Talk:Secession/Archive 1

Blue vs Red states

Someone might have mentioned this in some internet chat room, but this didn't seem to be serious enough to be worth mentioning.

After the 2004 presidential election, there is also some initial speculative talk about options for "blue states" (i.e. states with Democratic voting majority for President) to secede from a Republican controlled federal government.

Roadrunner 07:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The "Jesusland" article, ironically enough, makes a cognent comment about this, stating how that most states are in fact "purple" (the mixture of red and blue) and that something as serious as secession could hardly be undertaken realistically in the absence of, say, around a two-thirds majority support, which neither party has in almost any part of the country. Rlquall 13:18, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

More importantly, a real seccession movement would need to have substantial support on the ground in both the cities & surrounding country side. Outside of New England; on a county by county basis, even the blue states are geographicly more red. In addition, outside of portions of the Midwest west of the Mississippi, most of the red states most populated counties are blue. Jon 16:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

US-centric

I notice the examples are quite US-centric. Anyone know other examples? There's Quebec, of course. I suppose one could say various winnings of political independence (Switzerland, the United States, India, the breakup of the British Commonwealth) were secessions too. Tualha 23:07, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In the case of Australia, independence from the British Empire can't really be called secession. It was a slow process that only really finished in the 1980s with the passing of the Australia Act. I can't speak for other Commonwealth countries, but certain relevant laws (like the Statute of Westminster) had effect there (Canada, New Zealand, etc.) as well, so I expect their independences were similarly gradual. On the other hand, talk of secession by certain Australian states (well, Western Australia anyway) from the Commonwealth could be relevant. I believe a referendum in the first half of the 20th century showed 60-70% of Western Australians were in favour of secession, but no unilateral declaration was ever passed and the Commonwealth and UK governments didn't do anything to effect the break. -- Perey 22:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

East Timor seceded from Portugal in 1975 and then Indonesia in 2002.

Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan some time in the seventies. Namibia seceded from South Africa. Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia.

Other than that most recent developments such as the brek up of Yugoslavia and the USSR are better described as dissolution than cases of multiple unilateral secession.

Andrewb

Definition

The current entry says that secession is withdrawal from a political entity. This is dubious. It is withdrawal from a federation, alliance etc. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "action of seceding from a federation or organization" Webster's Collegiate: "formal withdrawal from an organization" The key point is that if you withdraw from a federal state, confederation, alliance, organization of states, etc, that is secession. But if you gain independence from a unitary state (whose individual parts have no sovereignty of their own) such as Britain, France, Italy, arguably Spain, etc, that isn't secession, and the movements that call for it aren't secessionist but separatist or (more neutrally) just pro-independence. RichardQ 10:45, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

A State is a type of organization, so gaining independence from a State clearly satisfies Oxford's definition. BillyBong 17:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That's an excessively broad interpretation. Traditionally the word "secession" is used of withdrawal from federations. And given that a federation is an organization, Oxford would not have said "federation or organization" if such a broad reinterpretation of "organization" were intended. It is far from clear that gaining independence from the UK or France could satisfy the Oxford definition. 86.165.211.143 (talk) 20:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

let's avoid original research wp:or. There are lots of reliable sources besides dictionaries on this topic. I put a list here but broke arm before could fix up this article (or clean up formatting on that page). Carol Moore 00:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Norway - Sweden

methinks Norway in 1905 could be added. Cacophony 03:35, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Czech Republic and Slovakia

Czechoslovakia peacefully split in two parts in 1993

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ez.html

Vegas215 13:43, Nov 11, 2005 (UTC)

Links

I removed the links to some commercial encyclopedia advertisements because I was directed to do so in this message through wikipedia "Please do not add commercial links — or links to your own private websites — to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. See the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. —Cleared as filed. 05:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)." I re-inserted some non-commercial links that someone had improperly deleted http://rexcurry.net/secession.html and http://rexcurry.net/secession-for-florida.html I also deleted a link to Jesusland, since that link is clearly absurd, especially when compared with the links/urls above. Isn't wikipedia the supreme example of absurd intellectual dishonesty? It really is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.65.222 (talk • contribs)

Please don't spam pages with links to your site. In future, it's probably best if you suggest links on the talk page first, and then have someone else add them. I'm not sure you're the best judge of the worth of your own website. — Matt Crypto 20:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Too much detail

This article would be much better off focusing on mechanisms and motivations for secession, rather than trying to include all cases. Those movements which are noteworthy would get their own article and those less so, perhaps a few description words on List of active autonomist and secessionist movements—a far more complete listing which seems to have escaped this article's editors so far? - choster 03:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Creation of new states in the western U.S.

I've removed reference to this, since contrary to what the article said, the new states weren't carved from existing states (barring those already listed) but from territories, which is a different thing entirely. —Zero Gravitas 04:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

False, states were carved out of Texas —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cw1865 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

China

I think Taiwan and China is a good example. Somebody please lengthen it. [unknown user]

Taiwan is a very good example of secession de-facto but it's non de-jure. Jon 15:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how someone can write that Taiwan has Chinese sovereignity. Can the PRC pass laws there? Can it enforce laws there through the police, courts and prisons? This should be removed from secession, as interesting as it is, because it violates NPOV by starting from the assumption of the PRC, namely, that Taiwan is part of the PRC (although, as the article interestingly notes, Taiwan has only been part of mainland China for four of the last 100 years) JoshNarins (talk) 14:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I was going to make some suggestions but decided to just be bold and do it since it's been bothering me for a while too.

Carol Moore 16:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

Cleanup needed

• Instead of mixing international secessions with state secessions & local (city & county) secessions, they should be cleanly seperated.
• Also within in section, it would be better to have them listed chronically ordered. (Example: instead of US Civil War followed by Secession movement in South Carolina in 1830s followed by US secession from UK; they should be listed in reverse order)
• Don't go into detail about satire here (Red-Blue state seperation) a link with it's own article (that notes it is satire) is sufficent.

Jon 15:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Misinterpretation

I think a lot of people are confusing wars of independence with secession.

East Timor was a colony annexed by Portugal, not an actual constituent part of that nation.

The same holds true for many other situations alluded to above, re: "secession."

71.125.254.130 23:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Panama and Columbia

Something should be written about their split. --Kalmia 09:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Secession outlawed?

Does anyone have the citation to the United States Code provision supporting this statement: "It should be noted that after the American Civil War, Congress passed legislation outlawing the act of secession by any state in the Union?" Thanks

The legalities (or not) of secession has been of special academic interest to me for several decades. There is no such provision in the U.S. Code. Secession is de facto "illegal" since the Southern states lost the Civil War and were kept in the Union by force, but there's nothing in U.S. federal law to prevent any state from attempting secession again. Whether such an attempt would be successful is another matter, and the answer to that would be purely political (and possibly military). --Michael K. Smith 13:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Texas v. White stands for the proposition that secession is illegal (acts of Texas' secessionist government were null and void)

It should be noted, when referencing the Texas v. White decision, that AFTER said decision, the supreme court advised against trying Jefferson Davis or any other Confederate officials; noted was the fact that secession was not only a viable option, but the original 13 colonies had joined a new voluntary union after secession, and no laws had been broken. While held for more than 2 years without trial, Jefferson Davis was never formally tried in a court of law for treason, nor was any other Confederate government official. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.157.102.60 (talk) 03:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Secession was a "viable option", yet instead of appealing to the supreme court, which was mostley southern democrat, the south decided to engage in war. All you're spewing is neo-confederate propaganda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.28.100.34 (talk) 14:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Claim for re-naming

The title is misguiding - the disambigution page should be the page called Secession. What we are dealing with here, are evidently political secessions, between ethnic, religious or other social groups, and there are much more than listed here.
The content of this page is one-eyed: US-centered, and then only looking to recent conflicts. But there were "Secessions" all around history, since the Middle Ages: the rise of the dutch republic, to name only one.
I do not want to spend to much time on this page, but it is really not among the better ones on Wikipedia. --RPD 23:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality of "American revolutions" section

• Someone placed the NPOV-sect tag in this section at some point in the past. I don't see any real discussion of the point. The section seems fine to me. Since there is no discussion, shall we remove the tag? -- RayBirks 03:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Australia?

I'm surprised the Australia section doesn't mention the Hutt River Province. Should it be included, even if it is unofficial? 58.106.209.10 09:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. (If Sealand is listed, then PHR should be listed as well) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.219.64.80 (talk) 00:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced statement removed

"The Supreme Court decision is contested by some historians and legal scholars who view the American Civil War as a conflict between two sovereign entities." There's neither a source nor a specific historian or legal scholar. More over, the US Supreme Court decision is binding. Jon 16:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE NOTE: It somehow slipped back in there again. Don't feel like tracing how. Before I remove it with some other changes want to make, will encourage whoever again to provide a source. There maybe some statutes that can BROADLY be intepreted thusly, but I don't choose to include them. If you think so, at least tell us what they are and that it is a broad interpretation. Thanks. Carol in dc http://secession.net/

Carol Moore 19:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC) carolmooredc

DRAFT: SUGGESTIONS FOR REORGANIZING PAGE

OK, I don't know when I'm going to get to this, but just giving the page and the discussion a quick look over, I think it needs to be re-organized something like the below, with sourced relevant material included and prejudicial headings and overly detailed current info omitted. I'll probably start by adding the first two sections. Unless someone else wants to take up the slack! Comments welcome!

Contents:

• • definitions, theory and research (links to theorists, papers, books etc)
  • chronological history of significant secessions
  • current secessionist movements by continent

Carol in dc http://secession.net Carol Moore 20:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC) carolmooredc

US of A- Confederate

• THE ORDER OF SUCCESSION SHOULD BE USED WHEN DESCRIBING THE CONFEDERATE STATES!!! Curran (talk) 01:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

REPLY:Succession is the act or process of following in order or sequence. See Succession. Not to be confused with Secession

So you want the SUCCESSION of SECESSION of States. I'm sure you can find a good site that will list it.

Carol Moore 01:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

With reference to the Confederacy/USA, specifically when discussing Missouri, the article can be read to indicate that Missouri's state government was pro-Union. The elected governor of Missouri was clearly pro-South, though he declared the state to be neutral. The population of Missouri is clearly majority pro-Union, but the statement is nevertheless not completely accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cw1865 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

What 'bout Civil War in South Carolina?

Honestly, if you explain everything else, why not the one that started the Civil War? thedrtaylor 06:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It's right there in the United States heading. There was never a separate South Carolina secessionist movement, they wanted all the slave states to go with them as a group. --Orange Mike 13:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wiki internal links NOT sufficient reference????

I can't believe the whole UK section was removed(02:12, May 14, 2007) by Mais oui, despite all those numerous Wiki Internal links! I don't have time right now to check, but assume going to those pages could provide oodles of references that could be appended here, but that seems to defeat part of the purpose of making a Wiki Internal link. Anybody want to explain?? Meanwhile I'll also go read the Wiki guidelines again, but really. Carol Moore 13:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

Too Many Secession Movements Listed Here?

Someone keeps removing North Star Republic which does exist, as opposed to some groups that now defunct. Which brings up issue of - isn't this list of movements getting a bit long, considering that List of historical autonomist and secessionist movements, List of active autonomist and secessionist movements, and List of unrecognized countries exist. So it is pretty subjective what should or not be important enough to be here. Perhaps criteria need to be established??

But as long as there is such a long list I'm going to add: Category: Secessionist Organizations

Carol Moore 21:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

Took out the Category since one is not there for it to begin with. Make one 1st, then add it in later. As for the "someone", it's in the history & one can discuss with them about it if there is a dispute on it, avoiding an edit war. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

New "California" section

The statements in this section seem very broad and don't logically follow each other. It seems like all original research and it should be removed. I'd do it myself, but then I'd get yelled at. Grandmasterka 19:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. The section violates both WP:V and WP:OR. It's a personal opinion piece. And you're right -- it doesn't make much sense in places. Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Claims of Montana seceding

This article makes reference to Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson notifying the federal government that Montana would secede from the United States if the Supreme Court decided on a collective rights rather than individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment.

That is incorrect.

My name is Bowen Greenwood, I work as the Communications Director for the Office of the Montana Secretary of State (sos.mt.gov). I do not have a wikipedia account. I understand Wikipedia's rules consider it a conflict of intrest to post content about one's own employer, so I thought it best to request this change of others, rather than making an account to make it myself.

The Secretary stated in a letter to the editor of the Washington Times that a collective rights interpretation of the Second Amendment would violate the terms of Montana's Compact with the United States, the contract by which Montana became a state. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/EDITORIAL/646772049&template=nextpage) In the rest of the letter, he encouraged the Supreme Court to honor that contract. At no point did he suggest seceding. The sources cited in this article to back up the claim that he did suggest seceding both point to web sites that do not argue for secession. Although others who read the Secretary's letter consider it an argument for secession, that was never his position. There are many solutions for contract disputes other than nullifying the contract. To assume the most extreme solution represents a bias.

If possible, we would prefer to see the article make a correct statement about the Secretary's position, or else omit reference to his letter at all, since it is a page about secession and the Secretary never called for that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.7.2.160 (talk) 18:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Attn: Bowen Greenwood

Mr. Greenwood, you might want to open a Wikipedia user account, and log into that account when you post here. The IP you used above, 161.7.2.160, has been used for years to edit Wikipedia, including some disruptive editing and vandalism. --Una Smith (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This IP

I created an account, as you requested. This IP addy is from the state of Montana's computer network, so I imagine many other state employees have used this address to edit Wikipedia. Some of them probably did so unethically, judging from your comments.

The above was my first post here (or at least, effectively so. I vaguely remember once making a similar account, but that may have been related to a wikipedia-style voting website, rather than Wikipedia). I can see there's no way to verify that, except that I am trying to approach this in the way Wikipedia requests in their help pages. I have no wish to make any unethical request or to "vandalize" any entry. I only wanted to ensure that public information about this office is accurate and readily available.

BGreenwood (talk) 16:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

POV Section and Citation Tags

I have specifically tagged the section “Northeast United States and the Hartford Convention” for POV. The section claims that “New England most often considered seceding from the union” and then follows with possible examples. The problem is that the section is assuming that because some individuals or groups who happened to live in New England and said something about secession, that this justifies claiming that the entire section advocated secession. In the Hartford Convention, a decision to secede was not recommended and no individual state legislature recommended secession -- it is not established that secession was even a majority opinion among political leaders. The case is even less clear regarding the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War. The section needs to be rewritten to provide details that do not support the POV generalization.

I have also tagged several other sections in which the word “secession” is thrown around casually without any documentation. With respect to the American Revolution, standard histories of the era do not refer to the American actions as secession. With respect to West Virginia, the facts demonstrate that the actions to create a new state were initiated not by the alleged secessionists, but by the Unionist government of Virginia. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 03:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

To my mind the biggest problem with this article is it's too long, especially in the examples, and most especially for the English speaking countries that take half, not just of the example space, but of the whole article. Most important secessions or attempted or proposed ones have their own articles, and for each of them this one should do only a little more than list and link.

As for the Virginia government being Unionist at the time of the mountains quitting the State, the article on that topic pretty clearly indicates that it isn't so. More important, the details don't belong here and there's little need for more than a link. Yankee secessionism in the 18teens deserves discussion, but not in this article, and in the 40s and 50s as well. Other USA secession movements (sheesh, I know of two on Long Island!) either are important enough for their own articles, or not important enough for a long sentence or short paragraph here.

And then there are the omissions: Slovakia, Bangladesh, Armenia (couple different Armenias), South Yemen, United Arab Republic, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Portugal, Singapore, East Germany, Poland (a few times), the dissolutions of the Soviet Union, the Central American Union and Gran Colombia, and the Swiss Civil War come to mind immediately and I'm sure a few others have leaked away at the moment. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In the West Virginia situation, the first action that was taken was the creation of a Unionist government for the state of Virginia that would replace, within the Union, the secession Virginia government. The creation of West Virginia was authorized by this Unionist government -- a legal maneuver required by the Constitution that prohibited that a state be subdivided without the approval of that state. Folks can argue about the legality of these actions, but the fact is that the legal theory behind the creation of West Virginia was quite different than the theory of secession relied on by the Confederacy.

The extent of the discussion necessary in this article with respect to the 1800s in the USA depends on whether a brief NPOV statement can be agreed on to cover the specific events. Otherwise, what is needed is a long, detailed discussion of what actually transpired with respect to practical and theoretical secession in the United States. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 03:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's not have these debates/edit "wars" in this article. :-) I added this.

See main articles Origins of the American Civil War, Confederate States of America and American Civil War. Carol MooreCarolmooredc {talk}

You’re the one, I believe, who did the major expansion of the first part of the article regarding secessionist theory. This section clearly shows that it would be intellectually foolish to adopt a “one size fits all” approach that is applicable to all secessionist movements, as well as all resistance to secessionist movements. However this is exactly what is suggested in the entire United States section of the article. The POV argument that is clearly implied is that the legal, moral, and political justifications and motivations for the American Revolution, resistance to the War of 1812, resistance to the Mexican War, Texas independence, and CSA secession are all one and the same. As long as this POV is presented IN THIS ARTICLE, the alternative also needs to be presented IN THIS ARICLE. Presenting this alternative view, since it is more nuanced than Livingston’s over- simplification, will take considerable space.

IMHO, your effort to deflect part of this discussion elsewhere will not work. While there is considerable discussion in the various Civil War articles concerning the causes of secession, there is very little concerning the theoretical basis for secession. This present article appears to be the article where such a discussion of theory is most appropriate. The article as it stands has one section on theory and one section on historical events with no real effort to link the theoretical with the historical.

I would not object if this article were limited strictly to the first theoretical section with the historical section reduced to a “see also” section. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

For example

That's pretty much my idea. Well, I'm thinking of a bullet list slightly bulkier than a See Also, with each item linking to the article about that one, if any, and a mention, not a description, of the various POV on that particular item, such as whether some parties contend that the item is not really "secession" but rather revolution, national liberation, partition, conquest (Northern Cyprus comes to mind) or some other dreadful or felicitous event. Other than that, the article should be theoretical and not bogged down in individual cases. The United States section is about half the example space, and if it is worthey of existing at all in its present size, then it is worthy of being split off to its own article. Most other sections are only about thrice their proper size. Jim.henderson (talk) 04:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)