Secession.

Something with which the United States is all-too familiar.

In the late 1700s, the 13 colonies in the New World broke away from the rule of Britain and the English monarchy under King George III, forming a new country.

Nearly 100 years later, the southern states seceded from the Union to also form a new country.

Both acts led to bloody wars with those in power trying to retain their control and the other side trying to gain autonomy.

You can throw other factors into the mix, but broken down to its simplest form, that’s what happened.

Fast-forward to the present day, where the United Kingdom — from which we seceded — is leaving the European Union.

Good on ya, mate.

Luckily, at least so far, there hasn’t been any bloodshed.

The success of Brexit, as it is being called, has led to renewed interest in the Texas secession movement, now being advocated as Texit, and started a conversation for the pullout of New Hampshire.

In 2012, the “We the People” web page of the executive branch was flooded with petitions from residents of all 50 states asking for secession. There were also counter-secession petitions stipulating that those who wish to leave the Union should “lose their citizenship” and be deported.

However, petitioning to secede is like writing a letter to the principal asking to skip school — for the rest of your life.

If you’re going to secede, you don’t ask politely in a petition you hope a government official will read. You make a declaration and just do it, much like Thomas Jefferson and company did in 1776.

“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,” Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

So if people believe that a strong central government has become too oppressive, what are they to do?

Naysayers consider secession treasonous. They argue that we live in the most free country in the world and if you don’t like it, you should leave — just as long as it’s to another geographical area and not from the sacred Union that President Lincoln so desperately wanted to preserve.

Several economists have tackled the subject in favor of succession.

In 2012, Walter Williams wrote: “For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission, or simply parting company?”

Economist and libertarian philosopher Murray Rothbard similarly said that any group or nationality should be allowed to secede or join “any other nation-state that agrees to have it.”

“That simple reform would go a long way toward establishing nations by consent,” Rothbard continued. “The Scots, if they want to, should be allowed by the English to leave the United Kingdom, and to become independent, and even to join a Gaelic Confederation, if the constituents so desire.”

The situations of the Civil War and the U.K.’s departure from the EU are different than those that led to the Revolutionary War.

The states, and Britain, entered into their respective unions voluntarily, and therefore, should be able to voluntarily withdraw. But we see how well that turned out the last time in the U.S.

https://ansonrecord.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_editorialweb.jpg