TO DISSOLVE THIS UNION!

History professors spend a great deal of time explaining to their eager, young, students about the rise of “great” civilizations from Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great to Stalinism under Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite dictator, “Uncle” Joe. And also how these “empires” came a cropper, usually, a generation or two following the death of “fearless” leader. That’s human history in a nutshell. Empires rise, then they ignominiously fall apart.

Today the United States and China represent the last of the “Mega-states,” with our friends, the French and Germans, trying their best to patchwork together a competing “European Union.” However, there are significantly more numerous examples of secessionist or decentralizing movements worldwide: Scotland’s National Party, Wales’ Plaid Cymru, Cornwall’s Mebyon Kernow, Belgium’s Vlaams Blok, Italy’s Lega Nord, Mexico’s EZLIN, and the Basque’s MLNV. Here in the United States we have our own secessionist movements: the Alaskan Independence Party, the Cascadian National Party and the Cascadia Confederacy in the Pacific Northwest, the New England Confederation Movement, and La Voz de Aztlan in the Southwest. But the most significant American decentralizing effort lies, as one might suspect, in Dixie. The League of the South was established at Tuscaloosa, Alabama in June of 1994, with the avowed hope of founding a new nation, the Confederation of Southern States (CSS). This year the League published its manifesto, The Grey Book, “…a work in progress,” in order to express both their political philosophy and objectives.

What makes the League a threat to the Washington apparatchiks is that it eschews the tenets of socialism, including its obligatory sacraments: multiculturalism, diversity, and political correctness. The League of the South is traditionalist, reactionary, and republican. 

But before you begin to cheer and wave the flag it's best you understand that we are all socialists to one degree or another. From those retirees accepting Social Security and Medicaid benefits, to college students on federal Pell Grants, to those nattily dressed corporate executives and academics with a special relationship with government that includes a hefty tax break or a fat research grant.

The League would do away with all these “entitlements,” but on a positive note, would eliminate the national income tax and abolish “All estate, inheritance, and death taxes.”

In their vision of a better world the CSS would be funded by “direct taxes…apportioned among the States according to their population, and the national government may lay duties, imposts, and excises.”

Health care would be addressed by removing government monies from the equation. Doctors will be free “…to exercise their own best judgment,” while consumers would be free “to choose for themselves what sort of medical care they want…” The League’s immigration policy would “serve the interests and needs of the confederacy…it will not serve fanatics who wish to remake society in their image of diversity; and it will not serve profiteers with endless streams of cheap labor.”

The CSS would levy an income tax on corporations and be allowed to pursue criminal activity into the boardroom. Also, it would “…grant no monetary or in-kind aid to any foreign nation for military, political, economic or commercial purposes.” If all this sounds a bit familiar you may want to drag out your copy of the United States Constitution because the League follows that document rather closely.

In Appendix A, The Grey Book provides several well-written and provocative essays that address states rights, a critique of the Left, an historically accurate discussion of the 14th Amendment. One criticism, however, is that the author’s name is not affixed to the essay so it is impossible to determine who wrote them.

The Grey Book contains the occasional historical exegesis that will raise the ire of Lincolnites and consolidators of every stripe. For example, the author explains that the Articles of Confederation (1778) as well as the Treaty of Paris (1783) acknowledged the sovereignty of each of the thirteen colonies/states and, that these sovereign states entered into a voluntary compact when, after much debate, they accepted the Constitution (1787). The crux of the issue is simply that the federal government did not create the states, rather the states established the federal government, and did so with specific, enumerated powers.

The League of the South seeks not only a restoration of these constitutional principles but a “free and prosperous Southern Republic,” founded on “private property, free association, fair trade, sound money, low taxes, equal justice before the law, secure borders, and armed and vigilant neutrality.”

Will there ever be a Confederation of Southern States?  Poland, after all, took over 100 years to rise, as a nation, out of the ashes of war. The Southern republican remnant is established on a rich, historic, and vibrant Christian faith, which places them in a good position to endure the challenges that lie ahead. As Southern rhetorician, Richard Weaver, once wrote, the South bears the distinction of being “…the last non-materialist nation in the world.” Today, few Americans understand that compliment.

We must understand that these people are the descendants of men who marched twenty miles in the heat of August, subsisted on rations that would not fill the belly of a child, fought an enemy that outnumbered them three-to-one, and won the day. They are a patient people, jealous of their freedoms, and determined to succeed. The Grey Book proclaims, “The League’s primary goal is to counter the lies and distortions that have lulled people into a fatal misunderstanding of their condition in order to bring hope and encouragement in place of despair.”

The Grey Book is a well-written manifesto that explains the goals and objectives of the secessionist League of the South. It is an inherently American document meant to describe the virtues of republicanism, the political philosophy of the founding generation, and it succeeds wonderfully!

The Grey Book is available on Amazon.com.

Bob Cheeks has written for The American Enterprise, Human Events, Southern Partisan, and The Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

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