"An Independent State of Mind"

Joel Senesac, Vermont Guardian,

[Special to the Verrnont Guardian, November 5—11, 2004. Tom Naylor of Charlotte is one of the founders ot the Second Vermont Republic, an organization that is promoting the idea of having Vermont secede from the US.]

CHARLOTTE — Throughout history, every great empire has eventually met its demise. According to economist Thomas Naylor, the United States may soon prove to be no exception because it has grown too big to sustain itself. That's why Naylor helped form the Second Vermont Republic, an organization dedicated to the peaceful dissolution of the country, starting with the secession of Vermont.Naylor moved to Vermont in 1993 after almost 30 years teaching economics at Duke University. He calls Vermont a metaphor for what he is trying to achieve. We're basically a state of small towns, small villages, small businesses, small churches, small schools where there's a kind of connectedness and a sense of community," he said.

For these reasons, Vermont, which started as an independent republic before statehood, is the perfect state to begin the trend. The idea had been in his head for close to a decade and he had written on the topic, but never felt his audience was very large.

Then, on March 5, 2003, while speaking at an anti-war rally at Johnson State College, the students wanted to know about alternatives to war, so Naylor offered up his notions about Vermont's secession. He found a receptive audience for his beliefs and the Second Vermont Republic was born.

"It was really that event that energized the idea of moving ahead with something I had been thinking about for almost 10 years," he says.

Today, the Second Vermont Republic has about 100 members with the highest concentrations in the Northeast Kingdom and in southern Vermont near Brattleboro.

The members each have their own reasons for joining the group. For Jacqueline Brook of Putney, that reason is a strong distrust in the federal government.

"I think 9/1 I was an inside job. I think our federal government is a criminal enterprise," she said.

Brook believes that true change can only happen at the local level because the nation's political establishment is beyond hope.

"I think the system is utterly broken," she said. "I really believe it can't be fixed."

Why secession?

On the Second Vermont Republic's website, www.vermontrepublic.org, Nayior writes that the country "suffers trom imperial overstretch and has become unsustainable politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, culturally and environmentally "

Naylor points to the nation's over-consumption of resources and its damaging eftect on the environment as supporting evidence.

The United States produces 25 percent of the world's supply of oil and a similar percentage ot the carbon dioxide in the world, Naylor says. He adds that the country consumes 60 percent of the world's crude oil supply.

United States foreign policy is a major reason Naylor himself advocates secession.

"It just really bothers me paying my taxes to annihilate innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan or anywhere else that Bush or Clinton or whoever decides they want to beat up on," he says. "I think our foreign policy is just corrupt to the core."

On a local level, Naylor mentions the outsourcirig of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. He predicts the day will soon come when Vermont has no manufacturing jobs left. He has little faith in the federal govermnent to reverse these trends because, he said, Washington is too much under the control of "corporate America"
and operates like a one-party system.

UVM professor and author Frank Bryan is a member of the Second Vermont Republic, but is less willing to write off the U.S. Vermont's secession, in his view, would warn the country about the dangerous direction in which it is headed.

"My view is not to hurt America at all." Bryan says. "My view is to secede to send a message to America.... Vermont could leave America without hurting the country a bit."

For Bryan, the argument tor secession transcends any political affiliation. He says that those who believe in it shouldn't be swayed by any particular administration.

"If our movement is subsumed by the current political situation ... then we're never going to get anywhere," he says.

Is secession possible?

Don't expect the Second Vermont Republic to try to advance its cause through politics. The organization is not a political party and has no intention of sponsoring political candidates.

Currently, the primary purpose of the group is to educate Vermonters about secession. One of the most common misconceptions about secession, Naylor says, is that it is unconstitutional. Naylor argues against this belief for a number of reasons.

Naylor says that secession isn't expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and therefore, according to the Tenth Amendment, it is a right held by the states.

University of Vermont protessor Lisa Holmes points to Article 1, Section 10, that includes the words "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation." She says some could interpret this as prohibiting secession.

Naylor acknowledges there are several ways to interpret the wording in the Constitution, but says the possibility of secession is a matter of political will. Several legal experts told Naylor the process would be somewhat like the tollowing:

It would start with a statewide convention that would likely have to approve secession by a two-thirds or three-fourths majority. Vermont would then present a document to Congress. They would also present documents to the governments of other major countries to ask for diplomatic recognition.

At this point, Vermont would begin to act as an independent nation, including a refusal to pay taxes to or receive assistance from the federal government.

While many might think Vermont would be unable to survive without the monetary support of the federal government, Naylor says Vermont's secession is economically feasible. Five of the 10 richest countries in the world have populations smaller than Vermont's, he noted.

For every dollar Vermonters give to the federal govemment, the state receives $1.13 in federal funding and this makes for a difference of $500 million, Naylor says. But he says much of that difference is spent by the state to support insufficiently funded federal mandates and programs that would be unnecessary as an independent state. Vermont's import/export activity would continue to be a source of income for the state.

The ultimate responsibility for answering these and other questions regarding Vermont's independence wouid lie with the people of the state, whom Naylor believes would be the best decision makers and the best leaders for Vemmont.

Historically, politics has fed Vermont's feelings about secession.

State Archivist Gregory Sanford says that Vermont threatened secession in the late 1850s after the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court and other federal actions conflicted with the state's anti-slavery position. Conversely, during the Civil War, Vermont was a leader among states committing troops to fight the South's efforts to secede.

"The whole idea of the right to secede can swing 180 degrees in just the course of a couple years," Sanford said.