Yet for many, secession still appears alien – outside the boundaries of the U.S. political tradition. But this view springs from attending to only one part of our political tradition. From the formation of the United States, with the Articles of Confederation, on down to 1860, secession proved a policy option considered in every section of the federation by major political leaders. It was only after the so-called Civil War that Americans began to adopt the language of the French Revolution, language that absolutely prohibits secession. The French Republic was the first to declare itself a republic – one and indivisible – creating the paradigm of all modern states.
But this language of indivisibility was entirely alien to the republican principles of the American Revolution under which the United States created a voluntary federation of states, not an aggregate of individuals ruled from the center. It was not until the 1920s (at the high noon of the Western obsession with centralization) that the U.S. Congress approved the Pledge of Allegiance, verbally transforming a federation of states into the French Revolutionary slogan: “one nation indivisible.”
The result is that Americans have inherited a deeply fractured political tradition. On one side of the fracture is what we may call a Jeffersonian Americanism, beginning with the Declaration of Independence (a secession document) and running down to 1860. On the other side is a post-Lincolnian Americanism. The former is rooted in state sovereignty, privileges small polities, and is open to secession. The latter is rooted in national sovereignty, views the individual states (like Vermont) mainly as administrative units of the center, and absolutely prohibits secession. Every American has inherited both these contrary Americanisms, and no citizen who understands both can fail to feel the tension they generate.
New England is still alien to me, but this should make Yankees seriously reconsider the right to secession.
No comments:
Post a Comment