Secession Movement Moves Beyond Texas

Secession Movement Moves Well Beyond Texas
By Anna M. Tinsley

AUSTIN, Texas — As head of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller of Nederland believes it's time for the Lone Star State to sever its bond with the United States and return to the days when Texas was an independent republic."Independence. In our lifetime," Miller's organization proclaims on its Web site.When Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested that some Texans might want to secede from the Union because they are fed up with the federal government, the remarks drew nationwide news coverage and became fodder for late-night comedians.

But to Texas separatists like Miller and Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Kilgore of Mansfield, secession is no laughing matter. Nor is it exclusive to the nation's second-largest state. Fanned by angry contempt for Washington, secession movements have sprouted up in perhaps more than a dozen states in recent years. In Vermont, retired economics professor Thomas Naylor leads the Second Vermont Republic, a self-styled citizens network dedicated to extracting the sparsely populated New England state from "the American Empire."

And on the other side of the continent, Northwestern separatists envision a "Republic of Cascadia" carved out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia.While most Americans dismiss the breakaway sentiments, sociologists and political experts say they are part of a larger anti-Washington wave that is rapidly spreading across the country. More commonplace are states' rights movements to directly challenge federal laws, a citizen revolt that one scholar says is unparalleled in modern times. Among the actions in which states are thumbing their nose at Washington: Montana and Tennessee have enacted legislation declaring that firearms made and kept within those states are beyond the authority of the federal government. Similar versions of the law, known as the Firearms Freedom Act, have been introduced in at least four other states. Arizona lawmakers will let voters decide a proposed state constitutional amendment that would opt the state out of federal health care mandates under consideration in Congress.

The amendment will be placed on the November 2010 ballot. Republican state Rep. Nancy Barto said five other states considered similar versions of the amendment this year and at least nine others are expected to do so next year. Nearly two dozen states have approved resolutions refusing to participate in the Real ID Act of 2005, which requires that driver's licenses and state ID cards conform to federal standards. A campaign called "Bring the Guard Home" is pushing legislation in 23 states that would empower governors to recall state National Guard units from Iraq on the premise that the federal law authorizing such deployments has expired. "It's gaining momentum, to say the least," said Jim Draeger, program manager for Peace Action Wisconsin. He said the initiative has a respectable chance of passing the Legislature in his state.

Rising public anger over the way Washington does business has produced a growing outcry for state sovereignty and strict adherence to the 10th Amendment, which says powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution belong to the states.Texas was an epicenter for this year's "tea party" protests, in which thousands of Americans displayed their contempt for rising taxes and federal intrusion.Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center in Los Angeles, a think tank that monitors states' rights activity, said defiance of federal policy is "unprecedented" and cuts across the philosophical spectrum, ranging from staunch conservatives to anti-war activists to civil libertarians. Legislatures in 37 states, he said, have introduced state sovereignty resolutions and at least seven have passed.

Perry, who faces a hard-fought Republican primary challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has made state sovereignty one of his signature themes. During the 2009 Legislature, he endorsed an unsuccessful resolution supporting the 10th Amendment, asserting that "our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state."After a tea party rally in April, Perry told reporters that secession might be on the minds of some Texans disgusted with the federal government.

He later stressed that he wasn't advocating secession, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "America is a great country, and Texas wants to stay in that union and help our way out of "the nation's economic downturn. But others are advocating secession. In a poll of 1,209 respondents conducted by Zogby International last year, 22 percent said they believed that "any state or region" has the right to secede and become an independent republic, and 18 percent said they would support a secessionist movement in their state. Conversely, more than 70 percent expressed opposition to secession. Kirk Sale of Mount Pleasant, S.C., formed the Middlebury Institute in 2004 for the study of "separatism, secession and self-determination." The institute conducted the Third North American Secessionist Convention in New Hampshire in 2008, drawing delegates from about two dozen secessionist organizations in the United States and Canada.

Secessionist organizations are operating at various levels of activity in Texas, Vermont, New Hampshire, Alaska and Hawaii. Breakaway sentiments and anger at Washington also run high within the Southern National Congress, a 14-state organization to "express Southern grievances and promote Southern interests." Chairman Tom Moore, who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, says the group is "not explicitly a secessionist organization," although "most of our people probably do favor that option."

For many, the mention of secession brings to mind the most turbulent years in American history, when 13 Southern states broke away from the Union in 1860 and '61, plunging the country into a Civil War that claimed at least 618,000 lives but put an end to slavery. In contrast, modern-day secessionists stress that they advocate a peaceful departure and emphatically dismiss criticism that their organizations embrace racism and white supremacy. "We maintain an open-door policy," said Miller, who began forming the Texas Nationalist Movement early in the decade from the remnants of an earlier Texas independence movement. "If you're about freedom, individual freedom, and liberty, and Texas independence, we call you brother or sister." Miller says the group includes Hispanics, African-Americans, women, lifelong Democrats and union members.

"We don't argue race; we don't argue Democrat or Republican," he said. The movement also "predates Obama," he said, pointing out that his organization started well before the president took office in January. Miller, 35, said his involvement comes from a deep-rooted civic responsibility that began when he would accompany his father, a union ironworker, on the picket line.

When Miller was 18, he made an unsuccessful run for mayor of White Oak, a small community outside Longview in East Texas. His call for Texas independence, he said, stems from a belief that Washington's failures are dragging down the Lone Star State. Texas, which outpaces most other states in mineral wealth, agriculture, technology and other sectors, would be far better off as a separate country, he said."We currently have one of the strongest economies in the world," said Miller, a Web-based radio entrepreneur who lives in deep Southeast Texas.

"We've got everything we need to be, not just a viable nation, but a thriving, prosperous nation, except for one thing, independence from the United States." Larry Kilgore, a telecommunications consultant in Mansfield, has made secession a high-profile theme of his Republican campaign for governor. Though overshadowed by the two dominant Republicans in the race, Perry and Hutchison, Kilgore believes his candidacy is stoking interest in secession, and vice versa. He said he gets at least a half-dozen calls and 15 e-mails each day on the issue, in addition to "all kinds of Facebook hits."

"A lot of people have given up on the federal government," Kilgore said. If he becomes governor, he said, he would call a constitutional convention to create a nation of Texas, with voters asked to approve a constitutional amendment to cement the process. Texas emissaries would negotiate with Washington for separation, he said, predicting that the United States and Texas could "still be friends after we split."

I was the head of the Christian Falangist Party of America for over 23 years, I disbanned that organization earlier this year and began looking into the Texas Independence Movement and I liked what I saw. I am a political animal, I love the South but I especially love Texas and nothing on God's green earth excites me more than the thought of a second Texas Republic. Texas is where the South ends and the West begins, it is a unique place that blends Southern, Hispanic, and Cowboy cultures together. There is no place on earth like Texas and I want to be a part of making history and to help make the Republic of Texas a reality. That is why on September 9th of this year I joined the Texas Nationalist Movement. I do not hate the United States and I would love to see our Texas Republic and the U.S.A. be friends and trading partners of course after we leave the union that friendship will depend entirely on Washington City. God Bless Texas!

Texas Is Big

Texas is larger than any country in Europe
Texas: 268,601 square miles
Ukraine: 233,090 square miles
France: 210,026 square miles
Spain: 208,000 square miles
Sweden: 173,732 square miles
Norway: 148,746 square miles
Germay: 137,847 square miles
Finland: 131,000 square miles
Poland: 120,728 square miles
Italy: 116,345 square miles
Great Britain: 80,823 square miles
Austria: 38,000 square miles
Portugal: 35,672 square miles
Ireland: 32,599 square miles
Switzerland: 15,940 square miles
Denmark: 16,621 square miles
Netherlands: 13,084 square miles
Belgium: 11,787 square miles