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Monday » June 4 » 2007

Vermont secessionist movement gains support

John Curran
Canadian Press


Monday, June 04, 2007


MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Disillusioned by what they call an empire about to fall, a small cadre of writers and academics in Vermont want the state to secede from the United States.

The secessionists hope to put the question before citizens in March. Eventually, they want to persuade state legislators to declare independence, returning Vermont to the status it held from 1777 to 1791.

Neither the state nor the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids secession but few people think it is politically viable.

"I always thought the Civil War settled that," said Russell Wheeler, a constitutional law expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

If Vermont fought and won a war with the U.S. government, "then you could say Vermont proved the point."

"But that's not going to happen," Wheeler said.

Still, the idea has found plenty of sympathetic ears in Vermont, a left-leaning state that said yes to civil unions, no to slavery (before any other) and last year elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.

Supporters have published a "Green Mountain Manifesto" subtitled "Why and How Tiny Vermont Might Help Save America From Itself by Seceding from the Union."

In 2005, about 300 people turned out for a secession convention in the Statehouse and plans for a second one are in the works. A poll this year by the University of Vermont's Center for Rural Studies found 13 per cent of those surveyed support secession, up from eight per cent a year before.

"The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable - it's too big, it's too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens," said Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons, a quarterly newspaper dedicated to secession.

"We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war," Williams said.

"If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what's left of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire."

Vermont, which was historically conservative, has evolved into one of the country's most liberal states since the latter part of the 20th century, a bastion of countercultural dissent and New England self-reliance, where folks wear their hearts - and their anti-war stickers - on their Subaru station wagon bumpers.

Secession movements have a long history. Key West, Fla., staged a mock secession in the 1980s. In Vermont, the town Killington tried to break away and join New Hampshire in 2004 and Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Texas all have some form of secession organizations.

The Vermont movement has been simmering for years but gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

Secession supporters hope to have the question considered in March on Town Meeting Day, when voters gather to discuss state and local issues.

Thomas Naylor, 70, a retired Duke University economics professor and author, wrote the manifesto and founded a secession group called Second Vermont Republic.

His 112-page manifesto contains little explanation of how Vermont would make do without federal aid for security, education and social programs. Some in the movement foresee a Vermont with its own currency and passports, for example, and some form of representative government formed once the secession has taken place.

Frank Bryan, a professor at the University of Vermont who has championed the cause for years, said the cachet of secession would make the new republic a magnet.

"People would obviously relish coming to the Republic of Vermont, the Switzerland of North America," he said.

"Christ, you couldn't keep them away."

The Middlebury Institute, a Cold Spring, N.Y., think-tank, hosted a North American Separatist Convention last fall in Burlington that drew representatives from 16 organizations. The group is co-sponsoring another conference in October in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Of course, skeptics abound.

"It doesn't make economic sense, it doesn't make political sense, it doesn't make historical sense," said Paul Gillies, a lawyer and Vermont historian.

"Other than that, it's a good idea."

For now, the would-be secessionists are hoping to draw enough support to put the question on Town Meeting Day agendas.

"We're normal human beings," said Williams, 39, a history professor at Champlain College.

"But we're serious about this. We want people in Vermont to think about the options going forward."

"Do you want to stay in an empire that's in deep trouble?"

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/oddities/story.html?id=9b73670a-92b1-4f2d-82c2-d93a4b488b56&k=95351
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