Secession (Why Our Country Should Split Up (And How to Do It Peacefully))

A book that will launch a million debates.

Constitutional law professor Kent Greenfield delivers the highly provocative yet carefully reasoned case for secession, arguing that the fractures within the US run so deep, rendering our politics so dysfunctional, that the best way to heal is to initiate a nonviolent national divorce between the blue and red states.

The truth is that our nation is broken. More divides us than unites us, and our constitutional framework is accelerating, not healing, those divisions, making them impossible to cure. We have become two rather than one. And a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Americans already sense this reality. We are frustrated, angry, fearful, and pessimistic about our current condition. Less than one in four voters believe the country is headed in the right direction. More Americans believe we are in the middle of a constitutional crisis than in a democracy. And Americans are sorting themselves geographically more than at any time since the Civil War: more than 80% of American counties are now “landslide counties” where one party or the other dominates. As recently as 1980, over half of the states sent one Republican and one Democrat to the Senate. Now, less than a handful do.

Here’s the good news, though: a solution exists to this maddening impasse, and that solution is peaceful secession. Like spouses trapped in a bad marriage, we would all be better off if we admitted to ourselves that we no longer have a future together. Our national marriage is violent and hurtful, replete with irreconcilable differences. Once we get through the dissolution, both sides will be better off.

Renowned legal scholar Kent Greenfield presents a carefully outlined and thorough step-by-step blueprint for a nonviolent process for separation. Secession is the book that millions of Americans are ready to discuss, debate, and be inspired by.