secession — Bunk History

Ordinance from the 1866 Texas Constitution, renouncing Texas's claim to secession and declaring future attempts null and void.

Secession on the Ballot This Week ... Almost

A measure almost made the Republican Party’s 2024 Texas primary ballot to measure whether party members would support secession from the United States.

by Neil P. Chatelain via Emerging Civil War on March 4, 2024

Final Attack on Arequipa on March 7, 1858. Painting in the Sala Castilla, Museo Nacional de Historia, Lima.

The Many South Carolinas in the Americas

Conflict over centralization, political power, and national identity were not unique occurrences in the Americas during the middle decades of the 19th century.

by Niels Eichhorn via Muster on May 2, 2023

A hammer is shown breaking several chunks of the earth into smaller pieces. In the background, black space.

The Wonderful Death of a State

For market radicals and neo-Confederates, secession is the path to a world that’s socially divided but economically integrated—separate but global.

by Quinn Slobodian via The Baffler on April 4, 2023

A street with a sign above it reading "Welcome to San Bernardino."

California's Never-Ending Secessionist Movement — and its Grim Ties To Slavery in the State

San Bernardino County may explore seceding from California. Many of the earliest separatists wanted to transform Southern California into a slave state.

by Kevin Waite via Los Angeles Times on August 7, 2022

Pro-Trump protesters gather outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6

Talk of Secession Always Gets U.S. History Wrong

Americans have always been deeply divided.

by Alan Taylor via Made By History on May 11, 2021

An eagle with a snake in its beak with the words "the eagle of liberty" over it.

Texas Secession: Whose Tradition?

The Texan secessionists are at it again.

by Paul Barba via Muster on April 13, 2021

State troopers guarding a roadblock during an armed standoff at the “embassy” of the separatist group Republic of Texas, Fort Davis, Texas, May 1997

Why It’s Time to Take Secessionist Talk Seriously

Disunion is hardly a new theme in American politics. In this moment of tumult, it would be unwise to rule out its return.

by Richard Kreitner via New York Review of Books on January 19, 2021

West Virginia’s Attempt to Split Up Virginia Betrays the History of Both States

West Virginians left Virginia to ensure that the people's voices were heard, not to benefit special interests at the expense of democracy.

by Daniel W. Sunshine via Made By History on January 29, 2020

Neither Snow nor Rain nor Secession? Mail Delivery and the Experience of Disunion in 1861

Whether it ran smoothly or ground to a halt, the mail offered daily reminders that the hand of war touched every aspect of life.

by Michael E. Woods via Muster on June 26, 2018

How Charleston Celebrated Its Last July 4 Before the Civil War

As the South Carolina city prepared to break from the Union, its people swung between nostalgia and rebellion.

by Paul Starobin via What It Means to Be American on June 29, 2017

Abraham Lincoln

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on April 21, 2025

Sign in forest reading "Move Oregon's Border. Greateridaho.org."

The Danger of Adjusting State Borders

A movement for some Illinois counties to join Indiana threatens to resurrect an ominous practice from the 19th century.

by Conner William Howard via Made By History on April 7, 2025

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1858.

A Constitutionalist or a Revolutionist?

Which one was Abraham Lincoln?

by Herman Belz via Modern Age on February 17, 2025

A collage of newspaper articles discussing the possibility of Absaroka becoming the 49th state.

How the Depression Fueled a Movement to Create a New State Called Absaroka

In the 1930s, disillusioned farmers and ranchers fought to carve a 49th state out of northern Wyoming, southeastern Montana and western South Dakota.

by Eli Wizevich via Smithsonian on August 14, 2024

The Hall of the House of Representatives.

Are We Living Through Another 1850s?

It’s difficult to see how these profound antipathies and fears will dissipate soon through any normal political processes.

by Robert W. Merry via The American Conservative on July 22, 2024

Alexander I

Why Early American Conservatives Loved Russia

A conspiracy theory among New England Federalists led some to contemplate separating from the U.S. during the War of 1812.

by Nicholas Dipucchio via Made By History on March 27, 2024

A photograph of Andrew Johnson.

Tennessee Johnson Reel vs. Real

The real Andrew Johnson compared with the only film made about his life.

by Tom Elmore via Emerging Civil War on February 16, 2024

Nikki Haley, 2023.

Nikki Haley's Slavery Omission Typifies the GOP's Tragic Pact with White Supremacy

How the Southern Strategy of the late 20th century gave rise to the modern GOP.

by Annika Brockschmidt via Religion Dispatches on January 8, 2024

Robert E. Lee.

Disqualifying Trump via Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment

by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on September 16, 2023

General George H. Thomas' Journey From Enslaver to Union Officer to Civil Rights Defender

One of the thousands of white Southerners who supported the Union during the Civil War and a rare example of a slave owner who changed his views on race.

by Christopher J. Einolf via The Conversation on May 31, 2023

Abraham Lincoln.

The Two Constitutions

James Oakes’s deeply researched book argues that two very different readings of the 1787 charter put the United States on a course of all but inevitable conflict.

by David W. Blight via New York Review of Books on May 18, 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 3 in Fort Washington, Md.

The Surprising Roots of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Idea of National Divorce

Greene probably has visions of suburban Atlanta in the 1990s and 2000s, not the Civil War.

by Michan Connor via Made By History on March 14, 2023

Rioter holds Confederate flag outside the Senate chamber after breaching the US Capitol on January 6, 2001.

The Secessionist Roots of the Jan. 6 Insurrection

Southern secessionists in 1860 had similar arguments to those of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on June 15, 2022

West Virginia's Founding Politicians Understood Democracy Better than Today's

They believed that wealth should have no bearing on a citizen’s voting power.

by Daniel W. Sunshine via HNN on October 17, 2021

Sons of the Republic of Texas at Alamo monument

Every American Needs to Take a History of Mexico Class

Learning the history of Mexico can help Americans better understand themselves.

by Gabriela Soto Laveaga via Made By History on July 22, 2021

President Abraham Lincoln, bareheaded at center, giving the Gettysburg Address, Pennsylvania, 1863

The Party of Lincoln Ignores His Warning Against Mobocracy

“There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law,” declared the man who would be America’s sixteenth president.

by Sarah Churchwell via New York Review of Books on January 15, 2021

Person walks with Confederate flag in the U.S. Capitol

The Whole Story in a Single Photo

An image from the Capitol captures the distance between who we purport to be and who we have actually been.

by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on January 8, 2021

Trump at a podium campaigning.

1846 — Not 1861 — Reminds Us Why Seceding Won’t Work For Disgruntled Trump Supporters

Trump fans are better off as Americans.

by Thomas Richards Jr. via Made By History on January 4, 2021

Pieces of the American Flag cut up to resemble the Texas flag

We Need to Talk About Secession

With chatter about Texas leaving the union on the rise, two new books remind us what it was like the last time we tried to go it alone.

by Casey Michel via Texas Monthly on December 12, 2020

Republicans Rediscover the Dangers of Selling Bunk to Their Constituents

Cynical public speech aimed at winning political power has consequences.

by Rachel Shelden via The Atlantic on November 25, 2020

brought to you by

© Bunk History