There was a time in my life when I vowed I would never broach this subject again in any kind of public forum, but as I approach advanced midlife, I’m less adept than ever at resisting the urge. The author of this article is right, of course: Southern secession in 1861 was essentially about preserving slavery. But this bitter reality should not prevent 21st century Southerners from constructing a renascent identity. I even contend that there is a model for this renascence: post-WWII Germany. Just as modern German identity is, in a sense, post-German, a renascent Southern identity necessarily must be post-Southern.
Such an identity, tethered to the past but not obsessed with it, is desperately needed, not only by the sons and daughters of the South, irrespective of race, but by the nation as a whole.
Borrowing a phrase from Konrad Adenauer, the architect of post-war German identity, the South is “bowed but not broken.”
Exceedingly late in his life, former diplomat George F. Kennan stepped up with a solution for breaking the lonstanding impasse between states rights and federal centralization.
In his book, Around the Cragged Hill, Kennan outlined a series constitutional reforms that would transform the states into larger constituent republics with substantial sovereignty vis-a-vis the central government.
He also advocated assigning this status to New York, Los Angeles, and a few other major U.S. cities.
Kennan was onto something – in my humble opinion, the only viable solution in a post-New Deal, post-civil rights, post-modernist, post-states right era. His proposal, more than any other of which I’m aware, offers the best chance of resolving a longstanding impasse.
Even so, the obstacles to such a sweeping reform are legion.
The 50-states still enjoy a measure of sovereignty in this country largely because of the history of the original 13. All of these states, despite their varying sizes, were sovereign, if not independent, political entities when they came to the table as equals – sovereignty that was underscored and affirmed through their joint collaboration in one of the bloodiest revolutions in human history.
A peaceful 21st century revolution aimed at restoring a healthy measure of sovereign faces several daunting hurdles. For starters, support would have to be secured in both legislative houses of at least two-thirds of the states. Good luck with that: Many of these legislators would not look kindly on the likelihood of their district being eliminated or, at the very least, expanded considerably.
Even if supporters achieve the unthinkable and secure enough legislative support, there is the added challenge of securing three-fourths support among the 50 states – small wonder why the Founding Fathers sat the amendment bar so high.
Congress is required by the Constitution to set a time limit on passage of this amendment, allowing plenty of room for additional mischief.
Yes, there is the far less conventional route – a convention called by two-thirds of the states. The problem is that it’s never been achieved.
For that to succeed, there would have to be massive public support for such reform, which scarcely seem conceivable at this juncture in history. Most rank-and-file Americans, even Southerners, tend to regard with ambivalence any discussion of states rights or regionalism – at least, that’s my impression.
The major preoccupations remain bread-and-butter issues – taxes, the deficit and economic recovery.
Call me a pessimist, but I simply don’t foresee any groundswell for state sovereignty and regionalism any time in the foreseeable future.
But the late Mr. Kennan deserves credit for generating the most compelling and workable concept in 50 years.
George Parkin Grant, Canadian Nationalist, Theologian and Philosopher
I’ve been reading the works of the late George Parkin Grant, a renowned Canadian tory nationalist, theologian and philosopher. As counterintutive as it seems to most Americans, he viewed Quebec nationalism as a bulwark against Americanization — the Canadian patriot’s perennial fear.
Based on Christian Roy’s excellent essay in Athens and Jerusalem: George Grant’s Theology, Philosphy and Politics, Grant maintained that Trudeau’s vision of Canada as a vanguard of cosmopolitan liberal humanist values constituted a betrayal of Quebecois nationalism, which was secured as right when this French-speaking region helped form much of the bedrock of the Canadian Confederation.
Reading this, I couldn’t help but think: Didn’t the U.S. Tenth Amendment secure pretty much the same thing — a measure of nationalism for the 13 independent states that comprised the new federal union? And remember: the Declaration was not a declaration of unitary nationhood but rather a joint declaration of the separate independence of 13 “Free and Independent States.”
To be sure, the record of states rights has been abominable in many cases. As a Southerner, I’m especially cognizant of the South’s abominable legacy vis-a-vis African Americans. Even so, I nonetheless wish that we could return to some kind of constitutional order that restored this balance between the states and what state’s rights advocates once described as the “general government.”
The question remains — how? Are states, with the possible exception of the largest ones, California and Texas, for example, even adequately equipped in this immense federal union to act as an adequate buffer against the central government?
For an interesting insight into one proposal, check out this previouspostabout a revolutionary — or should I say, counterrevolutionary — proposal by the late diplomat George F. Kennan.
Musings of an American Red Tory 