A strange confluence of bedfellows has met in Tennessee, in a desire to secede from the United States.
Civil War Living Historian H.K. Edgerton carries the flag of the Confederacy EPA/DAN ANDERSON
The far left and the far right are both fed up. Two advocacy groups from New England and the Deep South are now sitting down to talk.
Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.
Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.
They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.
New Englanders "probably would allow abortion and have gun control," Hill said, while Southerners "would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now."
The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.
Vermont, one of the nation's most liberal states and home of the best organic artisan dairies, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.
Thomas Naylor, the founder of one of those groups, the Second Vermont Republic, said the friendly relationship with the League of the South doesn't mean everyone shares all the same beliefs.
But Naylor, a retired Duke University professor, said the League of the South shares his group's opposition to the federal government and the need to pursue secession.
"It doesn't matter if our next president is Condoleeza (Rice) or Hillary (Clinton), it is going to be grim," said Naylor, adding that there are secessionist movements in more than 25 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas.
They contend their movement is growing. The first North American Separatist Convention was held last fall in Vermont, which, unlike most Southern states, supports civil unions. Voters there elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.
Middlebury director Kirpatrick Sale said Hill offered to sponsor the second secessionist convention, but the co-sponsor arrangement was intended to show that "the folks up north regard you as legitimate colleagues."
"It bothers me that people have wrongly declared them to be racists," Sale said.
Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, said the League of the South "has been on our list close to a decade."
"What is remarkable and really astounding about this situation is we see people and institutions who are supposedly on the progressive left rubbing shoulders with bona fide white supremacists," Potok said.
Sale said the League of the South "has not done or said anything racist in its 14 years of existence," and that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not credible.
Harry Watson, director of the Center For the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it was a surprise to see The Middlebury Institute conferring with the League of the South, "an organization that's associated with a cause that many of us associate with the preservation of slavery."
Al Benson Jr.Oct 5th, 2007 - 03:30:47
I was born and grew up in New England, yet my sentiments are much more Southern and I now live in Louisiana. Having said that, I agree with the article that secession is not prohibited by the Constitution and if Vermont wants to secede peacefully and go its own way, why not?
It's interesting that when the states originally ratified the Constitution three of them, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia all stated in their ratification ordinances that if this new union became oppressive of their rights they reserved the right to leave. Their ratification ordinances were accepted with that language in them. So those that claim that the South committed treason in 1860 by seceding do not know their history.
And what has secession got to do with race? Race-baiters like the Southern Poverty Law Center are always sticking their collectivist noses in other people's business because they see their 'protests' about race as a great revenue enhancer for themselves.
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