The US Civil War was fought over 100 years ago over issues about state’s rights and because of a fundamental difference in the societies of the North and South. It is quite clear that the United States faces several very similar problems today that are so divisive that another war between the states, or even between nationwide factions, could erupt if actions in Washington DC further enrage the public.
Think about the reasons that the Southern states decided to leave the United States and form the Confederate States of America in 1861. The Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln had recently come to power, elected by Northern states alone, with not one Southern state voting for Lincoln. After laws passed about the expansion of slavery and tariffs imposed on the Southern cotton trade to ensure that cotton went to Northern manufacturers and not British ones, it was clear that this was a step that would allow Northerners to rule the South as they pleased. They had little to no say in Congress while abolitionist leaders from the North who felt that the South was a morally backward place and should be ruled by “moral superiors”. This marginalization led South Carolina, and governments from ten other states that would soon follow, to leave the United States and form a national government that would be representative of their interests.
America faces a similar struggle today. After Barack Obama was elected president and the Democrats took a commanding majority of both houses of Congress, many Americans from Conservative-minded states were very wary about what was coming. After all, he did say he was going to “fundamentally change” the United States of America. As his term in office is passing, he has passed massive spending bills that have been unanimously opposed by both the Republicans in Congress and the grass-roots organization known as the Tea Party that was formed to voice an opposition to massive deficit spending. Obama and the Liberals in Congress then immediately started work on a bill that would radically transform the US health care industry and raise taxes while almost one tenth of American workers were in the unemployment lines. The President, his staff, and many other Liberals immediately criticized Arizona for passing a law stating that they would enforce Federal immigration laws when they were facing massive problems with immigration and drug smuggling from Mexico. Work then began on a bill that would enforce “cap and trade” style energy policies, which President Obama stated would “necessarily skyrocket energy prices”. Liberals in the government have attempted to chastise the Tea Party as being a collection of racists, insinuating that they are “lesser” people and they need to be ignored when it comes to national policy.
While the end results of the actions of the Obama administration are still unclear, the intentions are clear. The Obama administration, like Lincoln and Northerners before the Civil War, has gone against the will of many in America. They have threatened our way of life just like Southerners had their livelihoods threatened in the 19th century. States’ rights to do best for their own people is coming under fire from Washington DC. Similar clashes of morality are occurring, with Northern and West Coast politicians looking down on the American people as moral inferiors, exactly the way abolitionists saw the people of the South. The irreconcilable political differences are just as powerful today as they were in 1861.
With this social and political powder keg, America faces the idea of secession and war once more. There are already movements for an independent Republic of Texas, a return of the Confederate States of America, and other breakaway groups that seek to end their home state or region’s ties with the United States. The main issues of these groups are the economic prosperity that they could enjoy without big government spending of Washington DC, social freedoms, and national security that the Federal government has denied with ineffective border management and needless wars overseas that only inflame other nations’ views of our country. Economics and border security are the main issues that many people think Obama’s administration are failing at miserably. This could very well lead some people away from the Tea Party and toward groups that want to leave the nation such as the Texas Nationalists or the League of the South. Any more radical moves by the Liberals in Washington on issues such as amnesty for illegal immigrants and gun control, two things that many Liberals want to achieve, would only further enrage the American people and hasten the growing support for these independence movements.
The real issue is what the breaking point will be before enough people decide that they do not want to be a part of the United States and declare their state(s) independent of the US government. It is very easy to understand how the US government would not want this to happen and would attempt enforcing martial law on any breakaway state.
That would lead to another question that brings bigger implications. If a state decided to leave, would the military, many of whom would likely be from that state or group of states, actually follow orders to impose government will on any state that wanted to leave? It is likely to assume that many would not, as in the case of Robert E. Lee, who turned down command of the Union army in order to defend his home state of Virginia. A large proportion of men and women serving in the military come from regions that already have secession movements, and it is highly unlikely that they would fight against their own people who did not want to be oppressed. Many others from other regions would carry out these orders, which could lead to infighting at many military installations located in any breakaway state and even across the country.
If this possibility did not occur or was overcome by the US, there would be a civil war that would be much more difficult for America to see than the original Civil War. History has taught us that guerrilla operations such as the French resistance during the Nazi occupation, the Soviet partisan fighters who disrupted German war efforts, and the Viet Minh and Viet Cong fighters who opposed the French and American actions in Vietnam were all incredibly successful in wearing away the fighting ability and morale of the enemy. The Viet Cong is an especially important example, as their methods helped turn Americans away from supporting the Vietnam War. If the United States were to go to war with a state that broke away from it, ambushes from guerrilla fighters within that state would surely wear down the will of the rest of the country to carry out a war on them. If they would be able to carry on a fight long enough, they would surely achieve victory.
Because of these reasons, it is easy to understand how there is not only the real possibility of another civil war but it would be much more likely to result in a free state emerging. It should be the hope of all Americans that a government that can act in the interests of all of America and not just a group that wants more government control so that America can be a place that everyone will be proud to be a part of and never want to leave.
