Recent events made me think of this again. Some say that the south seceding was the main reason for the war, and it was justified. I assume that means it would therefore be right to attack Texas if they seceded tomorrow. Seems wrong to me. Not because I think it is OK for parts of nations to break away. I just don't think it is non OK enough to justify killing a lot of people to stop it. Do you agree? Is your stance consistent with your opinion of world events?

i can see it now

balkanized little boroughs engaged in psyop toward destabilizing the next town over

Didn't the south fire cannons at a federal army base to kick off the armed conflict?

Afaiu they didn't just collectively decide to stop paying taxes.

There is absolutely no shortage of people who wish their part of the world belonged to another country, and there is absolutely no shortage of regions with a majority of people who want this. Nor is there a shortage of states with border disputes.

On an ideological level, is typically better to have these things resolved peacefully, both internally and between different states. Resolving such disputes with war or civil war leaves behind two major problems. The first is that it leaves behind distrust and hatred for many generations to come. Peace result from war tend to be of the unstable and distrustful variety. The second is that while borders resolved through peaceful process are hardly perfect (poor compromises and power imbalance is a thing), borders that stem from wars and violent conflict often end up being completely bonkers. The US civil war is an apt example, its political legacy is still negatively impacting your country.

And yes, there is always a level of historical hypocrisy in this argument. Borders as they are drawn today are often the result of strife, conflict and conquest in the past and the outcomes do not really represent fairness. The supporters of irredentism will invariably point to this and use it to argue that they have this right too. However that misses the simple physical fact that we can't control the past, but we can actually control the future.

For surrounding society it is simply better as well. War has consequences. Industry shuts down, trade is reduced, peaceful politics becomes impossible and way of life becomes severely limited. Industry that stay open, trade that does not stop, jobs that continue to exist and people who can freely travel is just... better.

We can get a bit fooled by borders. Because they represent a very precise geographical divide, we often think of the various hostile border situations around the world as natural. However, if we stop to think about it, we know that this is simply not the case. There are plenty of borders that do not pose a problem for mutually beneficial relationships. There is nothing that stops the Putins of the world from working towards such a goal.

It is also a mistake to only approach these situations from a lens of ideology. Geopolitics is a thing. The regions Russia are invading are not "just land and people", they have strategic and geographical implications. Your neighbor claiming ownership of a worthless piece of rock at the far end of your property is annoying, but hardly life-altering. Your neighbor claiming ownership of practical route to your property and the land beneath half your house is potentially ruinous.

There is no “some say” about the causes of the Civil War. The South left the Union in order to preserve slavery, something they made no secret of. Each State voted on Articles of Secession and they are quite clear. Lincoln was committed to keeping the Union together and acted accordingly. So yes the secession was the reason for the war but its often spun in an attempt to whitewash the fact that without the issue of Slavery it would’ve never happened.

OP obviously isn't disputing that slavery was the proximate cause for the Civil War.

He is asking a simple question. If Alaska voted overwhelmingly to secede from the United States, and the vote was not motivated by a desire to perpetuate some sort of heinous institution like slavery, should the United States respect that decision and let Alaska secede? Or should factors like the strategic importance of Alaska's oil natural resources dictate a different response?

should France & Germany invade the UK for Brexit?

the clear answer is "no", I hope


my earlier response was to note that the South's secession was not met with an attack by the North; it was undertaken with an attack by the South

if Texas decided to secede, and in the process exploded Fort Bliss, the US would be well within its rights to respond in kind

personally I'd like to hear some elaboration on the rationale behind this

is OP not committed to collective self-determination?

What if the justification for violence depends upon the reasons for secession?

I think that captures the crux of it.

Because geographic location of an important natural resource could be every bit the reason to secede, as way to not 'share the wealth' and that begs the question should the rest of the country just allow that break away region to 'look out for itself'.

You could see how such fracturing could lead to no real stable countries as any wealthy region might want to secede from the poorer ones to keep all their wealth.


In Canada this would be Alberta, who, like Quebec, has always harboured separatist elements. But Alberta, unlike Quebec had this been done decades ago would be probably the richest 'small' country in the world in not having to share its resource wealth Canada wide. Quebec had it seceded would have spiraled into poverty unless they could rethink their governance model which was built on transfer payments from other other provinces.


And that then begs a different question. Rococo posited Alaska which could be severed fairly painlessly. But what about Alberta that is a landlocked province with other Provinces on both sides. Meaning even if they seceded to keep all their Resource revenues to themselves, they would have no market for any of it, if they could not reach deals with the rest of Canada to access their lands to transport it.

I could see AB, the day after secession, facing a comparable 'fee for access' system that approximated the lost revenue from the taxes.

Would that be fair??

If Texas succeeded to reintroduce slavery and then bombed a US base then yes the US would be justified to go to war to prevent that.

Beyond that I really don't know. It is a tough question. I have written and deleted my answer a few times.

If the majority of Texans wanted to be independent I would not like to see a war fought to force them to stay. At the same time I feel it is also a decision of the American people to let Texas succeed. If a belligerent, deeply divided Texas narrowly votes to succeed I could see America saying absolutely not. Then there are questions of how big of a group do you need to succeed? The obvious one is the state level. You can't have people pulling a homer Simpson and saying they are personally succeeding from the US and their home is now an independent country. But at the same time states are just arbitrary political divisions created by the country people are trying to succeed from. If 10 million people in Southern California wanted to succeed from both California and the US should they be able to?

All of these are tricky decisions and need to be handled on a case by case basis. I can see countries being very reluctant to let succession happen. Just by opening that door you are inviting foreign states to try and sow division in order to break up your state. But people have a right to self determination. Long winded way of saying I don't know.

Alberta succeeding would be tricky. If my understanding is correct the Federal Government owns all the natural resources. If this is the case the government would have a justifiable claim to demand payment if they were to give up the land the oil was buried under. Alberta would be landlocked and Canada would be sliced in two. They would need to figure out a way for Canada to be able to connect the east and the western portions, otherwise there would soon be 2 Canadas.

underrated post

fwiw I think people are well within their (natural) rights to do so, but I don't think it would go so well for them...

for example, are they going to apply for work visas?

That said, "property" itself a legal fiction founded facially upon mutual recognition but in practice ultimately upon sovereign enforcement.

I can see some awkwardness in telling the US that I'm going to keep my "property", which requires US law to exist, and just walk away from the US law. Beyond awkwardness - absurdity.



Fun fact - the Declaration of Independence's inalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is a modified form of John Locke's original "life, liberty, and estate".

Then again, Locke's basis for "property", as applied to modernity, circles back to property being social/communal to a certain extent, even international.

Perhaps, if we're going to commit to Locke's line of one's ownership of a thing resulting from the intermixing of one's will/effort into the material that ultimately becomes that thing, the contemporary state and its would-be secessionist are each culpable in their jealous claims of possession....

Completely taking slavery and the reasons why they seceded, I still have issues with how they did it. They voted in the election of 1860, their preferred candidate or maybe top 3 in ranked choice lost so they left. But I think all historians agree that if Lincoln hadn’t won they wouldn’t have seceded. So you are letting them free roll an election if they are allowed to leave. I think South Carolina left before Lincoln was inaugurated and a fundamental rule of democracy/elections is even if the guy you don’t like wins, he gets the same powers when he does.

I know less about this, but I think it was state legislatures who voted yes on leaving. But I’m not sure if their was an election where these legislators were elected based on a platform of leaving the union, so you could claim these legislators were radical traitors not representing their constituents. That might not be true and a direct vote by the people to leave the union may have passed easily in the confederacy, but if you’re going to do something radical that has never been tried before the onus is on you to make the case as airtight as possible and the south did not do that.

I read Grant's biography many years ago. He mentioned that the war with Mexico was part of the reason he felt the South did not have a right to secede. That the country fought and lost of lot of men to gain that territory. That there was too much of a sacrifice for the South to take it all. Haven't thought too much

As an aside Grant's biography was very good. He was an intelligent writer with an interesting history. If you are interested in US history I would highly recommend it. He wasn't a professional writer so it can be a bit slow at times, but the subject is fascinating.

I am not sure how Texas manages to secede without taking up arms.

Sure they can vote on and pass it, but unless US just blesses it, they are gonna have some problems removing US military bases without taking up arms.

If they take up arms well , they drew first blood, then of course the answer is yes.

Stupid question btw.

After Obama's plan to turn the frogs gay, this is my favorite