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March 6, 2020|American Secession, California secession, F.H. Buckley, Federalism, Secession

The Divided States of America?

by Matthew Berry|

"Dividing the National Map" (Library of Congress)
There are at least two very different visions of what America ought to be, and they increasingly appear to be mutually exclusive.

December 3, 2018|Brexit, European Union, Federalism, Secession

The Case for Exit Rights Federalism

by Jason Sorens|

(stock.adobe.com)
Political federations should have exit clauses in order to promote political and fiscal liberties.

February 21, 2018|Citizenship, Civil War, David Armitage, Ideology, revolution, Rome, Secession

What Makes Civil Wars Different

by William Anthony Hay|

'The Last Argument of Kings' (Creative Commons 3.0/Wikimedia Commons)
David Armitage offers tremendous insight into civil wars and how to understand them, but not in the usual social scientific or historical key.

January 15, 2018|Civil War, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Orestes Brownson, Secession

“An indestructible Union composed of indestructible States?”

by Herman Belz|

How do we know our political existence to be a fact?

December 4, 2017|Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia, Secession, separatism, Spanish Constitution of 1978

Will Spain Splinter?

by James R. Conde|

After months of secessionist agitation in Catalonia, Spain’s government has called for fresh regional elections to be held on December 21. With Catalonia deeply divided, and with most of the ruling coalition’s political leadership in jail or in exile, this promises to be the most politically charged vote in Spain’s recent constitutional memory.

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October 24, 2017|Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia, Leonard Liggio, Secession, separatism

Catalonia: Secession, Constitution, and Liberty

by Javier Fernández-Lasquetty|

Three flags fluttering together on a windy day: the flag of the European Union, the ancient flag of Catalonia and the starry unofficial flag symbolizing the desire of Catalans for secesion from Spain.

 

Catalonia has entered a critical phase in its attempt to secede from Spain, a process initiated by the regional government and parliament back in 2013. Secession in a Western European country in the 21st century necessarily draws attention. People all over the world feel that type of sympathy often induced by revolutionary movements in distant countries. But this is not a repetition of what we saw in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries. This is more complex.

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July 13, 2017|Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty, John Boles, Joseph Ellis, Merrill Peterson, Sally Hemings, Secession, Slavery, Thomas Jefferson

Making Jefferson Safe for the Historians        

by Kevin Gutzman|

Washington, DC - Jefferson Memorial

Rice University’s John Boles was for many years (1983-2013) editor of The Journal of Southern History, which after The Journal of American History is the most-cited scholarly journal in the field of American history. In that position, he had substantial influence on, besides being substantially influenced by, the shape of the field today. Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty comes as a kind of valedictory.  As in his earlier work, Boles is self-consciously guided in writing it by recent developments in academic historiography. Contemporary politics make themselves felt in his story of the Master of Monticello, too. A full one-volume account has long…

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November 10, 2016|Jefferson Davis, John Quincy Adams, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, Manifest Destiny, Missouri Compromise, President James Buchanan, President James K. Polk, Secession

Compromising the Nature of the Union

by Herman Belz|

first edition of S. A. Mitchell Jr.’s 1860 map of Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri Kansas and Nebrasa.

The Framers of the Constitution recognized that in a country as extensive as the United States, compromise between partisan groups was the price of Union. The zone of acceptable compromise had constantly to be calculated and reconsidered because Americans put the Constitution to practical use by using it as a partisan instrument to win substantive policy conflicts.

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June 30, 2016|Alexander Stephens, Brexit, Edmund Burke, European Union, Orestes Brownson, Roger Scruton, Secession

The Spunk of Albion

by Peter Augustine Lawler|

Blake's image of Albion from his A Large Book of Designs

You may have noticed that not much is said in this space about what goes on in other countries. It’s not that I don’t have opinions; it’s just I don’t imagine mine are worth much. I conspicuously didn’t take a stand on Brexit. It seemed to me there was a good case to be made for Britain’s leaving the European Union and a good case to be made for its staying in. I thought I’d leave it up to them. If I were British, I would have been more psyched up about the whole thing.

The outcome surprised me, because the past history of secessionist movements—such as Quebec and Scotland—has been of a petering out at the end. Just enough people get all prudent and make a safe choice. Not only that, all the factions of the respectably British cognitive elite—top politicians, public intellectuals, the business leaders, celebrities, the unions, and so forth—advocated making the Progressive choice. “Progressive” here means stay the course when it comes to evolving beyond the nation-state in the direction of larger and more cosmopolitan unions. We aspire to be citizens of the world, politics being that pathology that we shed as we move, as Tyler Cowen puts it, from being brutish to being nice.

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September 16, 2014|EU, EU Federalism, Nation-State, Scotland, Secession, Self-Determination

Should We Party Like It’s 1938?

by Michael S. Greve|

Zone euro

In further demonstration that this is a forum for vigorous debate among friends: I strenuously disagree with Brother McGinnis’s post on Scottish independence. As usual he gets the analytics right: no matter how the vote turns out, it will embolden independence movements elsewhere. John is also right in suggesting that the EU has by design and institutional logic fostered such movements. It has done so by design (for example, through regional transfer payments) on the theory that anything that is bad for nation-states must therefore be good for the EU’s federalism project. It has done so by logic because the overall umbrella of free trade (by and large) reduces the expected price of secession. They’ve come a long way. There’s no longer a point in obsessing over a Belgium without a functional government because there is no longer a reason to have a Belgium in the first place.

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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