Would the north be better off with out the south?

http://www.volokh.com/2012/08/24/would-the-north-be-better-of-without-the-south/ ^

[djone]

"Without the South, the US would lose a great deal of its economic dynamism. And unless there was free migration between the two nations, northerners would lose a valuable foot voting option. In fairness, the South would never have achieved its recent economic successes without investment by northern and foreign business interests. But the issue is not whether southerners are solely responsible for the region’s revival since the 1960s, but whether southern secession today would leave the rest of the nation better off."

[bboop]

‘without so many leftists’ - so, how about the West dumping the Northeast?

[Savage Beast]

"Would the north be better off with out the south?"

LET'S FIND OUT!

[SWAMPSNIPER]

The South would be better off without the North.

[ontap]

Although Lincoln personally was against slavery it was not a burning issue with him.....these are quotes by Lincoln that I believe give a view into his true beliefs....I found some of them quite shocking!!!

1858: “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” (Lincoln, 1953, v3, p145-6)
1858: “We profess to have no taste for running and catching n*****s , at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do Iyield support to a fugitive slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be supported without it.” (Lincoln, 1953, v3, p317, see also p91 and p94))
1859: “Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogism as this.” (Lincoln, 1953, v3, p399)
1860: “(Douglas’s comment) ‘In the struggle between the white man and the negro,’ assumes that there is a struggle, in which either the white man must enslave the negro or the negro must enslave the white.There is no such struggle! This good earth is plenty broad enough for white man and negro both, and there is no need of either pushing the other off.” (Lincoln, 1953, v4, p20)
1862: (To an audience of free Blacks.) “I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence…I need not recount to you the effects upon white men, growing out of the institution of Slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race.” (Lincoln, 1953, v5, p37-3)
1862:”My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that... I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” (Appelman, p29)

[Hojczyk]

All the smart people in the North have gone South or West...I got out of New York State (upstate) in 1981...the few working people left support the government workers and the welfare class..

[CatherineofAragon]

Bingo! We’re the last holdout against the Communist hordes, and if you ask me, everybody else knows it. Why else would they keep flooding down here?

[MNJohnnie]

The only problem is the West and most of the Midwest would go with the South leaving the Leftist to starve and freeze in their incompetently governed enclaves in the North East and West Coast.

[rigelkentaurus]

not the right question.

it is not a north / south issue. it is urban (commie) vs rural (constitutionalists). Mostly rural states, would be immensely better off without the commie urban dominated states. Simply don’t care about the future of the urbanites.

Specifically, Texas would be better off without the drag of the commies and if we seceded, I would hope and pray, that the vast majority of the rat infestation would leave for their commie utopia.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I have often wondered... If the South was evil, and the North was a bastion of morality, then why didn’t the North WANT to secede? Why would the North have had this great desire to remain associated with slaveholding evildoers? Easy, it’s the same impulse that remains today: Power.

Actually, the more radical abolitionists did indeed want to secede from the Union, which they considered "a covenent with death and an agreement with hell." And ironically (but quite predictably), the Southern slaveholders denounced such an idea as "treason."

[Zionist Conspirator]

The South has been saving the Union from the democrats for decades.

True, but historically ironic.

[SUSSA]

The northern States were the first to threaten secession. Starting in 1800, the New England States were seriously threatening to secede. Jefferson’s election brought calls for various New England States to secede. When Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, more New England politicians and newspapers joined the call for secession. In 1803 U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Timothy Pickering wrote; “I will rather anticipate a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic Democrats of the South.”

At that time there was no suggestion that the States had no right to secede. All arguments against secession recognized the States had that right, but rather, that secession was unwise at that time for one reason or another. In fact, President Jefferson, in a letter to W. Crawford dated June 20, 1816 said that “If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate.’

New England Federalists continued to threaten to secede including the threat to secede during the War of 1812. During the war the Federalist Massachusetts Governor went so far as to secretly send word to England to broker a separate peace accord between England and the seceded New England confederacy. No one claimed that the States didn’t have the right to withdraw from the union, and make a separate peace with England.

Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who was most in favor of a strong central government, did not support the concept of a central government that assumed powers not specifically delegated to it by the proposed Constitution. He believed that the proposed Constitution gave the central government no power to infringe on the rights not specifically enumerated as delegated to it. Because of this he believed the Bill of Rights was unnecessary. He wrote:

“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority, which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it, was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.”

Obviously, even Hamilton didn’t believe that the central government that the States were creating had any power not specifically enumerated in that document. According to him, those who would later argue that the central government had powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution were “men disposed to usurp”. It is, therefore, illogical to believe that Hamilton would have supported using force of arms to keep States from withdrawing from the union since no such power is enumerated in the Constitution or in any State’s ratifying document.

[onyx]

Indeed.

[Psalm 144]

“Nothing would make me happier than for the South to secede. Seriously, conservatives get the South and Liberals the North. Wish it could be done.”

It could happen. The Washington government will become even less popular than it is now as the nation continues in economic decline and increasing authoritarian constraints. This election probably won’t alter either of those trends, no matter the outcome.

Should the Washington government default in its fundamental obligations, and becomes even more disliked or even detested by the general population, it could all implode as did the former Soviet Union. At that point look for dissolution to run along cultural and to some extent historical lines. Or more conveniently, look at the map of red and blue states. Three natural divisions occur: 1) West coast, reaching perhaps to the Rockies; 2) East coast with much of the old Northwest and rustbelt and some midwest states; 3) most of the South, Texas, the southwest and the southern plains states.

That in the last century the Ukraine shook off Russian, and Hungary shook off Austria, and Yugoslavia returned to its ethnic identities makes me think the American continent could do something similar.

The return of authentic federalism would probably prevent that, but that has been dead since 1865. The American dog is wagged by its Northeastern tail, and probably will be until that tail is docked or rots off.

See my tagline. All nations are ephemeral.

[ilovesarah2012]

I really expect something like that to happen eventually. Just a question of time. America cannot survive liberals.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The south would probably be better off without the north.

[HMS Surprise]

OK, so the Tories were right then, and we rejected our original birthright as Free Englishmen. Nonsense.

[Olog-hai]

Guess you didn’t read the story of Rehoboam versus Jeroboam.

Or maybe everything in the Bible to you is “nonsense”?

[wardaddy]

Are you the idiot who wrote this crap or your buddy rocky down below?

I sat by my neighborhood pool (Williamson County TN) today listening to two old Yankee biddies

usual old Yankee womyn...gray bobbed hair...thick...mandals...no make up...very masculine

going on and on about how great Obamacare was for everyone to hear and then how stupid right wingers were for opposing it and how rightwingers when exposed were never around poor people...and so forth..standard Northern liberal progressive garbage

when they finally left...the dozen or so of us left...mostly southern with 2 Michiganders who are smart...applauded

s.

they will be the ruin of the South...their presence has already screwed Florida except when we get lucky, are a definite threat to Virginia, North Carolina and even make life in metro Nashville politically progressive

the question should be why are so many white Northerners so damned progressive in addition to being rude and sour and demanding..especially when they come down here...are they like announcing themselves...feeling outta the progressive pond or something

If I could sell my home...I tried...I would move more rural to get away from them.

Northerners I meet who get it...without question...Indiana rural folks(honorary Southerners), white Detroit refugees, rural Michiganders, and other exceptions...and they are welcome but I fear most non southern newcomers are not social conservatives and lean Dem...just from observing and looking at NOVA, Metro Atlanta, the Piedmont and huge swaths of Florida's east and west coasts and Mouseland

I wish we could hand pick ya’ll I swear

you know I went and read the article again...what a bunch of crap...what do Yankees have wings and play harps?

are you so daft to truly believe that garbage...you saved us from ourselves more or less?

Will someone please explain to me what makes Yankees such insufferably arrogant egotistical snobs?

The South has risen because you damaged yourselves up north thru purely self inflicted wounds and we went GOP because the GOP became the de facto party of social conservatism after LBJ went mad and Nixon and others...John Tower in a large way saw the opening of where to go now.

All that social engineering you are self congratulating over in your screed has turned our inner cities now into the same cess pools you abandoned up north last generation to come down here and I guess if we don't stop you, you'll try to screw up what we have left here.

How old is the writer of this hot mess?

[wardaddy]

another little fun thing examining the comments on this silly blog you linked with the article

we have some self proclaimed black lawyer in Ohio doing some serious South bashing about poverty, poor education, crime and the usual stuff being an issue

i mean it's incredible...did it ever even once dawn on him why a state like Mississippi which is nearly 40 percent black ..like him..has these problems

is he aware of what all these negatives look like when you take the Black part out?

his rants exemplify the absurdity of typical Yankee delusion and ignorance about how wonderful they are and how unfortunate and ignorant and ill behaved we are

remarkable

even more interesting does anyone think he realizes just how far the very things that used to hold black families and culture have collapsed since all the social engineering he applauds and even calls for more of?

i was there I will be glad to explain it to anyone

is that blog even conservative or is it some homemade Mother Jones?

[MaxMax]

Without the current south the north would become the new south and they would
have to keep segregating themselves into a smaller corner.