Departments

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secession

  • SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
    2/24/2023

    Marjorie Taylor Greene's "National Divorce" Won't be Amicable

    by Thomas Lecaque and Joshua Call

    The greatest danger of the Congresswoman's call for red and blue states to disaffiliate is that it will encourage followers to use political and extralegal means to move their communities and states closer to the fantasy of unity and homogeneity she referenced. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    12/21/2022

    Was the Civil War Inevitable?

    by David W. Blight

    As a growing number of Americans entertain the idea that dissolving the nation might be better than holding its incompatible parts together, it's worth revisiting the series of decisions that led to the Civil War, and to ask whether the nation has, or will, experience the equivalent of the Dred Scott decision. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    6/15/2022

    The Secessionist Roots of January 6

    by Elizabeth R. Varon

    "The story of Southern secession provides illuminating evidence that the Jan. 6 insurgency was, indeed, precedented, rooted in long-standing efforts to preempt, delegitimize and suppress Black voting."

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    1/20/2022

    The End of Democracy won't Look Like You Think It Will

    by Tom Nichols

    The authoritarian right isn't motivated or organized enough to create the kind of dystopia some fear. But federalism means that significant chunks of the Formerly-United States will turn the clock back to the late 1950s. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/30/2021

    Maryland’s State Song, a Nod to the Confederacy, Nears Repeal

    "Maryland, My Maryland" was written by a Confederate sympathizer in 1861 and has come under scrutiny in recent years for its characterization of the Union army as a force of tyranny and call for listerners to fight for the Confederacy. 

  • SOURCE: New York Review of Books
    1/19/2021

    Why It’s Time to Take Secessionist Talk Seriously

    by Richard Kreitner

    "The Confederate flags the insurgents carried through the Capitol weren’t about the past, but the future." (note: Subscription required to read source article.)

  • SOURCE: Keeping Democracy Alive
    1/19/2021

    One Nation, Indivisible: Really? Forever?

    Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up" joins Burt Cohen's podcast to discuss the history and future of calls to break up the United States.

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
    12/13/2020

    Are Republicans Serious about a Secession Movement?

    Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up," argues that calls for secession have been a regular feature of American political life, though they usually amount to criticism instead of action. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    9/8/2020

    Is America a Myth?

    Writer Robin Wright looks to historians Richard Kreitner and Colin Woodard to explain that the idea of a unified American nation has not been the historical norm. 

  • 9/6/2020

    Americans Have Feared Another Civil War Since the End of the Last One

    by Richard Kreitner

    The ink was hardly dry on Lee's surrender at Appomattox before Andrew Johnson's conciliation toward the former Confederacy clashed with the unfulfilled goals of freed slaves and radical Republicans to threaten further violence. These fault lines have been hidden but never healed in the restored American union.

  • 8/2/2020

    Learning from Lincoln: Meeting Crisis with Action

    by William L. Barney

    The United States is at a crossroads. The path chosen will determine whether contemporary America resumes its role as a beacon of hope and progress to the rest of the world or joins the Confederate slaveholders of the past among history’s losers. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    5/29/2020

    The Conspiracy Theories That Fueled the Civil War

    The most powerful people and institutions in the South spread paranoia and fear to protect slavery, leading the country to war, as historians Matthew J. Clavin and Manisha Sinha explain.