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Questions and Answers about
New England Home Rule
The Homepage of the New England Confederation, A Coalition for New England's Future has an outstanding section with quotations about state and New England sovereignty from our six state constitutions and from past New England leaders.
At the bottom of the page, you'll find links to interesting reading that can amplify some of these topics, including various state sovereignty resolutions recently passed and based on the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Question 1: What is "home rule"?
The dictionary definition of home rule is having one's own legislature. What the New England Confederation, A Coalition for New England's Future, means by it is summed up in The Portland Resolution, promulgated by the NEC,CNEF's general membership on May 1, 1999. Essentially, we believe that New England has lost not only its voice in the vast continental empire the United States has become, but its ability for self-government as well. We believe that a regional legislature and a return of authority over our own affairs, appropriated over the years by Washington, would help remedy this situation.
Question 2: Most of the "home rule" movements we hear about are in regions with oppressed minorities in unstable countries, or at least in areas that were conquered by other countries, sometimes in the distance past. This is hardly the case here. Why should New England want or need more "freedom from Washington"?
It's certainly true that few native-born Americans have a clue what it's really like to live under a tyrannical government. As a matter of fact, as a society, most of us are quite "spoiled." But the immediate reasons for New England home rule are similar to what they were in 1776. Among other things, an enormous, overbearing, coast-to-coast megastate has subverted local control (and therefore democracy), is harming commerce by over-regulation and over-taxation, is overburdening the population with taxes, and neglects New England interests over those of other regions. Most importantly, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are being swallowed up in a huge, inflexible national bureaucracy that now has a life of its own. It can protect -- or try to protect -- the rights of groups, but not the rights of individuals. In fact, a good argument can be made that we are not being governed in any objective manner at all, but through the influence of whatever interest groups throw the most money at our masters in Washington.
Question 3: Can't these problems be remedied in the legislatures and the law courts?
That's one of the things the United States of America is supposed to be all about. But the USA is so vast, with such a huge population and so many competing regional interests, it is virtually impossible to remedy these problems unless Washington divests itself of many of the powers it has arrogated to itself since the Constitution went into effect in 1789. The country is too big for any one region to be treated fairly. It's no longer "all for one and one for all," if indeed it ever was.
Question 4: Isn't the federal government so huge and complex -- and taxes so high -- partly because of the entitlements we all depend on? How else are they supposed to administer and fund Social Security, Medicare, etc? What would we do without these entitlements and the national economy that supports them?
This touches on the fundamental question: Is it better to surrender some of our human rights and have the security of these entitlements? It's the old philosophical conundrum of "the bird in the gilded cage," and every person must answer in his or her own conscience. The question for those who answer "yes" is: How far will it go, and who will stop it?
And who says that a more autonomous New England wouldn't be part of the national economy or that people would lose the benefits they've earned? We don't want to break up the United States, just decentralize it.
Question 5: Wait a minute! States may have some claim to more sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, but regions have no constitutional standing. To get home rule for New England, or at least a regional legislature, wouldn't the U.S. Constitution have to be amended?
Probably, but not necessarily. The six states already have close political, economic and cultural ties through various regional bodies they've formed on their own, such as the New England Governors Conference. We suggest that it could be a relatively uncomplicated step to form an unofficial deliberative body whose authority could derive from a legal contract among the six states, with its decisions given the force of law by action of the individual state legislatures. Ideally, however, New England would have a legislature with clear, regular legal authority over the matters set out in The Portland Resolution, and this certainly would require some sort of constitutional rewrite, not only by the whole Union but by each of the New England states.
New Englanders might complain about yet another level of government, but New England has no county governments, so we already live under one less level than other Americans.
We think working for a regional legislature is well worth it, and not only for New England. Why shouldn't the South or the West have their own regional authority for the same reason New England should?
So let's do it!
Question 6: Well, if you're so hot on regional government, why not just make New England a single state?
Actually, there has been some discussion of that on higher levels than the NEC, CNEF. But, as The Portland Resolution makes clear, each of our six states is unique, and people are rightly loyal to those states even though they have a distinct New England consciousness.
We often find that people who espouse the "single-state solution" were born and brought up somewhere else and don't understand the New England ethos.
Question 7: Even if all these arguments are valid, New England seems like a stolid, comfortable region that has been unusually faithful to the traditional Union. How would a serious "home rule" movement be possible in such a place?
That New England has been solidly pro-Union all along is a gross misconception. The New England states were nervous about the federal Constitution from day one. Rhode Island mistrusted the Union so much that it refused to ratify the Constitution until 1790, the last of the original 13 colonies to do so. President George Washington was so exasperated with Rhode Island's hesitancy to join the Union that he threatened economic sanctions. When Rhode Island finally did ratify the Constitution, the legislature included an "out" clause that's still there!
There was secessionist sentiment in New England nearly from the beginning for very similar commercial reasons as in the answer to Question 1. Well before the War of 1812, there were plans by various big-wigs to secede, notably in 1804 and 1809. Delegates meeting at the Hartford Convention in 1814 actually considered secession, but backed down when the hated War of 1812 happened to end.
New Englanders wouldn't even put up with bovine fecal matter from their own state governments, as evidenced by Rhode Island's "Dorr War" of 1842.
As late as 1844, the Massachusetts legislature threatened secession over the admission of Texas to the Union.
With deep respect to those who gave their lives in the War Between the States, there was no absolute certainty about the Union anywhere in the United States at that time. It is arguable that New England was not cemented to the Union until the 20th century, and only then by the growth of American civil religion as taught in its "seminaries" (the public schools) and by national efforts such as World War I, the beginning of national entitlements under President Franklin Roosevelt, and World War II. Much of that began coming apart with the era of Vietnam, Watergate and the federal budget deficit. And with the purging of moral values from public-school curricula and Washington itself at the hands of President Clinton and plenty of others, even the civil religion began to break down.
So one can argue that today there is little left to hold New England in the Union at all, never mind continue to knuckle under to Washington, except federal money, fear of change and lots and lots of lethargy.
Question 8: What is this "10th Amendment Movement" you mention?
Essentially, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution says that any power not specifically reserved to the federal government by the Constitution, or not specifically denied to the states by it, is reserved to the states. Many states (it was 29 last I looked) have passed "sovereignty resolutions" demanding that Washington abide by the 10th Amendment and stop grabbing power from the states. The catalyst for that feeling has been years of unfunded mandates piled on the states by Congress -- things Washington tells states to do or enforce at their own expense. Little has come of this so far, probably because the "system" is so out of control that no one -- certainly not the president or the Congress -- can rein it in.
So there has been some official talk of a convention of the states to bring Washington to heel. Of course, that's easier said than done. I can't imagine any legal avenue for Washington to forbid such a convention: After all, that's how the United States began. But a tremendous constitutional crisis could result and create yet another way for the Union to break up.
For New England, it's "six of one, a half dozen of the other." Our voice still would be drowned out by bigger regions and by the special interests that dominate Congress. We still see no choice but home rule or continued domination by outsiders.
Question 9: Do you think the U.S. government is simply going to let states or whole regions sidle away from its authority? I thought the Civil War settled that whole question.
All the Civil War (which our Southern friends rightly call the "War of Northern Aggression") settled was that the North had the resources to beat up on the South. In fact, it was the beginning of "big government," which has been growing ever since. Morally, the war answered nothing and did not negate the merit of the South's desire for a peaceful independence. What reasonable person would suggest that I -- or a state -- could join a group of my own free will, then be a prisoner forever, never permitted to leave if I so desired? The American penchant for agreeing with this is based on the dangerous, civil-religion notion that the USA is some sort of divine creation that can't be tampered with.
It's difficult to imagine that the central government today would resort to military force on any scale on our own soil. The consequences would be unbelievably catastrophic. No sane person wants to see America become another Bosnia. Instead, Washington would almost certainly adopt a policy of covert terror against sovereignty movements, something at which, regrettably, it has become quite adept.
The only sure answer to that threat is that it can't work forever. If it did, European Communism wouldn't be dead.
I fully expect that the federal government also will use every form of economic pressure at its disposal. Economic sanctions in the form of withheld federal funds already are threatened or used against states that don't toe Washington's line or that -- heaven forbid -- invoke their 10th Amendment sovereignty rights.
Washington must realize that things must change: It must devolve back to the states the power that rightly belongs to them. If it doesn't, Washington will be responsible for wrecking the Union, not groups like the NEC, CNEF.
SUGGESTED READING
THE COMMITTEE OF 50 STATES. Chaired by former Utah governor J. Bracken Lee, this effort seeks a convention of the states to bring Washington to heel.
NINE NATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA, by former Washington Post editor Joel Garreau. This 1981 book outlines the common-sense regional and economic distinctions on the continent and predicts some of the same things I do. I know it's still in print, and I'm almost certain it's still available from Avon Books. I had had a link to a Texas Chapter, American Planning Assn., site that talked about the book and its concepts, but it seems to have vanished. But here's some information on Mr. Garreau himself.
THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION MAIN SITE, an excellent site that outlines the NEC concept in detail, along with some eye-opening history.
"SECESSION: IT'S NOT JUST A SOUTHERN THING": This incisive article briefly traces the history of secession feeling in the United States and outlines some surprising actions several states are taking to fight Washington.
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATURE STANDS UP TO WASHINGTON: The 1996 sovereignty resolution.
Elsewhere in New England, sovereignty resolutions have passed or are pending in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Alaska's 10th Amendment Resolution: This one doesn't pull any punches.
The Wyoming Legislature's 10th Amendment Resolution, 1994.
Florida's 10th Amendment Resolution, 1995
Idaho's Resolution supporting calls by California and Colorado for enforcement of the 10th Amendment
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