Second Vermont Republic

This fall sees the launch of The Middlebury Institute, a think-tank devoted, as it says, to “the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination,” specifically in the states of America beyond Vermont but ultimately anywhere in the world. It does not exist yet as an actual place—it embodies an idea but doesn’t need a building—and does not even exist in Middlebury; it takes its name from the November 2004 “Radcon” conference in that city and the Middlebury Declaration issued there. As the opening statement from Thomas Naylor and me puts it, “The Middlebury Institute hopes to foster a national movement in the United States that will:
• Place secession on the national political agenda,
• Encourage secessionist and separatist movements here and abroad,
• Develop communication among such existing and future groups,
• Create a body of scholarship to examine and promote the ideas of separatism,
• And work carefully and thoughtfully for the ultimate task, the peaceful dissolution of the American empire.
We would welcome the help and participation of any or all of you, specifically to use it as a forum for such articles and papers that we might issue as pamphlets to a mailing list of opinion makers, politicians, scholars, and activists. We would also of course welcome contributions to the cause, initially to defray printing and mailing expenses, but ultimately to go toward the renting of an office suite and hiring of a modest staff.
In conjunction with this launch, I thought it might prove interesting if I laid out some of the places where information about secession and separatism can be found.
One of the best places is the American Secessionist Project (secession.us), which is sort of mamby-pamby in its goals—secession is only third, after “restoration of a Representative Constitutional Republic” and “state autonomy” and nullification power—but it has useful links (including the Second Vermont Republic) and several interesting archives, including “Secessionist Papers,” a history of secession, and various articles. The slant of most of the papers is what I would call Southern libertarian, but they do confront the problems of secession straight on. It has a kind of blog, last updated in August, and not nearly comprehensive enough. (Another site, secession.blogspot.com, was very energetic for awhile, though mostly about the U.S. South, but ended in June 2004, and there is no really good source for up-to-date secession news.)
Another useful site is Secession.net, attempting to create a worldwide secessionist network and promoting the idea of “community-based secession” rather than state-based or wider. It lists as it goals “Legitimatize Secession of Small Political Entities,” “Influence Existing Secessionist Movements,” and “Promote New Secession Movements,” and among its strategies are “Work within the System,” “Use a Diversity of Nonviolent Action Strategies,” and “Respect Rights of Non-Secessionists.” It has archives on “Nonviolence and Decentralization” and Leopold Kohr’s Breakdown of Nations [see Vermont Commons, August 2005, and Thomas Naylor’s piece in this issue], but its section on “pro-secession articles” is not working—a failing that I find on quite a number of secession sites that are not kept up to date and regularly tuned.
One of the oldest websites is for the Alaskan Independence Party (akip.org), one of the oldest movements. It seems to operate only during statewide election times—the party is a legitimate political party and had a member elected governor in 1991—and hasn’t been updated since January 2004. But it has an excellent account of Alaskan history (it’s what you get when you click on a line that promises a piece by Thomas Naylor) and a page of links to other secessionist organizations that is quite extensive, although it has not been updated in ages and includes a number of defunct organizations. (Like the New England Confederation and Green Mountain Republic—where are they, now that we need them?)
One of the newest websites is for the New California Republic (newcaliforniarepublic.org), which started last fall as Move On California. It makes an excellent case for California secession, including the fact that the state has the fifth-largest economy in the world and a great deal of its wealth is now siphoned off to politicians and pork projects in the red states. (It does not point out that in 2004 California paid approximately $88 million to the Federal government beyond what it got back—and what a nice nest egg that would make for an independent California.)
The California site has a long list of links to articles about blue-state secession that have been published in the last year, including Christopher Ketcham’s excellent piece in Slate (“Long Live Secession”) and Fortune’s striking “This Land Is Red Land, Paid for by Blue Land.”
Then there’s the remarkable site of “Secession Issues” (cbel.com/secession_issues), which has no less than 409 links to secessionist activities and groups around the world—there are 13 sites for Abkhazia, for example (they want to separate from Georgia, in case you forgot), and Inner Mongolia, Sardinians in Italy, Kashmir, Faroe Islands, Mindanao, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Manx Nationalist Party, Oromyia, Ladakh, and on and on. It also includes a number of Canadian links (Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, and Western Canada all have secession movements), 5 for Texas, and a hefty 44 for the American South (not all of which are functional, though the page claims to have been updated in June of this year).
The question of how the South fits into all of this is interesting in itself. The three major organizations seem to be the League of the South, with its affiliated institute where a number of Southern scholars publish, reached at dixienet.org, an excellent site with many links and archives; the Southern Party (south-art.com/southern_party), which attempts to act as an electoral party in all Southern states (though it foresees possible independence as well) but has an organization in only four, and seems to inspire a lot of bickering and apostasy within its ranks; and the New Confederacy (newconfederacy.org), which has its own constitution. Each of these is explicitly against racism and slavery, each has a strong Christian slant to it, and each seems to want the same sort of future for the South, making me wonder why there are three separate organizations in the first place.
Finally, I should mention Newenglandsecession.blogspot.com, which is active and up to date, though it seems to be the musings of one Gray Locke rather than the voice of any organization. And of course I don’t have to tell you about vtcommons.org and vermontrepublic.org.
It’s difficult to assess how active and energetic the secessionist movements are in the U.S., but there’s no question that a great many secessionist organizations exist and some are clearly building a following for the cause. In any case, they have produced a great deal of information, available at the sites above, and if you went to them all and read what they have to offer, you’d qualify as a PhD in Secessionism. Not such a bad idea.