Secession

I want to say this.

Not only do I expect the United States to break apart into separate countries, I am for the dissolution of the Union.  I believe that the United States, under present circumstances, cannot go on.  Therefore . . . as a resident of the State of New Jersey, I am calling for New Jersey to secede from the Union.

The current situation in this federation that is the United States is untenable.  The people of the United States are hopelessly divided along political lines.  Also, Trump has destroyed the credibility of the United States as a world power with his national-security foibles and his tariffs, which have made the U.S. unreliable.  Even if  there's a Democratic successor to Trump who wants to repair and restore political and economic relations with the rest of the world, that won't be possible, because this country undermined itself by putting Donald Trump back in power in the first place.

Also, as Democratic states are diametrically opposed to Republican states on just about every issue, it has become quite clear that states like New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and California cannot possibly co-exist in the same country with states like Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, of Alabama.  To keep the Union together files in the face of reason and sanity.  I say, New Jersey should withdraw from the Union to start the peaceful process of the dissolution of the country.  If new jersey can secede first, that can get the ball rolling.

Of course, like South Carolina in 1860, New Jersey today is too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum.  Secession would be a precursor for states to form new unions with other states, though some states, like Texas, are in fact large enough to be independent republics (please go to my post from January 2025 about the possible breakup of the U.S., as shown by a hypothetical map).  It would set the stage for an amicable split, sort of like an amicable divorce . . . not unlike the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia. 

In that spirit, I offer the following mock ordinance of secession for the legislature of the State of New Jersey to consider.  I was inspired by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council - a group famous for drafting model bills for states to pass to push a rightwing agenda - to create it, and since the  American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, would find the idea of a liberal state like New Jersey seceding to be appalling, I am clearly trying to be a smart-ALEC.  😀  As I happen to be a reporter who covers municipal council meetings, I used an outline of an ordinance to draft this mock measure, and for good measure - more tweaking of right-wingers - I added language copying or paraphrasing not only the South Carolina secession ordinance of  December 1860 but also the Mississippi secession ordinance of January 1861.  (None of the borrowed language from those secession ordinances involves slavery, for the record.  Every word in the "WHEREAS" paragraphs, though, are my own.)

 

STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

CALENDAR YEAR 2025 ORDINANCE OF SECESSION 

To dissolve the Union between the State of New Jersey and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of The United States of America."

*

WHEREAS, the United States of America on the fifth day of November, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and twenty-four, had elected a multiple-charged and multiple-convicted felon (henceforth to be referred to as "The Leader"), to return to the office of President of the United States, in violation of Section 3 of the fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States that prohibits those who have participated in or directed insurrection or rebellion against the Government of the United States from holding public office of the United States; and

WHEREAS, The Leader, upon taking anew the office of President of the United States, has unilaterally withdrawn from international agreements and organizations, has illegally appointed a naturalized citizen to a non-existent Department of the United States Government to eviscerate the bureaucratic institutions of said Government in violation of oversight and authority of the Congress of the United States and of the Constitution of United States; and

WHEREAS, the States that have entered into Union under the compact entitled "the Constitution of the United States of America" may be adversely affected by such violations of The Leader, which the Congress of the United States has refused to counteract per its Constitutional authority; and 

WHEREAS, the State of New Jersey, having entered into this compact on the eighteenth day of December in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and eighty-seven upon her own free will, is now forced to bear witness to efforts by The Leader to breach said compact with intent to cause adversity to States whose Electors did not cast their ballots for him in the Election for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency of the United States having just transpired in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and twenty-four; and 

WHEREAS, it is the responsibility of the Government of the State of New Jersey to remedy adverse and most likely illegal actions of The Leader that go largely unchallenged at the Federal level of Government; 

NOW THEREFORE BE IT ORDAINED, by the Governor, the Assembly, and the Senate of the State of New Jersey and the People of the State of New Jersey, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the eighteenth day of December in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and eighty-seven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the Legislature of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and 

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that ratifications of Treaties and entrances into Agreements with various Nations under the Constitution of the United States of America, will remain in force between the State of New Jersey and said Nations, and that ratifications of Treaties and entrances into Agreements under said Constitution illegally invalidated by The Leader, a point of reason for repealing ratification of said Constitution and subsequent amendments, will also remain in force between the State of New Jersey and said Nations, and

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that the union now subsisting between New Jersey and other States, under the name of  "The United States of America," is hereby dissolved.  

I am prepared to see New Jersey accept the fact that she cannot stay in this Union.  I look forward to when we vote to get out. 

And if at first you don't secede, try, and try again.