secession 
-
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: Washington Post
1/5/2020
The Senators Who Were Expelled After Refusing To Accept Lincoln’s Election
by Gillian Brockell
Not since the crisis of secession and the Civil War has the U.S. Senate expelled a member.
-
SOURCE: Politico
12/16/2020
How Secession Became America’s Favorite Idle Threat
With one notable exception, secession has been an idle threat in American political discourse. Richard Kreitner's book on secession movements anchors columnist Jack Shafer's analysis.
-
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: Washington Post
11/11/2020
Mississippi Republican Calls for His State to ‘Succeed from the Union’ after Biden Victory
"Even before the race was called, Mississippi’s five Republicans in Congress released a joint statement that warned, without evidence, about the existence of “voting irregularities” across the country."
-
SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
11/4/2020
You’re Tearing Me Apart: On William L. Barney’s “Rebels in the Making: The Secession Crisis and the Birth of the Confederacy”
A new book on secession examines the politics of all 15 slave states and power of a reactionary slaveholding elite to force secession.
-
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.
-
6/28/2020
Newest Born of Nations: European Nationalism and the Confederate States of America
by Ann Tucker
White southerners looked to contemporary European nationalist movements and compared the South to aspiring nations abroad. This allowed them to conceive of the South as a potential nation, distinct from the North and separate from the United States, and to justify secession and the creation of the Confederacy.
-
SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier (SC)
6/25/2020
John C. Calhoun Statue Taken Down from its Perch above Charleston’s Marion Square
The city's removal of John C. Calhoun's statue was much more difficult than anticipated. May we assume the same of his legacy?
-
SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier (SC)
6/20/2020
Why one Historian Changed his Mind about the Calhoun Monument
by Robert MacDonald
It's difficult for statues to serve as sources of public knowledge about history.
-
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.
-
5/24/2020
The Social Psychology of Popular Right-Wing Conservatism
by Daniel Burnstein
Right-wing conservative movements are driven by a psychological complex of threat and hostility to heterodox opinion that makes them difficult to stop once they've developed.
-
SOURCE: CNN
8-8-18
Corey Stewart praised southern secession in 2017 campaign appearance
Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat for Virginia, praised in a speech last year Virginia's decision in 1861 to secede from the Union, putting it on par with rebellions during the American Revolution and today.
-
SOURCE: AP
4/7/18
South Carolina lawmakers introduce bill to begin secession debate
South Carolina debated seceding from the Union more than 150 years ago, one of the opening salvos of the Civil War. Now, the topic has come up again, amid a national debate over firearms and gun rights.
-
SOURCE: Crosscut
4-19-17
West Coast to Trump: It’s time for a divorce
Secession is in the air on the West Coast.
-
SOURCE: Time Magazine
8-17-17
Poll: 3 Out of 5 Texan Trump Supporters Want Secession if Hillary Clinton Is Elected
Is it 1861 or 2016?
-
SOURCE: Huffington Post
11-6-14
Secessionist Movements In America Refuse To Die
Of course none of the movements are even close to convincing Washington to let them hold a Scottish-like referendum.
News
- The Deficit Hawks That Make Moderate Democrats Cower
- The Muddled History of Anti-Asian Violence
- Massive Investment in Social Studies and Civics Education Proposed to Address Eroding Trust in Democratic Institutions
- Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces
- Former Procter and Gamble CEO: America and the World Need History Majors
- Part of Being a Domestic Goddess in 17th-Century Europe Was Making Medicines
- How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism
- Discovery Of Schoolhouse For Black Children Now Offers A History Lesson
- People Longing for Movie Theaters During the 1918 Flu Pandemic Feels Very Familiar in 2021
- How Did "Bipartisanship" Become a Goal In Itself? (Podcast)