The founding of a nation-state must decide where its powers belong. In a nation where the dichotomy of centralization and decentralization proponents exists it is confronted with black or white propositions that actually create shades of gray tugging on both trends.
The United States Constitution was written to be a strongly centralist document with a smattering of decentralist characteristics. Some of the founding members thought that it lacked balance until the Bill of Rights satisfied their arguments against ratification.
The powerful disembodied voice of Thomas Jefferson is often called upon to self-empower a group or a state 
to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” and that “they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Moreover, in 1816, Jefferson wrote, “I would rather the States should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture.”
Yet, what the Declaration of Independence did was to trigger a breakdown of decentralization by convincing the separate colonies of the necessity of a strong union. As a consequence, in due course, an unequal balance of power existed between a strong centralized federate and states’ rights.
When the Green Mountain citizens were still part of the New Hampshire Grants during the Revolutionary War, they were known to the British forces as the “most active and most rebellious race on the continent.” Subsequently, when Vermont broke away from the New York and New Hampshire colonies, it created its own sovereign nation in 1777 that remained as the “Vermont Republic” until 1791. Even so, Vermont was deemed the “reluctant republic” because too many Vermonters favored being part of the newly forming United States and wanted to be the “fourteenth star,” so much so, that when Ira Allen designed the Great Seal of Vermont it bore a “14 branched pine tree.”
It was at the start of the Civil War when the Ordinance of Secession was drafted and ratified by the southern states that an American secessionist movement was put to the test. The question in southern states of whether or not a fair cross-section of opinions would unify the commitment to secede was the undoing of Virginia. Some opponents of Virginia secession wanted to remain in the union to preserve the legacy that Virginians played in the formation of the United States. Unionist delegates helped to defeat a motion to secede. However, after the capture of Fort Sumter by the North, Virginia then “voted to declare secession from the Union pending ratification of the decision by the voters.” Still, the voters in twenty-six western counties in Virginia rejected the approved referendum to secede that led to the creation of the state of West Virginia. West Virginia didn’t join and was not seated in the Confederacy.
The post war road to disunion and secession had and has to this day difficulty overcoming the stigma of that ultimate national conflict between decentralists and centralists during the Civil War. Opponents of secession relate it to an awful, bloody national conflict so that the word “secession” has a quick turnoff feature.
Whether or not the history of the Vermont Republic gives modern Vermonters an edge in any secessionist movement remains to be seen. In a state with separatist leaning tendencies the internal dialogue and defense of either centralization or decentralization is somewhat similar to the union of states it wishes to break away from. Therefore, keeping the peace after a successful secession can evolve to conflicting internal political and social processes.
In any case, the 2007 annual Vermonters Poll at UVM “showed that thirteen percent of eligible voters in Vermont supported secession.” It’s likely that some of the “silenced” nonvoters may also favor secession. Moreover, the January 10, 2011 issue of Time Magazine named the “Second Vermont Republic” as one of the “Top 10 Aspiring Nations” in the world.
Bent on “downsizing the USA,” and as foremost among secessionists’ states, does our Second Vermont Republic have anywhere near at hand the resources, the mobilizing power, to right the state of the unbalance of power that exists today?
The powers, it turns out, belong to the legislature or any administrative body that sits at the voting pleasure of the community of people. Short of a rebellion, peaceful or not, the breakaway force needed to secure the confidence and support of a state majority to “decentralize” and, therefore, downsize the economic and political network that currently makes this state operational, is a remote possibility.
Vermont is a good example where secession could breakdown, not unlike the effect that the Virginia secessionist referendum had on splitting its borders into Virginia and West Virginia. Vermont is a state with a top heavy population where the residential economy and political life is far more depended on a centralized structure to bring them necessary resources than a decentralized Southern Vermont might need.
The picturesque jigsaw puzzle that makes up the pluralism of America is not sufficiently commodious to accommodate full-blown harmony. The people, the states and the federation are a shifting map that delineates a permanent state of civil strife. Even if a state seceded from the union the civil strife within that state continues by those in the state who were opposed to secession and the reasons behind it.
What we have is a failure to secede. Not a single instance of modern secession has been successful. If the history of secession is going catch up with itself what we need is a daring act that can sustain itself to such a degree that it becomes the benchmark for other secessionists to follow. No such benchmark exists; such is the power of centralized domain and control.
When any state is consensually and lawfully tied to a union of states who are guilty of oppression and unspeakable crimes against humanity does it have the moral prerogative to legally or otherwise break those bonds and create for themselves a new sovereignty? When does the first step to disunion become a reality?
Vidda Crochetta lives in the Wantastiquet river basin in Southern Vermont and is a historical novelist, poet, lyricist and opinion commentator for various print and online publications.
http://www.vermontindependent.org/need-to-secede-the-reluctant-republic-the-breakdown-of-secession-and-a-2vr/
Quick like a bandage
The way things work nowadays is that you can do just about whatever you want, a few people will grumble, and most everyone else will just go along without any fight.
I’m thinking, say, of Bush-Cheney taking away rights, creating free-speech zone cages, executing people without a trial, and so on. Things that would have been horrific if anyone was thinking, but not enough people are. The brilliance of Cheney was that he realized no one would stop them. No one had the guts to stand up and say it was wrong with enough force for it to matter. Even the next President didn’t want to “look back” and correct anything.
So, to succeed with the secede, I suggest you run for office, become governor, then just announce it one day. A few people will grumble, not enough will stand up to oppose, and you’ve succeeded in seceding.
New Whirled Order
Very interesting. Not sure the catalyst for disunion hinges on a moral question.
The hegemony of the United States over its provinces, compared to the EU, with its principalities maintaining sovereignty are only but two models of a similar product. Whether the manufacturer of that product is the Earth, or Civilization..the item has a design flaw, which is found in the embedded hypocrisy of its constituent parts.
So, this impetus for escape to higher ground may be real, but the methods are chimerical. It cannot be faced. We can look in the mirror all we want, wishing away our blemishes and wrinkles, but the figure in the mirror who looks back at us is only a reflection. Not that which lives and dies, property of the state.
In another words, we may claim to live by a moral decree, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Short of alien invasion or polar gyroscopic reorientation, I can’t imagine any way to summon that daring act you speak of, which smashes the mirror and breaks the spell.
No Escape Clause
As an outside observer, I’d say, lucky for the active secessionists the catalyst for disunion doesn’t hinge on a moral question….only. I imagine their interests are disarranged by provincial and the national/global order (corporate) dichotomies.
The complications for the VT secess crew is that there are no modern precedents, moral or otherwise. The only (temporary) secession was during the civil war and that was a strength in numbers exercise. And, strength in numbers, for any reason, isn’t exactly Vermont’s best suit. There isn’t likely to be a critical mass clamoring for secession in this state. To answer my question in the last paragraph, “When does the first step to disunion become a reality?” is predicated upon the numbers game.
Moreover, early Vermont did not have a legislature in place to answer to. Once a legislature is breathed into life, it does not want to die and will not lightly turn over secession to a governor, nor a rebellion.
Polar Gyroscopic Reorientation
We can, of course, vote Bill Lee for Governor.
Bill "Spaceman" Lee
I saw his name, Bill “Spaceman” Lee on the ballot, (and laughed) but didn’t know who he is, so I just now Googled him:
“Now the Spaceman is running for Governor in his own right; as the candidate of the Vermont Liberty Union Party. To his right is Republican Phil Scott. Also to his right is Democrat Sue Minter. Bill may be one part conservative but he is also two parts socialist (and three parts tell-it-like-it-is or should be maverick). His name recognition is strong enough to cause concern among some Democratic Party insiders (will he draw votes from Minter?), and his policy positions are out-side-the-box enough to, perhaps, gain interest among working class voters who may otherwise lean towards racecar driving Scott.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/02/the-spaceman-cometh-an-interview-with-bill-lee-on-his-run-for-governor-of-vermont/
Rarefied Air of Secession Theory
Since the civil war secession really has been largely theoretical, not yet applied in any way as a practical solution for dissent on a statewide basis. It is more a political philosophy that would challenge the state authority to remain in a union. And, the theories are a mixed of a justifying a choice and/or having a cause to secede. Without a compelling justification, for any reason, no secession will take place in this country, and proponents will be left with the rarefied air of theoretical discussion.
In 1869, the Supreme Court, in fact, ruled in Texas vs White stating that a state in the union “was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.”
Locally
Brattleboro has a way out of Representative Town Meeting, btw. If it is put on a ballot as a binding vote and voters endorse the idea, Brattleboro could return to regular town meeting (or change to another form). It was attempted and defeated in the 60’s not long after RTM was instituted.
Not quite secession, but it is a way out. : )