It is one of thousands of cases where one group of people wants to live differently than the way in which another group of people forces them to live. In this case, those who were not allowed to live as they wanted have now been given the choice to vote their way to freedom. Low and behold, 99% of the people chose to live differently.
The world is celebrating Southern Sudan independence as a great thing. But in most cases in history, those who want to secede are violently stopped from seeking the freedom they want. Even in our “free” country of America today, one who talks about secession is seen a quack and a nut, even though secession is precisely what our country was founded on.
It is a true shame that most people in the world today do not live as they would choose to live, and are not given the option of doing so.
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It is a great day for Southern Sudan, after nearly 20 years of brutal civil war.
Seceding from a brutal dictatorship because it is terrorizing your people is very different than seceding from a democratic state because you lost an election. See Lincoln’s First Inaugural for a trenchant analysis of the topic.
In most cases it is better to reform a state than it is to split it up.
I’d disagree. Secession, in principle, is the same regardless of what is being seceded from. Very little of what Lincoln says on secession makes sense. Also, if a state has to exist at all, it is best when it is limited in territorial size, and limited in governmental scope.
That would be true if it was possible to “reform” a state. There is no precedent, historical or otherwise, to support your conclusion.
The East European communist states going to democratic capitalism was not reform. It was MAGIC!
They all splitted from Soviet union. And many of them broke in pieces, including Soviet union, yugoslavia, czechoslovakia. Many still have problems with this 20 years later, like hungary vs. slovaks, hungary versus rumania etc.
Lincoln’s first inaugural also betrays his actual reasoning – the tariff hike signed into law just two days before was a cornerstone of the Republican agenda, which would be completely undermined if the south won.
It’s not as if anyone wants to secede because they “lost an election.” The fact of the matter is that the interests of Texans could be wildly divergent from the interests of Floridians, and the interests of Californians could be completely different from the interests of Michiganders. If the people of a certain region within a country feel that the country is heading in a direction that they do not feel is in their interest, then they have every right to secede. The power of secession is necessary to keep the rights of the minority protected, even in democratic (small “d”) and republican (small “r”) states.
Tru dat. One was interested in ending slavery. The other not really.
“Many of Lincoln’s admirers have the honesty to admit that when he called up those first 75,000 militiamen in 1861 to put down the “rebellion” in the South, he had no intention of waging a war to abolish slavery. What they argue instead is that as the war progressed the meaning of the Northern war effort evolved in Lincoln’s mind, becoming a war not only for the Union but also for human liberation. The more mystical among them suggest that this had in some sense been the war’s purpose all along, but that it was only gradually that Lincoln himself became aware of the significance of the historical moment into which he had been placed.
But there is no reason that this kind of argument should be raised only on behalf of the Northern cause and not for the Southern. In other words, isn’t it possible that the South’s own self-understanding also evolved over the course of the war? Thus even if some people did believe they had seceded over slavery, is it not possible that they, too, may eventually have begun to appreciate larger issues at stake in the conflict just as Lincoln is said to have done?”
http://lewrockwell.com/woods/woods31.html
Given the amount of power that the federal government has, I would say a lost election could be a perfectly valid reason to secede.
In any case, as a matter of principle people have the right to secede regardless of whether you think their reason is “good enough”.
This just makes you think for how long the people of South Sudan wanted seccesion….. Who are the remaining 1% who voted otherwise ?
ADT
“In most cases it is better to reform a state than split it up.”
Better for whom? Those who maintain their parasitic livelihoods on the larger population? It’s not about losing an election, it’s about the freedom to live how one sees fit.
In any event, even if it were only about elections, they don’t offer any real choices at the federal level in the US.
Honest Abe himself said it best in 1847:
“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power,
have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government,
and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”
What Is The Southern Sudan Lesson?
If democracy has any merit then secession would be ‘hot and heavy’ throughout the world for a generation until all the regions of the world have new jurisdictional boundaries. Part of this process would be a pact and agreement among the new nation-states that any acts of aggression by one nation-state against another would be met by a united defense of the other nation-states against such aggression.
Gone from the world forever will be imperialism.
Robert can you mention some states in history that were worse off after secession ? If you manage to find one, I can bet you that there ten times more examples of successful secessions.
So what do you base your assumption that reforming is better for the state, other than hero worshiping the big state and its leaders ?
The new America after it got independence from the British Empire. It was the same or worse except for well-off, propertied men.
I would beg to differ – though it took a long time for America to get rid of slavery, overall, living standards are much higher here than in the United Kingdom and of the commonwealth nations. This is directly due to the course the United States has taken vs. the course the UK has taken. Thus, the American secession from the British Empire has benefited America.
Slavery lasted some 30 years after the British system and the Native Americans no longer had any protection against their lands being invaded. On the other hand, how are living standards particularly different for Brits vs Americans? People with the same income in both countries can purchase the same standard of living.
Gil,
“People with the same income in both countries can purchase the same standard of living”
Really?
Yes.
I am aware that many posters here are American and thus see secession as mostly as an American issue, but if one looks at some other examples then secession is a very good thing. The USSR is obviously the first one to look at, there are some dire ex-Soviet states such as Turkemenistan, but those places are no worse than the previous USSR they belonged to, others such as the Baltic states, Ukraine and Russia are better off now than they ever were under the USSR. Yugoslavia other than the ethnic conflicts that erupted in some places, the smaller states are better off now than ever before. Same goes for the Czcecks and Slovaks.
Africa in particular needs more secession (Sudan as example), most of those states creation make no sense even to this day and are not producing solid societies.
They did not vote to live differently. They voted to all live the same way differently. It is just the creation of another state. Secession is a tremendous opportunity for freedom that I am afraid the people are too ignorant to utilize.
sudan strengthens pat buchanan’s argument – ethnicity trumps ideology.
http://is.gd/gYUawa
unilateral secession is more problematic as american history shows:
http://is.gd/lVfXYW
The simple fact that they have to vote to do what they want means they are not free to do it. Yes, just creating another state.
Methinks this is a way to get at the oil in South Sudan without paying off al-Bashar. Let’s see who pulls the strings behind this new state. That’s just my inner conspiracy theorist showing through.
Also don’t trust the figures – Robert Mugabe can win an election with a 180% of the vote.
Way to go US! I just love it when foreign imperialism actually helps to break up states.
The people of Southern Sudan won’t be much better off. The cross-border-raids might have a brief reprieve, but the the government of Southern Sudan is dominated by former rebel fighters. Their experience is in war, not peace, and war has worked for them before.The US Bill of Rights starts off with “Congress shall make no law…”. While limitations on what government can make laws about has been trampled by intentional misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause and General Welfare clause among others, at least there is a basis to argue for limited government.The Interim Southern Sudanese Constition is long on social justice but void of economic freedoms. All the rights articulated are conveniently appended with things like ” in accordance with law” and as permitted by law”. Where are these laws that determine when rights can be suspended? They will be written by successive regimes or former warlords.Since the Bush Adminstration had a strong hand in negotiating the peace treaty, I would guess that the state department was heavily involved in crafting the constitution. I can’t help but think that this is what the US Constitution would look like if it were being written in 2005. No pesky caps on central power that couldn’t be easily circumvented.
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