Nothing Secedes Like With Success

MEMORANDUM

TO: Ian Baldwin and Frank Bryan
FROM: D.A. Ridgely
SUBJECT: Vermont Secession

Speaking as a Virginian, recently transplanted to the semi-former Republic of Texas, I congratulate you and your fellow Vermonters on, as you put it, “seek[ing] permission to leave,” i.e., to secede from the United States. Unfortunately, speaking once again especially as a Virginian, I can’t say I think your prospects are very good. There are, as you may recall, some precedents in these matters. You probably read about them; they were in all the papers.

That said, I find myself in almost complete agreement with much of what you write, especially in your criticism of the federal government as it has now come to be. Oh, I might point out that Vermont’s independence between the Revolutionary War and ratification of the U.S. Constitution was not all that substantially different from that of the other former colonies, Virginia included, and that for all practical purposes the 10th Amendment has never been given its due by the federal powers that be. I might also note that, however right Vermonters were on the subject of slavery (as indeed they were), your phrase “universal manhood suffrage” tends to tiptoe around the fact that not even the morally enlightened 18th Century Vermonters were quite so enlightened as to embrace womanhood suffrage. Well, nobody’s perfect. Look, for example, how that “free public school” business has turned out in too many places, too.

It may be true that Vermont fought in the Civil War primarily to end slavery. I couldn't say. Virginia and the rest of the South were wrong, tragically and unforgivably wrong on the subject of slavery, and none of the other historical or ideological reasons given then or now for their own attempted secession changes that fact. Still, whatever the reasons Vermont fought with the rest of the Union, the possibly unintended but certainly inevitable consequences of that Union victory and U.S. history thereafter pretty much means that Vermont has roughly the same chances of seceding today as you or I have of winning this year’s Miss America pageant.

Oh, sure, the federal government might well permit Puerto Rico or some other territory to part company, once and for all, from the U.S. But let’s face it, that’s largely because of what we might call the Dark Side of the Monroe Doctrine. Latin America is just a bit too, well, Latin for Uncle Sam to care all that much if they resign from the club. Contiguous territory arguments aside, in the case of your particular, not to mince words, lily-white (96.9% white) state demographics such permission will not, alas, be forthcoming. Think of the bad example it would set!

Speaking of which (bad examples, that is), you may have heard about the Free State Project, a libertarian movement to, um, move libertarians into your neighbor, New Hampshire, and push the envelope on balking at federal power and interference as far as possible. Yeah, I know – Vermont and New Hampshire aren’t exactly ideological soul mates, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re seriously sick and tired of Washington’s ineptitude and oppression.

Still, however hopeless your stated cause, I wish you and your fellow Green Mountain Boys good luck. True liberty, as true libertarians know, includes even the liberty to opt into a largely socialist state as long as one retains the liberty to opt back out again, too. People should, in other words, be free to screw up their own lives. Not only is it much cheaper and less dangerous, it’s also a lot more fun than letting Washington screw it up for you.

Oh, and thanks for Calvin Coolidge.