Certainly I know that culturally, there is great deal about myself that is Californian to the core, wherever I am. But I never felt my primary political belonging to be Californian.

Rather, I fondly remember having a dream about my elementary school classmates and I defending our suburb from the Redcoats–we looked down the bank at the British advancing over the sidewalk and into the Eucalyptus trees, raised our muskets, and fired away. Those 5th-grade history lessons really got under my skin, apparently!

I certainly agree that there is a lot of legal work that must be done to lay the groundwork. And political work. Local elections matter. We need candidates.

I’m not sure that you are right that we all “get there” as Americans first. I may be an exception, but my state is my home country, always has been and always will be.

I have never encountered a person trying to educate themselves on the “Subsidiarity Papers,” but I have come across many reading the Federalist Papers for the first time. Pursuing this avenue is as ridiculous as Liberal Third Wayers referring to themselves as Progressives.

One of the poignant and more aesthetically appealing faces of conservatism is its total and utter dependence on historical trends, both good and bad. These provide us with a looking glass into the possible future. Renaming it because it offends some is playing right into the hands of the Left by adopting one of their most ludicrous strategies, renaming something that polling has indicated is unpopular or offensive.

In the end you are destroying the very roots of relevant history to conservatives. Quite living in fear. Celebrate our heritage as conservatives, push the optimism about the future it embodies, and educate those, properly, on what it really means.

Anything else and you doom it to wandering in the wilderness and eventually death from philosophical starvation.

Thank You.

However, I suspect that the real issue between us might not be the realities of politics, but what we ought to be moving forward to. If you want to move forward to secession, you may be right that it is impossible without the language of secession (though I think that secession that didn’t call itself such would probably poll better). Either way, I think your goal wrongheaded and unrealistic. If you wish to move toward increased localism within the American federal system, you shouldn’t touch secession with a pole of any length.

The teeth Porcher theory needs are legal and are within the system set up by the mostly Federalist founders of 1787, and by its Republican defenders of 1858-65. (And maybe you can add a dollop of the 1798 Jeffersonianism into the mix, but things fall apart when you go to Calhoun.) Every sharp tooth you need is there, although you have to win a daunting number of electoral victories local and national to get them in fighting shape again. You have to get a Supreme Court that is basically originalist on federalism issues, or perhaps pass an amendment or two. You do not need a theory that grounds the rights of the states in a more fundamental right to nullify or to secede. Your job, I submit, will be to explain what non-secessionist states rights are, given our particular constitutional history, and why they can be revitalized and serve a larger localist agenda(one that will require defending localities from states also–talk to any environmentalist in VA) I.e., your talk of secession will be to establish a limit point. You are right to say the word is not verbotten to Porcher theory, but it must remain verbotten to its politics, except as a footnote relating to extreme emergency far-in-future possibilities. That is, 1865 means that there can be no talk of a right to secession that is not fundamentally revolutionary, i.e., a violence-backed turning to the most basic political principles which can only legitimately occur after the Constutition’s polity has actually has fallen apart or become otherwise unrestorable.

Ms. Dalton, you’ve read the first 20 or so Federalist Papers, right? Enjoyed some evenings with Livy’s history, yes? Reflected upon the fact that Adam and Eve’s first son was named Cain? (And he was a farmer!)

Or let’s try another scenario: in 2032, an FBI agent delivers a report to President Jack Andrews. The rumors are true: 10 municipal councils and one Indian reservation have been confirmed to be conspiring, with perhaps up to 40 other localities involved, to simultaneously declare on this rapidly approaching July 4th the nullification of over 12% of the laws in Federal Register, along the lines of the basic pattern suggested some years ago by the (now-banned) Original Front Porch Legal Fund. Obviously, no longer will this strategy be attempted by lone municipalties–the Draconian sentences given the “Berryville Fifteen” has ensured that. It is confirmed that at least half of the said municipalties have citizens ready to arrest federal agents trying to enforce said regulations at gunpoint. Scenes reminiscient of the citizens’ arrests of forest dept. officials by Tijerina and his hispano activists in late 60s New Mexico could repeat all over the U.S.A. Five other towns have been covertly training themselves nonviolent resistance techniques. The growing ability of the Porch party to swing elections in six of the states will undoubtedly embolden some of their leaders to demand partial recognition of these nullifications if they go forward, which could lead to further internationally embarrassing arrests and trials. The FBI chief explains that it would only take the arrest of 30 or so key organizers to shut down the whole thing, but action must be taken immediately. The president’s chief political adviser lays out why there is no good option for simply allowing the protests to occur, and why ramping down the growth of federal regulations as a conciliatory response will only provoke more such attempts. In fact, legislation expanding the internal surveillance powers of the FBI should be pushed through Congress at the earliest possible date. President Andrews sighs heavily, and says to the FBI chief, “So be it. You may commence the Operation.”

A great article about an important topic, but why continue to repeat the misleading residue of the northern victory? Racial peonage and prejudice was common in New England in antebellum (and later) times; why not tag New England federalism with this label?

I attended the SNC as a delegate and knew of no avoidance of secession and States’ Rights—the former we are not yet ready for, and the latter we are upholding in the name of the Founders. The American Confederacy did not invent the term, it was only upholding the intended limited government of the Founders.

As to the nonsense about being linked up with segregationists and noose-makers, here’s a small case in point. The first thing I ever published was what we now call an “op-ed,” in the Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle in 1957. I was seventeen and the piece couldn’t have been worth a darn, but they printed it because I was defending MLK, Jr. The SCLC had just won in Montgomery, and I was trying to make a point that they could win in other places, too. The problem was that MLK was a megalomaniac (and several other things, good and bad) and gave in to the commies and progressives around him and “went national.” The progressives used him just as they are using “climate change” now–to increase central power. Centralizers play hardball.

Don’t give away the language, and don’t give away serious localism. Katherine has it right.

Perhaps it is a life “accompanied by accidents” rather than ruled by a prevailing accident: the abandonment of the ideals of the Republic and an embrace of the cosseted spectator.

Hierarchies by nature rank their constituent parts but a right and proper hierarchy does not accrue strength at the expense of its many important roots.

“One must therefore not seek in the United States uniformity and permanence of views, minute care of details, perfection of administrative procedures; what one finds there is the image of force, a little wild it is true, but full of power; [the image] of life accompanied by accidents, but also by movement and efforts.” – Tocqueville

One wonders if we are prepared for a “life accompanied by accidents”…

I have been reading FPR for a brief amount of time, and this is the first post I’ve ever made. Part of me is strongly attracted to “localism,” however it is defined, but I also am as a historian very concerned about the strong legacy of racist discrimination linked to states rights rhetoric and realities. There’s no way to divorce the two in the minds of many people, especially since it is hardly a coincidence that some secession groups attract the support of white nationalists now – not just in 1860 or 1955. That may not seem particularly fair to some, but that’s just how it is. Blame James Vardaman and Ben Tillman, not me.

Case in point – the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and federal discrimination laws on housing and employment. I’d assume a fair number of people in favor of states rights would be opposed to these laws. How then can one try to convince those would be fearful of the results that it would be better for them if these laws no longer existed?

In the rural Tennessee county where I live – halfway between Huntsville and Nashville – a localist movement would do fairly well among US-born voters, even though a Constitutionalist Party candidate was crushed recently in a state assembly election. One of the main reasons why there’s potential here is the tremendous antipathy many people born and raised in this area have towards immigrants from Somalia, Mexico, and other Central American countries who work at a giant Tyson slaughterhouse – the biggest employer in the county. In a new relationship between a smaller federal government and the states, would counties or states have the right to limit or ban immigrants (regardless if their legal status)? If someone ran on a clearly anti-immigrant platform and linked it to a states rights argument, they could do fairly well around here. I’m surprised it has not happened already. This wouldn’t be bringing in the growing number of Latino voters, and it would alienate other voters as well.

If people are going to try to gain the trust of voters to the cause of a limited federal government, they are going to have to reach out to different minority communities and persuade them that there would be benefits for their lives with the coming of a much smaller federal government.