successful through force of arms, then sure, fine, all is well. Otherwise, no can do. Meaning that if secession is successful, then it's lawful; if it's not successful then it's not!

Today, all of these "secesh" movements (to revive the pre-Civil War term) would die aborning if the United States returned to the form and function of a truly republican government -- note the lower-case "r"; I am not talking about the political party -- that our Founders envisioned and attempted to establish. That is a government of defined, separated, and limited powers that protects, not grants, the God-given rights of the people.

It is lunacy to imagine that this could ever have been possible under a H. Clinton administration. But the election this week of Donald Trump may prove to be our only chance to restore Constitutional government.

President Trump will be on probation with both parties from the moment he takes the oath of office. He is not a black man, or a woman of any color, so the Republicans won’t have to worry about going after one of the victim classes, other than septuagenarian orange people, a class for whom, when also considering John Boehner, Democrats feel few social-justice pangs. He will operate within the Constitution, or there will be bipartisan desire to stop him, and few on either side of the aisle will have any qualms in doing so.

Regardless of the electoral outcome, we are about to elect one of the worst presidents in American history. But only one choice will offer us a potential opportunity to rectify that situation.

Well, we will certainly find out.

Update: Some Oregonians have started the secesh ball rolling there.

On Thursday morning, Jennifer Rollins, a lawyer, and Christian Trejbal, a writer, filed the Oregon Secession Act.

"Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States," Trejbal said over the phone Thursday.

Those values? "Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness," Trejbal said, "plus equality." 

Ah, so close to Liberté, égalité, fraternité, a slogan of the short-lived "Brotherhood of Man" French Revolution. And we know that worked out.