Secession Becomes Thinkable

A review of American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (Encounter Books, 2020) by F.H. Buckley

When asked whether a state can constitutionally secede from the United States, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia brushed the question aside, saying the matter was settled by the Civil War.

He was wrong. A Zogby poll in 2018 found that 39 percent of likely voters, including 42 percent of Democrats, believed that states have a right to secede, while 29 percent were not sure. That means 68 percent of voters were willing to consider what for Scalia was unthinkable. In recent years, some legal scholars also have come to realize they cannot let the Civil War define their thinking about secession.

One of these is Frank Buckley, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In his recent book he argues that America is coming apart. “Washington has become the seat of a sclerotic society of special interests, hobbling the rest of us with wealth-destroying rules,” he writes. “The extremism has gone mainstream, and the oracles of respectable liberalism now embrace the vilest left-wing extremists.”

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