Some people are taking the election results pretty hard, or at least had the election serve as a catalyst for their previously-held secessionist beliefs. Maybe it’s the fact that Lincoln hits the theaters this week.
Whatever the case, you should probably know that there are currently 25 different petitions to secede from the United States on the White House’s “We the People” online petition site.
Though it is altered a bit on some of the petitions, this is what graces the body of most of them:
As the founding fathers of the United States of America made clear in the Declaration of Independence in 1776:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government…”
All but four of the petitions were created on November 10th, but all of them are authored by different people (at least on paper). All of them are titled in the exact same way as well – “Peacefully grant the State of X to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.” Either this is a coordinated effort between secessionists in multiple states, or one or two guys creating petitions for different states under assumed names.
Either way, most of the petitions have around 4,000 signatures. The only exception is the petition specific to Texas, which has over 27,000 signatures. That means that it has reached the official threshold for a response, which is currently set at 25,000 signatures. That petition was begun on November 9th and gives this reason:
The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.
None of the petitions speak directly to the November 6th Presidential election, but all of them were created after President Obama won a second term. As of today, there are official petitions for Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia (x2), Mississippi, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, New Jersey, Oregon, Colorado, New York, South Carolina (x2), Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri (x2), Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.
The White House launched the We the People online petition site back in September of 2011. Although many citizens have bemoaned its lack of any discernable purpose, the White House has promised that they are listening.