• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

  • "Should be required reading."
    -Economic Affairs (London)

  • "Woods, one of the best classical liberal [libertarian] scholars of his generation, has once more placed us in his debt with this lucid and tightly argued book."
    -David Gordon, The Mises Review

  • "Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrong-headed and dangerous economic policy."
    -Peter Schiff

The Thought Controllers Hate Secession

So I take them on.

Unlearn the Propaganda!

  • NJDave

    Tom I dont know if you caught this, but one of the law professors, at one point, makes the claim that the supremacy clause in the constitution gives the federal government final say on matters of succession ( even though succession isn’t mentioned in the constution, go figure ).

    I also distinctly remember the resident economist shouting about how nullification has never worked at any point in American history. Stop the presses! By golly, if isn’t another economist who knows next to the nothing about history. Or current events for that matter.

    One can’t help but admire the airtight logic of these esteemed social scientists, which is as follows:

    If X is a statement I disagree with, then X is “anarchy”….

    ….Repeat ad nauseum.

  • Anonymous

    Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution talks about States that split in half, or States that join together.

    “1: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

    Doesn’t this recognize the possibility of secession, by referring to political bodies formed in parts of the territory of other States? Here it’s saying that these political bodies won’t be admitted as new States without the old State’s permission. Doesn’t that imply the possibility?

    I’m not sure the founders got that deep, but it is interesting that this section doesn’t refer to insurrection. There’s a tacit acknowledgement of reorganizations of States, and this section refers to how the Union will treat this acknowledged possibility of reorganization in a manner that’s fair to the existing Union members.

    Either way, W. Virginia sort of blows a giant hole in the case that Lincoln’s government found secession to be illegitimate.

    Rather, the position of the radical Republicans seems to have been the ‘real’ reason for the Civil War: to conquer the government of the legitimately seceded Confederate States in order to abolish slavery and maintain a strong union on the continent which maintained broader economic powers. It was a purely imperial action, executed of course by the “Empire of Liberty”.

    There was nothing illegal about secession, this was Lincoln’s stupid lie. Rather, the Union found it within its national interest to go to war to engage in imperial conquest over the new southern nation.

    So it seems.

  • J Fournier

    This is awesome! I’ve been posting pro-secession stuff on Facebook for a few weeks, but I have been greatly anticipating you hitting this one out of the park, and that’s what you did!

  • http://www.facebook.com/oakshield Diego Augusto

    I laugh histerically everytime tom says “waive incense”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    Independence?

    Maybe we should STOP emphasizing words as the meaning versus the acts and the effects.

    The key word you are saying is Believe, man how much trouble has this brought into our society?

    Maybe we should learn to believe in ourselves, you know LIFE, (all things) What acts support that concept?

    What about the Independent body? Is that sovereign?

    The only right history, LOL now you are cracking me up? Is that the written history by chance, did you find this in books? Does it all apply to my life directly? How do you know, did you apply it to yours?

  • chris

    Absolutely excellent, Tom !!! Truly the 3×5 card (on this subject) to break all 3×5 cards !!!

    I just want to add a very minor note here, namely the point that if the citizen of the various states had known that this was a one-way membership into the union, it would be ridiculous not to have debated the loss of their sovereignty!

    Conversely, if they had all been swindled into loosing their sovereignty without debate, that then that alone would be a reason to declare the union null and void.

  • Jeremy

    Heh, I’ve always loved that line as well.

  • Anonymous

    I agree with you completely. I remember learning in my constitutional law class when I went to law school in the early 1980s that the STATE is the sovereign…in other words, the sovereign “country” is California or Texas or New Hampshire, etc. And the federal union was for the purpose of regulating fair trade among each of these sovereigns for the convenience and prosperity of all (who, previously, were hampered by such things as each having individual tariffs, etc. against the other states), and to deal with foreign countries. So I have ALWAYS felt that any state definitely could, and should, be able to secede if it so desires, despite the fact that that thug, Lincoln, ran roughshod over that fundamental right for egoistic purposes. Of course, if the federal government today repeats the violent stuff that Lincoln did, against, as an example, North Dakota, who as far as I understand actually has a solid and responsibly administered state government treasury and is kind of like “Germany” in a union of “Greeces” and “Spains” and therefore may actually wish to separate out of this mess, then this would be no different than a mafia don sending his machine-gun-toting boys over to shoot up the owner of a dry cleaners store who has decided he doesn’t want to pay the protection money any more. Definitely immoral, and also illegal. I remember from eighth grade that the individual states would NOT have ratified the Constitution if that would mean the loss of their sovereignty. Otherwise, what was in it for them?

    Speaking of the true meaning of the federal government, something that really drives me up the wall, is whenever I see Obama (or any U.S. President) described as “the leader of the free world”. The President certainly isn’t the leader of ANY world, free or not; he isn’t even the “leader” of the United States. To be such a leader would make him a dictator, or a king, or a fuhrer. He is simply a chief executive of one branch of government, not higher than the bulk of the Congress, not higher than the whole of the Supreme Court. And his enumerated powers are actually pretty slim; why, I think Queen Elizabeth may actually have more actual, legal powers than the U.S. President, although I may be pushing it a bit, there (but not by much). So I really wish that ignorant people would STOP using that horrible phrase, for surely it goes to the head of those all-too-easily-corrupted individuals who are placed there in that office, and for the people to continue to spread that lie is to actually in effect make it actual, even when it isn’t “true”.

  • Luke Sunderland

    All this talk about secession reminds me of the great Rothbard quote….

    “If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy,’ why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?”

  • http://twitter.com/shultz_ marge & glen Shultz

    THANK YOU! MORE PEOPLE WILL UNDERSTAND WE JUST WANT PEACE AND NO DICTATORSHIP! WE WANT TO KEEP OUR CONSTITUTION IS ALL WE WERE SAYING!

  • Anonymous

    Dr. Woods is superb, yet again. It’s going to take a lot to change the stereotype, though..

    Check out this article: http://www.eveningtribune.com/opinions/editorials/x1107416658/Letter-Secession-is-illegal-and-treasonous#comments

    “Secession is not allowed in this country because there’s freedom of speech and the ability to choose our leaders by vote. When you call for secession, you call for the illegal and possibly violent overthrow of the existing government.”

    Wow, I can’t believe someone just made up a law out of nowhere..

  • Adam Mason

    Secession threatens them on a deep personal level IMO.

  • libertyclassroomstudent

    Nice one Tom

    In addition, the Declaration of Independence talked about the “free and independent states” and as Professor McClanahan has noted, citing Dumas Malone, Jefferson’s biographer view that the colonies were seceding from the Mother Country.

    Indeed what’s more patriotic than the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence?