secession

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/7/2022
  

  California's Ongoing Secession Movement and its Ties to the History of Slavery

  by Kevin Waite

  Today, more conservative parts of California agitate to separate from the liberally-governed state. In the 1850s, southern California sought to secede from a state constitution that prohibited slavery and build an empire of forced labor. 

• 
• 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. 

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• 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. 

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• 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. 

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• 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.

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• 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? 

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• 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.