The South? North? East? West? Shall Rise Again

In the category of questions someone, somewhere thought to ask, we have a new telephone poll finding that 22 percent of Americans say a state or region of the country should be able to leave the union.

Wasn't this question settled, and fairly decisively, a few years back?

Evidently not to the satisfaction of the Middlebury Institute, a New York group that explores such questions and hired Zogby International to do the poll.

Zogby says those most likely to support the right to secede are Hispanics, African Americans and liberals. But old habits die hard, and respondents in Dixie were more likely to back secession locally.

In fairness, this isn't just a glance back at the Stars and Bars. Middlebury ties the secession question to modern concerns as to whether our current two-party system still works. The secession questions didn't exactly resonate with respondents. But a serious 44 percent of them said yes, the two-party system can't fix what's wrong with "the United States' system."

(The Middlebury Institute website is down right now. You can read Zogby's press release, with links, here.)

-- Peter Overby

12:40 PM ET | 07-23-2008 | permalink