Thomas H Naylor
2008
Feral House
120 pages
This is the only text I’ve read by a proponent of a secessionist movement. The author of the text, Thomas H Naylor, is an emeritus professor at Duke University where he taught economics, and the founder of Second Vermont Republic. Naylor explains in depth why he believes the state of Vermont should secede from the United States to become the Second Republic of Vermont. Naylor has apparently been an activist for Vermont freedom since after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. His reason for advocating Vermont’s secession are likely similar in their roots to those of other secessionist groups, he believes that the values of his home state are radically different from those of the United States government, and therefore Vermont cannot abide by its own values and also by and those of its country any longer without losing its integrity. Naylor explains the issues with the government and then explains
While I would assume that Naylor’s basic argument for secession is similar to other Independence groups, there is something that I suspect is different in this text than in other movements. Particularly, he describes Vermont as a historically progressive (and independently progressive) state that has long charted its own path in political matters. For example, as of May 2011, Vermont has voted to become the only state with a single-payer health-care system in the Union. Naylor asserts that Vermont has a progressive history when it comes to its community values, its former attitude towards slavery and minorities, etc. Other secessionist movements, particularly those associated with reconstituting the southern confederacy (with whom Naylor expresses sympathy) are far more right wing and racist in their approach. A number of secession movements I am aware of are white nationalists who believe in the construction of a white homeland somewhere within the current continental United States. In Canada for example, Doug Christie, the well known Canadian attorney whose notoriety comes from repeatedly defending Neo-Nazi’s at trial, is a spokesperson for a movement that advocates the secession of Western Canada for the purpose of flushing the region of its immigrant population. While many secessionist movements appear to demand a freedom to indulge abhorrent ideologies, Naylor presents Vermont as more American than America, and as a state that already practices in freedom of thoughts and actions that most states fear to tolerate. He argues that Vermont does not fit with the pattern of urban-industrial aggregation that other states follow, as Vermont has no large industry or large cities, and the economic forces of the United States as a whole has only had an adverse effect on his state’s agricultural production.
Ultimately the book is an interesting document of the ideas of American secessionist movements. I currently have the impression, however, that Naylor and Vermont’s progressiveness is a unique case within the overall secessionist scene. Naylor’s manifesto is a far more serious and sincere undertaking than a book such as the Lonely Planet guide to Micronations, which profiles small countries individuals make out of their backyards and other locales.
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