“Democracy” isn’t a one-dimensional issue. How you make decisions (majority vote) is one dimension. But who makes the decision—what group does the voting and is bound by the results of voting—is another dimension. Many countries balance these issues by having different levels of voting. Distinct communities wishing to govern themselves is a nearly universal phenomenon. My country exists because we didn’t want to be in a body politic with Pakistanis. It was our right to decide we should have our own government where we, and not they, voted on the laws that governed us. Dismissively comparing all such impulses to the Civil War is intellectually lazy.
Self determination is a widely recognized political right. If folks in Alabama don’t want folks in California to have a say in their affairs, they have that right. That must be balanced against other practicalities of course. But letting different groups govern themselves is conceptually part of “democracy” just as much as “one person one vote.”
If the secret of the dimensionality of reality was ever to seep out into the broad memeplex (particularly if the idea caught on with young people), I have a feeling our zoo keepers would have a bit of trouble on their hands.
Just because it was tried and "failed" once before doesn't mean that people don't still believe that it can be tried and made to work the next time.
The concept of a split US is not unattractive to a much larger number of people than you might be willing to give credit. There's also the people that will support a movement not because they fully support it, but mainly just because it's screwing the "system" and watching the chaos.
Back in the mid-90s, I was a video journalist covering the Republic of Texas[0] movement to secede (or in their words to recognize the illegality of Texas being annexed into the Union). It was very interesting how it was successfully progressing through the court system, but then went to crazy town with all of the liens, attempting to print their own money, and the kidnappings. However, there were the typical people denouncing their US citizenship and signing up to join to the Republic of Texas. The thing that surprised me was the governments of other countries signed up in recognition of the RoT as a legit government. I get that individual peoples wanting to see the world burn, but seeing governments sign up for it was what got me.
Could a state democratically elect to secede from the union? What if a National vote was held and a majority agreed to split up the USA? At what point could we democratically all agree we think the other side is crazy, and ask to peacefully take our ball and go home?
>Could a state democratically elect to secede from the union?
It was supposed to be part of the stipulations Texas had in the agreement to re-join the Union. At least that is part of Texas folklore. However, they were coming at it from a different direction in saying that the annexing was not done legally, so it should just naturally revert back to how it was before the illegal annexing.
We're actually seeing something similar but different currently in how part of Oregon wants to become part of Idaho.
>What if a National vote was held and a majority agreed to split up the USA?
It might not be a national vote, but a civil war ending in a stale mate would essentially do just that. Think Handmaid's Tale's Gilead.
> At what point could we democratically all agree we think the other side is crazy, and ask to peacefully take our ball and go home?
I gladly suggest donating Texas and Florida as the land of the new territory for the "crazy" for which you speak. Anyone not wanting to be part of there rules can move to the other states, and anyone wanting to be part of it can move in. Just let me move out of Texas before the mad rush
The 10th amendment basically says any power not granted to the federal government and not banned by the Constitution is left to the state. Secession is never mentioned in the Constitution and as such states have every right to vote to leave.
The Supreme Court has previously erroneously ruled that the federal government had the authority to stop it despite that power not having been granted to the federal government.
Texas v. White was a lot more complex than that; Specifically, the court claimed that the Constitution, in its effort to "form a more perfect union," precluded secession. Secession was inherently unconstitutional, because its foundations are that the "more perfect" union is imperfect and not salvageable by any action - short of divorce.
Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase in 1869, Chief Justice at the time:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States 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."
I understand what the Supreme Court said. There are a few problems with it though.
1. The founders wholly rejected that notion. The Declaration of Independence says
>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation
>That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
>But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Colonies were allowed to rid themselves of the British Government but the states aren't allowed to rid themselves of the American government? That makes no sense. The Founding Fathers would have had no issue with secession. Either the American Revolution was illegitimate or the southern one was legitimate. The British Empire made the same argument that the Supreme Court did. The British were wrong just like the Court.
2. If a state cannot leave, then how did the Southern States become military districts? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to strip states of statehood?
3. There was consent of the states who left to leave. I'm not sure why another state needs to be involved since the 10th amendment doesn't require the consent of other states.
4. If you have a glass of water. You take a sip of water you still have a glass of water. If a state leaves the Union you still have a union. If changing the amount of state destroys the union then I am not sure how adding to the Union does not do the same.
The Supreme Court ruled this way to provide cover for the unconstitutional actions of the federal government. They banned actions that were both allowed and they themselves did. To use a word from the Deceleration of Independence, that is despotism.
>2. If a state cannot leave, then how did the Southern States become military districts? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to strip states of statehood?
This was a key point that the 90s Republic of Texas movement keyed on, and they would tell anyone within earshot about why all Texas flags in courts are trimmed in gold fringe.
