"I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
"Most people would rather die than think: many do. … "It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees." — Emiliano Zapata.
The first task is to educate yourself on the ideas that would inspire such radical measures as secession. From whence does your conviction come? In a previous essay, I recommended a number of books on the subject. I would also add Thomas Naylor’s thin tome, Secession, as a great primer on the whole notion. There are a rather small number of books that deal directly with the secession issue. Yet, if we look at the vast number of books published since 1750 which deal with the precursors and history of both the First (1775–83) and Second (1860–65) American Revolutions the books start to increase tremendously which tangentially or directly deal with the notion.
Simply the words Declaration of Independence seem rather descriptive now, don’t they? To wit:
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Isn’t secession the ultimate vote in a supposed democracy?
"They can jail us. They can shoot us. They can even conscript us. They can use us as cannon fodder in the sod. But – But we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of their British Empire – and that weapon is our refusal. Our refusal to bow to any order but our own, any institution but our own.
Our friends in the Royal Irish Constabulary would like to shut me up. Oh yes, jail me again, shoot me, who knows? And I’d like you to send them a message. If they shut me up, who’ll take my place?"
~ Michael Collins
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