California Wants Confederate Privileges Without Confederate Principles
Every so often, the Golden State flirts with the notion of secession. Usually it’s sparked by frustration with “red state bullies,” conservative Supreme Court rulings, or the idea that Washington, D.C., is too backward for the enlightened coasts. The word Calexit surfaces, and some dream of a shining progressive republic stretching from San Diego to Sacramento.
But here’s the irony: if California is serious about secession, it will need to start singing “Dixie.”
Because the precedent was set in 1861.
When Secession Was Treason
Southerners in 1861 argued plainly:
- We entered the Union freely as sovereign states.
- Therefore, we can depart it the same way.
- The Constitution was a compact, not a prison.
Abraham Lincoln, however, declared otherwise. In his first inaugural, he claimed the Union was older than the Constitution, indestructible, and perpetual. The states were never truly sovereign, he argued, and secession was not only illegal but “treason.” Then he set about proving it with cannon and bayonet.
The result: the Confederacy was crushed, the states were declared indivisible, and the very notion of secession was anathematized.
Fast-Forward to California
Now, a century and a half later, California’s progressives speak of secession as a noble cause. They don’t want to live under federal laws they despise. They want autonomy. They want freedom from what they see as the tyranny of “flyover country.”
But by Lincoln’s logic, they are as guilty as Jefferson Davis. If the Union pre-existed the Constitution, then California never had sovereignty to begin with. They are mere subdivisions of a perpetual national authority, with no more right to leave than Fresno has to leave California.
The Delicious Irony
When the South tried to secede: treason! rebellion! barbarism!
When California flirts with the idea: principled resistance, self-determination, democracy in action.
California wants Confederate privileges without Confederate principles. They want to break the Union when it benefits them — but without ever admitting that the South’s legal argument was the same.
The Larger Point
It is a selective memory, this American civics. We are taught that secession is impossible, until the right people want it. We are told the Union is eternal, except when California would prefer otherwise.
The truth is simpler: either secession is a legitimate expression of sovereignty, or it is not. If it is treason for the South, it is treason for California. If it is permitted for California, then history owes the South an apology.
And that, friends, is the punchline of history: California may wave the rainbow flag, but when it whispers about secession, it is humming Dixie without even knowing it.