Last month marked the 200th anniversary of the Hartford Convention at which the New England states contemplated secession from the Union (See Tom diLorenzo on the topic here). As Mark Janis writes in the Hartford Courant, the Hartford Convention was “an ideological precursor to Southern secession in 1860 and 1861.” It’s interesting and notable that the author of this piece speaks so frankly of secession outside the context of slavery. It’s been an unspoken rule for decades that secession can only be mentioned in the context of it being the secret wish of no one but slave drivers. It is perhaps due to the global growth of secessionist movements in Scotland, Spain, Eastern Europe, and Italy that it is no longer realistic to attempt to play secession as merely a relic of the mid-19th-century American South.
Janis writes:
The Hartford Convention is known now, as much as it is remembered, as an ideological precursor to Southern secession in 1860 and 1861, and the violent Civil War over dividing the Union. Ironically, during the Civil War, New England fought for the Union. It was allied not only with the old Middle States — New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — but with many of the new northwestern states — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota — once viewed as political threats to New England. And it was the South that felt endangered by electoral politics. A new Republican majority elected Abraham Lincoln president in 1861 without him winning a single Southern electoral vote.
The Hartford Convention and the possible secession of New England from the Union has largely faded from view, but its legacy lives on. There is ongoing debate in America over the competition between the states and the federal government. When Americans divide on issues such as immigration, health care, abortion, the size and role of government and education, the contest often is framed in terms of “Who should decide — the states or the federal government?” Almost inevitably, when a minority feels threatened by a contrary national majority, there is a strong temptation for the minority to plead states’ rights.
The Hartford Convention is one of those many instances in our history where we endured the competing pulls of states’ rights vs. the Union in the American political system. Moreover, secession remains a live issue elsewhere from Ukraine to Scotland, from Quebec to Catalonia. As we in the Land of Steady Habits look at debates between regions and national unions in our country and abroad, we might recall Dec. 15 as a day when we too debated pulling out of the national union because our state’s interests were threatened.
