Image by Flickr user Ron Cogswell Fort Moultrie has already been through on secession — supporters of a second go hope that there will be far less shelling in the future.
(Updates at the bottom.)
Sure, the last time South Carolina seceded from the United States things didn't turn out so well, but it seems in the wake of the 2012 election some malcontents are testing the waters again.
Using the social-media engaging White House platform "We The People" where the White House will respond to any petition that receives 25,000 or more signatures within 30 days, petitions have been started for a number of — mostly — Southern states, including "Peacefully grant the State of S.C. to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government."
Created on November 10 it reads:
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..."
Supporters have collected 13,173 signatures as of this posting, which means they need only 11,827 more by December 10th to get their rebuttal. Check out the full petition here.
Louisiana and Texas were the first statewide petitions to appear and have been followed by Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The Texas petition appears to be the only to have yet crossed the 25,000 signature threshold, with more than 60,000 signatures.
Update January 14: The South Carolina passed the threshold with 26,104 signatures and some two months have passed, but not without answer.
Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement, has replied saying that the administration can't support secession.
In part:
In a nation of 300 million people -- each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs -- democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that's a good thing. Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the liberties we often take for granted.
But as much as we value a healthy debate, we don't let that debate tear us apart.
