Press Release - Monday, November 6, 2006

Vermont contact: Dr. Rob Williams
info@vermontrepublic.org / 802.279.3364 (mobile)

FIRST-EVER NORTH AMERICAN SECESSIONIST CONVENTION A SUCCESS!
MEETING BRINGS MORE THAN 40 SECESSIONISTS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY TO BURLINGTON, VERMONT

The first North American Secessionist Convention was held in Vermont last week-end [November 3-5, 2006] and attracted more than three dozen people who are in groups actively working for secession from the United States.

The gathering, sponsored by the Middlebury Institute (http://www.middleburyinstitute.net - "for the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination"), drew 43 people, with delegates from 16 secessionist organizations in 18 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, Cascadia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

The convention issued a document outlining its basic points of agreement at the end of the meeting. The Burlington Declaration stated:

We, the participants in the First North American Secessionist Convention, though representing many different and diverse groups and constituencies, agree on the following principles as representing the truths of natural law and historical experience:

1. Any political entity has the right to separate itself from a larger body of which it is a part and peaceably to establish its independence as a free and legitimate state in the eyes of the world.

2. Governments are instituted among peoples, deriving their just powers from the consent of their citizens, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the legitimate goals of life, liberty, prosperity, and self-determination, it is the right of the people in democratic fashion to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

3. Any government formed by and dependent upon a constitution to regulate its actions and affairs has certain legitimate powers delegated to it, but any powers not so delegated are reserved to the people of that state and their democratically chosen political bodies.

4. Nations once independent should engage in peace, commerce, good will, and honest friendship with all nations, and observe good faith, justice, and harmony toward all, but establish entangling relationships with none, nor engage in colonial dominance, political or economic, over any.

5. Direct democracy, with one vote for each and every citizen (as the polity shall designate citizenship), has proven to be a desirable form of governance among people, but it can operate with justice and equality only when at a small enough scale that each person may be known to every other person; when representative forms of government are undertaken, they should likewise best be established at a scale small enough so that each representative can be informed of the opinions and beliefs of the general run of the people in the constituency or community which that person is chosen to represent.

It is within this body of principles that we ask all governments to operate and it is by them that we ourselves, individually and the organizations we represent, intend to be guided.

Burlington, Vermont
November 4, 2006

From "Beware Empires In Decline", referring to the United States. Generally speaking, what do the historical precedents tell us about the geopolitical behavior of such empires, particularly as regards what you have termed "senseless, self-destructive acts"? Also, please touch on why you think America is indeed in decline.

" The establishment and maintenance of an empire is an immensely energy-demanding enterprise. It takes enormous energy and resources to conquer foreign nations, maintain overseas garrisons, suppress rebellions, administer colonies, pay the salaries of soldiers and imperial bureaucrats, key fleets at sea, and so on. Every empire that ever was has struggled with this dilemma, and every empire that ever was collapsed sooner or later when the expense of maintaining the empire exceeded the revenues obtained from possessing the empire. For the United States, I believe, Iraq represents that turning point: before the United States entered Iraq, it was the dominant world power and possessed the strength to exercise hegemony in almost every corner of the globe; but the Bush administration vastly miscalculated the costs of occupying Iraq (now estimated at $1-$2 trillion) and that misjudgment will so deplete the US Treasury that American will never be able to undertake such a costly imperial undertaking again — not without bankrupting the country and reducing us all to beggars. This having been said, the reality of our altered circumstances may not penetrate the thinking of our top officials, who may falsely believe that we still enjoy our pre-Iraq preponderance of wealth and power, and so undertake Iraq-like adventures abroad that will cripple this nation forever. "

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Lincoln Unmasked. New York: Crown Forum, 2006, 223 pp., $22.95
SVR Advisory Board Member Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s latest book Lincoln Unmasked lays to rest once and for all the myth that Abraham Lincoln was our best president. Indeed, DiLorenzo provides substantial evidence to suggest that if Lincoln was not our worst president, he was surely our most dishonest head of state.
Among the tactics used by Lincoln to squash dissent were:
Shutting down three hundred opposition newspapers, suspending habeas corpus, imprisoning tens of thousands of political dissenters, deporting outspoken Democratic congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, censoring telegraphs, intimidating judges, conscripting soldiers, recruiting thousands of foreign immigrants to fight in the war, and rigging Northern elections, to name but a few.

Lincoln Unmasked is much more hard-hitting than its predecessor, The Real Lincoln. Although the name George W. Bush appears only once in the entire book, one has the feeling of déjà vu as one reads about the extent to which Lincoln trashed the Constitution to achieve his political aims.
Lincoln Unmasked is a must read book for any one seriously interested in secession and the peaceful dissolution of the Empire.

Thomas H. Naylor
November 1, 2006