Ode to Doonesbury

Following the presidential elections I have been fascinated by the slate of petitions to secede that have sprung up on the fundamentalist right. Why not secede? What a great way to get rid of the crazies. In these times we may indeed think of some of the Southern states as being inhabited by fools and ignoramuses. How different was it in Lincoln's time when states did actually secede? 

The ruling classes in the Southern states felt their livelihoods threatened by the growing tide of emancipation, while those in the Northern states looked for cheap and plentiful labor to work in the factories that sprung from the industrial revolution. These were the sinister reasons. The moral reason was always present in the background. How did emancipation fit into this picture?  

The North did not invent emancipation as a moral issue. Injustice was baked into the Constitution. As it always is and will be. The Constitution is the compromise of compromises. Revolutionaries such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, John and Quincy Adams, more than half of the bunch of them, seemed to be able to live OK with the idea that some people did just not count as much as others. What changed? Was it only the noble idea that "we have lived long enough with this moral injustice", or was it the realization that emancipation could become the handle that could forever crank the powerful idea of a "more perfect union"? 

Who would have thought that the philosophy of continuously improving processes could be baked into our constitution? It is the perfect antithesis for those who look at the constitution as a never changing story. The bible it is not.

Let them secede.