One of the benefits of studying history is that you can read what people actually said, rather than how events have been spun to fit the accepted view of events. Here are some quotes from political figures from Ohio concerning the secession/independence issue.

“Mr. Speaker, when there were fifteen slaveholding States acknowledging allegiance to the Federal Government, and therefore, having in their hands the power to protect themselves against any invasion of their rights on the part of the Federal Government, it was a matter of very little consequence whether such an amendment as that was incorporated into the Constitution or not. But the state of the country is now radically and essentially changed. Seven or eight States now deny their allegiance to this Government, have organized a separate Confederacy, and have declared their independence of this Government.
If they shall maintain their position, and sustain the authorities there for a year or two to come, so as to show that nothing but a war of subjugation and conquest can bring them back, I, for one, am disposed to recognize that independence.”

(Ohio Republican Lt. Governor Benjamin Stanton (Congressional Globe, February 23, 1861, page 1285)

“And Southern gentlemen stand here, and in almost all their speeches, speak of the dissolution of the Union as an element of every argument—If they do not feel interested in upholding this Union, if it really trenches on their rights, if it endangers their institutions to such an extent that they cannot feel secure under it, if their interests are violently assailed by means of this Union, I am not one of those who expect that they will long continue in such a Union. It would be doing violence to the platform of the (Republican) party to which I belong.

We have adopted the old Declaration of Independence as the basis of our political movement, which declares that any people, when their government ceases to protect rights, when it is so subverted from the true purposes of government as to oppress them, have the right to recur to fundamental principles, and if need be, to destroy the government. I hold that they have this right. I will not blame any people for exercising it, whenever they think the contingency has come. You cannot hold men forcibly in this Union, for the attempt to do so, it seems to me, would subvert the first principles of the Government under which we live.”

(Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, (Congressional Globe, third session, 34th Congress, page 25)

I especially like Senator Wade’s last sentence. These men understood the principles of government and the Constitution. If we live in such a ‘free’ nation, then why can’t we as a State, leave it? Or on that matter, even on an individual level, you may leave the empire, yet the empire will still require you to pay its taxes, even though you are no longer under its jurisdiction. The bottom line is–you can’t leave it! It is a modern Hotel California where once you check in there is no checking out (so they say). This modern variation of nationhood is a departure from the secession of 4 July 1776, when the Founding Fathers knew that we had the freedom to sever the bonds that held us to England. The same truths still apply, despite telling us we can not leave, the reality is that the Southern States did leave, and after being occupied by invaders, the occupational forces never left. They need to leave.

Free Texas!

J Murrah

4 july 1776, Benjamin Stanton, Benjamin Wade, Culture, declation of independence, Ohio, Political Well Being, secession

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