State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Despite Secession Talk, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Stateline: APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE, Va. — When two generals signed papers here 152 years ago bringing the Civil War to a close, they ended the bid by 11 Southern states to secede from the Union. And that, most believed, was that.

Yet ever since the South’s Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to the North’s Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, groups across the United States have advocated seceding from the country, their own states, or in a few cases, their cities. Recently, these efforts have ranged from fairly large, ongoing campaigns in Texas and California to smaller pushes in Oklahoma, Maine, Utah, West Virginia and New York’s Long Island, among others.

Just last month, a longshot effort to allow Californians to vote on seceding fell apart after one of the founders dropped out amid criticism of his ties to Russia. But a new group pushing secession has vowed to collect the nearly 600,000 signatures required by July to put the measure on the November 2018 ballot.

Read article