Resembles the country i left and you begin to wonder whether or not we might be just better off with two separate countries. Its not what i want. I feel a little bit like a skunk in that the garden party everyby talking about great president s and here im talking about a breakup but ultimately im not arguing for secession and its just the opposite. Its ate real threat and may be sarned up the volume of little bit. Host we are less united again any time since the civil war divided by politics, culture in all the ways that matter that make it the force of the law we are already divided into the two nations it seems like a fresh argument for secession. I think whats missing is a tolerance and understanding of people with varying different points of view. It. They are the bonds that still holds america together. Maybe its more than a long time in l the past we have a common culture. Its a culture if americans see each other in a foreign country in europe we recognize each other as americans. We are having fun. Thats very american, i know it at the same time, we are canceling a lot of the culture a lot of our history. We are told we are not supposed to be proud but rather ashamed of our history. Thats very divisive. If you want a country its important to have the same kind of heroes and also the bad stuff. What im hoping would happen would be a realignment. You have to imagine one state would say look this isnt working. For example, we would like to have national health. We are not going to get it from washington. We might get it from sacramento as a Smaller Group of states. We dont think we would like to make America Great again. Lets make americans small again and then you get a referendum and at that point leading different people go their own way but maintaining still a United Country in some respects. It would be a different kind of ofederalist. Host the advantages and disadvantages being what might happen if american secession have been. What are the advantages . What ive discovered is bigness is bad medicine generally and small is beautiful and smaller countries are less corrupt, free and prosperous so we are comparing the biggest countries in the world and this is what denmark and those countries are doing pretty well. Host the book is american secession the looming threat of the National Breakup is the discussion point for this hour of the washington journal today. You can join us as you have all morning long on the phone lines split up regionally. 202 7488000 if you are in eastern or central time zone, 202 7488001 and a mountain and pacific. 202 7488003. We will start with you an you ad wealth in carolina. Wilson north carolina. Caller think the greatest ie greatest threat that we have right now to reflect the times its very easy to come in a. Those states got the educated people but they are very easy to fool or gullible because in other words we need a National Election in the same rules for every state. We dont need it to be so complicated. Guest the Electoral College was a big discussion in 1787 with the framers. Its to give a voice and that is what we have and you are right. Frankly that is something that Roger Sherman from connecticut gave us and he should be a hero for conservatives because the Electoral College to wait. That is just an accident. It didnt have to happen that way but this is how it turned out. If you want to get a constitutional change, you dont it would probably have been most likely the threat of secession. We may not want to have for example a passport for these are the kind of discussions you have to have. Ha you think americans today would be less willing to fight to keep the union together likee they did. Guest one hopes there is no crazy South Carolina out there. I dont think that we see an end in office they are going through the list of the best and worst president s. There were a lot of things wrong with buchanan in the era of racist scum he was about the most racist of all that he said something that made a lot of toomey. He was talking about South Carolina trying to secede and said this doesnt make sense. We are prosperous, we are doing well and we have no reason to secede because slavery is nowhere better protected in the world an than america at this point. We are not going to keep it together btogether by sending ie army. Memes madison said the same thing. He said the federal government contact between the states would be over and it was federal troops to guar go in. Dont get me wrong the civil war ended slavery that we dont have these issues today so i could see it. I want to go back to the author and historian that gave a speech last year talking about the northern and southern perceptions. In the years leading up to the civil war this is what he had to say. Guest guest people were more alike are more different but i think often overlooked in this debate about the similarities and differences between the sections of the fact that substantial numbers of whitwhite northerners and southerners believed that there were profound differences. In any circumstance it usually trumps reality and dictating behavior is because people act according to what they perceive to berd the truth however it mit differ from reality. By the eve of the civil war, many saw a society fundamentally had many would have said perniciously shaped by the presence of slavery. For their part they thought they were determined to undermine the social system. It matters whether i its a very good people in this way. The new york daily tribune put it in the spring of 1856 the truth is though we are but one nation, we are two people. We are a people of a quality and any quality. These two people are united by the bond of political unions but whenever a collision comes which brings out the peculiar characteristics of the two beer seemed to be as unlike as almost any two civilized nations on the face of the earth that same year in north carolinians a cadet at west point hour banners, feelings and education are as they were different nation. Indeed everything indicates plainly a separation. Host Frank Buckley, are we to nations or are we different than we think we are . Guest the New York Times or the Washington Post you are reading stories by people and of people very different from other parts of the country. I think that they could still get along but i think that the speaker hits on something very important namely that its very psychological. There was a convention in a state tried to patch it together. They thought its crazy we dont want to go to war with work things out. Remarkably, the northerners offered slavery and the constitution. The most antislavery people said we will make it so that it will only speak a part of our u. S. Constitution. Abraham lincoln said he would go along with that at one of the southern delegates said that is not enough. You also have to respect us. You have to respect into the northerners said no, we cant do that. That need for respect is always there and never more than today and i think it fuels a lot of our politics and people do that either extreme. Host the book is american secession the looming threat of the National Breakup. Shelley out of utah you are next. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just want to see respect is very important and also the fact that we have a president that believes everybody all the time, that doesnt help our common denominator of getting this all together. I am a great grandmother with 18 children were great grandchildren and there is a better life for them but the way are going forwe thewe middle class is gone and e are just having the rich and the poor so we need to find a happy medium line. We need more middle class than wmiddleclass thanwe do the ric. Thank you for taking my call. Guest thank you those were good points. Congratulation on all those grandkids. I think what youve done is described why people like and dislike donald trump. I dont want to get into politics but you are talking about some rather basic issues that help elect, and at the same time the way in which they think its about the worst thing that happened. Lets put it this way in 1972, Irving Kristol said the culturaa wars over. Only 2016 the left kind of got a wakeup call maybe they did and when the cultural war after all. There was a broad consensus we were not going to shake things up but now we are and that has helped to produce the vision im talking about. Those divisions are there. Host what are the biggest Secession Movements in America Today . Guest they are all over the place. I think if it, new hampshire, vermont, oregon, so they are small now. They always start small but they can go upey very quickly. This time rather than defending slavery it might be the states of the union say we cant think this anymore and so with. Caller its about racism and the have and havenots telling what they need. We have a big problem because the. We brought freedom to america and justice to america. When god said he who is last shall be first. When we moved to first position, peoplesoft helpful in and everything they need instead of depending on america were white men to give it to them. Why do people have to look up to their own people to try to talk to havenots what they need. And this is where the problem is. This is why theyve tried. I live here in mississippi. The flag is never talked about and we ignore and worry about thlegal immigrants in iran. Guest you are making good points although i disagree. Be forl i think should all of us to be treated equally so no priority for anybody. That means you at people who have been hard done by that message has to be we are all equal in Don Livingston is a very nice guy who. Hes a philosopher, is to and somebody who from a philosophical perspective likes the idea of secession. There are those people out there and he lives in South Carolina. Hes not a racist in any way, shape or form, but he is somebody thats talked up the idea of southern secession and southernso distinctiveness so they. Host out of Port Charlotte florida, the. Caller earlier when you started you mentioned the Washington Post. [inaudible] guest . You ar were going a little bit n the guest for the theres been a slant that tend people as we. I do you have a followup question caller im that brings reporting facts and. They deplored the guest . The innate. Include people who w their own way with respect to national help but there also a lot of people think we are in a regulatory morass being ruled by unelected regulators and what they are talking about is the alphabet soup mixing a binding, they those kind of people migh might prefer a smalr country that list of washingtons regulations. Host out in california, good morning. Caller good morning. I believe that capitalism go together and every man is capitalism while trump is in office and theres one other thing, too mac. I reluctantly have to say there comes a time in every nation no longer want immigrant to come into the country. You just have too many and is working to make the country better, it just doesnt work. Guest i agree with a lot of what you said. I am an immigrant myself. We get in a here and pull the ladder up, nobody else after me. Immigrants are a force to be the source and should center around whether or not the people are making native bornve americans better off but thats a form of debate. Host what is secession might . Guest its what i was thinking might be a solution to the problems. I describe it as a greeter grant of authority to the states were a group of states over a whole bunch of issues. Its what they offered ireland in the 1880s and the way all of the former british colonies have left and gained their independence in the form of selfrule so maybe rather than breaking up the country what they could do was keep the country together but allow the different parts of the two have greater control over what they want to do. Host is that legal under the constitution . Guest everything is legal if you recommended sites to get the game going which would be an act of secession and then that begins a discussion. No state has the right of secession. No state can write in 1861 why, because the voters an in other states count for example dividing up federal property and dividing up the federal debt so he begins a series of discussions and maybe what might come out of that bring peace to the debate would be a greater tolerance for different parts of the country going their own way over any member of thing. It might be abortion and it might be national health. What role would the Supreme Court and Congress Play in what you are talkinglk about if a Secession Movement is declared and we start walking down the path . Guest inevitably everything ends up before the Supreme Court, so that is ahi gd point. There is a case that says no right of secession that was decided when the civil war was good and over. If it was respected, if it was in the future i think the Supreme Court would hesitate before giving a loaded gun to the president and also the original list on the court would Pay Attention to the act the framers thought secession was possible. Host we are talking with Frank Buckley american secession the looming threat to american breaof americanbreak up the new. Joining us for another halfhour if you have phone calls. 2,027,488,000 if youre in the eastern or central time zones. 202 7488001 in the mountain and pacific and 202 7488003 for Text Messages as well if you send them to include your name and where youre from. Jim in cheyenne, wyoming. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am concerned that the lack of understanding in the country currently at the Electoral College and why it was originated and the discussions about eliminating it pose a threat while fueling more secession activity and i would like your thoughts on that subject. Thank you. Guest we got the Electoral College because anything else would have been a dealbreaker for many of the states, for the smaller states in 1787. We had a compromise in a lot of things into some of the scene might not like slavery being an obvious example, but that was kind of the price of getting a United Country together. As for the Electoral College you can make a lot of arguments or you can make arguments against it. Obviously it runs up against a basic norm underlining our constitution of the democracy. So the idea of one man, one vote across the country the framers frknew that. They had to argue against people like madison who didnt want anythingng like that. The framers, most of them thought we dont want small states to be swallowed up by the big ones. The big ones back then were virginia and pennsylvania and the big one ones today are new k and california, same argument. Host one of our longtime viewers he often sends them every day this is his comment on this segment. Maybe we can start to respect the tenth amendment of the power isnt delegated to the United States by the constitution or prohibited by the states or to the people. Guest its not have to much staying power. Its not influence the debate very much. I agree i would like to see more power to the state ultimately. That would go a way to work solving the problems. I dont know that the tenth amendment is that i am thinking is there. Ta host in michigan, good morning. Caller good morning. My question to you about the primary election why is it we couldnt amend the constitution on the fact of a secret ballot republicans put up the southern electors in the primary. Im an independent so it doesnt matter to me anyway. They keep it as a secret ballot until the federal election and then they open up the ballot ended it comes into play that way everybody has to enter the political site on the situation for both sidesn and then they count and it may not count like a regular person off the street. Your comments, please and i will get off the air. Guest you lost me because that is so harit is so hard to. 38 states. I think that theres a lot of better ways and inevitably there is going to be some messiness but in general i think we have a system we can take a great deal of pride with all of its messiness we still do a pretty good job. Host kevin in maryland, go ahead. Caller i will make it a point to purchase your book. I believe the secession is going to be economically driven. Its getting out of control and its going to somehow everyone but before that happens i want to see a secession to get us from under the financial issue that we have been hoping that this is not a bloody secession and i think that it will be economically driven. Weve got a clean slate. Guest im glad you brought up the soviet union. Just about every country in the world is staring down a Secession Movement and i dont know why we thin think they are immune from that. I would think we are ready t for that. With respect to the economic consequences its really hard to just break up if you dont take your responsibility for your part of the federal debt. That would be a serious problem od Secession Movements have been willing to talk about that and negotiate over that so that is kind of the price youve got to do that. The u. S. Independent movements inspired, you talked about one of them mentioned. Which of those do you want to talk about . Guest bonone of them have clinton anywhere close to off the ground at this particular point but my argument is these things happen fast, and when they happen, they cannot of the blue. If i could respondnd b to sometg the previous callers about whether this would be violent, i talk about my experience. We went through all of this and that good advice. My thinking is such a thing couldh happen, what got the talk of secession going is something called google 101 which was a piece of legislation. They called it a highway between montreal about 3,000