And went through all this before and i remember how would one point this was something that no one talked about and then a few years later we are having a referendum and nearly passes. Countryn a very divided , in many ways it resembles the country a left and you begin to wonder whether or not we might just be better off with two separate countries. Its not what i want. I feel a little bill of the skunk of the garden party. All these people talking about great president s and here i am talking of a breakup. Ultimately im not arguing for secession. Im saying its a real threat and we should think about that. Maybe turn down the volume a bit. Host a passage from your book, we are less united today than we have been at any time since the civil war divided by politics, religion and culture and all the ways that matter say for the naked force a law. We are already divided into two nations just as much as 1861. Describe what those nations look like and where they are . Guest every morning the Washington Post arrives at my doorstep and it seems to me like a fresh argument for secession. It just drips with contempt on the other side, there is a lot of that. I think whats missing is a tolerance and understanding of people with very different points of view, when you dont have that, when half the country think the other half is deplorable, you have to wonder why should they be in the same country. Book thatsaying your there are the bonds that still hold americans together, they are strained right now but they are there. What are they . Guest maybe they are more strained than ever in a long time in the past. We have a common culture. Its a world culture but a common culture. If americans see each other in a foreign country, in europe, we will recognize each other as americans. We are allowed. We are having fun. Thats very american, i love that. Areat the same time we canceling a lot of our culture, a lot of our history. We are told we are not supposed to be proud, but rather ashamed of our history. That is very divisive. If you want a country, its very important to have the same kind of mythic heroes and forget a lot of the bad stuff. Host what can we follow fall back on . Guest if it ever comes to it, what im hoping would happen would be a realignment of the country in some way. You have to imagine that one state will say this is not working, for example we would like to have National Health, we wont get it from washington. We might get it from sacramento and a Smaller Group of states, we dont think we would like to make America Great again, lets make america small again. And if you do that, then maybe things Like NationalHealth Become possible and then you get a referendum and at that point people have to sit down and talk. And what they may end up talking about is letting different people go their own way but maintaining still a United Country in some respects. A different kind of federalism. Host bigness and smallness come up in your book. The advantages and disadvantages. Smallness being what might happen if american secession happens. What are the advantages and which does the balance favor . This was a big debate for our framers in 1787, nationalists like madison wanted a big country, when i looked at the evidence and look at other countries, what i discovered is bigness is badness generally and small is beautiful and smaller countries are less corrupt, sor, even more prosperous we are comparing the biggest countries in the world to places like denmark. Those are doing pretty well. Host Frank Buckley is our guest. The book is american secession, the looming threat of a National Breakup takes a discussion point for this hour of the washington journal today. You can join us as you have all morning long on the phone lines split up regionally. 2027488000 in the eastern or central time zone. 2027488001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. We will keep that text line open. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, [no audio]00. 8003. Caller good morning. Threat wee greatest have right now is that we have constitution to reflect the times of the day. The constitution was written by man. Man is fallible. Its not the bible. Its very easy for russia to come in to interfere in our elections for example. We have this Electoral College what we look at seven states that you really have to go and get campaign. To win the presidency. Those states have less educated people. They are very easy to fool or gullible. Not those people are we need a national election, the same rules for every state, we dont need to have this so complicated. The Electoral College was a big topic of discussion back in 1787 with the framers, they thought it was important for states to be represented to give the states a voice. Thats what we have and yes you are right, its virtually impossible to amend the constitutions we are pretty much stuck with it, frankly that was something that a guy called Roger Sherman from connecticut gave us. He should probably be a hero for conservatives because the Electoral College cuts their way. That is just an accident. Thats how its turned out. You know if you want to get a constitutional change, it would probably happen most likely with a threat of secession which would initiate a discussion between the seceding states and the rest of the country. As to how you would divvy things up. A state may want to go its own way with respect to National Health but we may not want to have for example a passport to visit disneyland. So those of the kinds of discussions you have to have. Play it out a bit more as you do in your book about the routes to secession if it were to happen today. You make the ark meant in your book that you think americans today would be less willing to fight to keep the union together like they did. One hope theres no crazy South Carolina out there. I dont think we would see in Abraham Lincoln office. We were going through in the earlier hour a list of the best and worst president s in very near the bottom was james buchanan. The president just before Abraham Lincoln. A lot of things wrong with buchanan in an era full of racists he was about the most racist of all. But he said something that made a lot of sense to me. He was talking about South Carolina trying to secede and what he said was this does not make sense. We are prosperous, we are doing well, you have no right to secede and you have no reason to secede because you want slavery. Slavery is nowhere better protected in the world and america at this point. Only you still want to secede and what i my supposed to do, and my supposed to send in the troops. I think if we cant keep our country together by ordinary bonds of affection, we are not going to keep it together by sending in the army. James madison said the same thing. He said of the federal government invaded the state, the compact between the states would be over. Wasyet when my alexandria invaded it was federal troops. Dont get me wrong, the civil war usefully, thankfully ended slavery. But we dont have those issues today so i can see is civil war over slavery but i dont see is civil war on transgender bathrooms. Host the caller talked about those people when he was talking about another state, i want to go back to gary gallagher, author and historian who gave a speech last year talking about northern and southern perceptions of each other. What they thought about each other and whether perception is reality in the years leading up to the civil war. [video argue either clip] often overlooked in this debate is the fact that substantial number of white northerners and white southerners believed that there were profound differences. In any circumstance, perception usually trumps reality indicating behaviors because people act according to what they perceive to be the truth. However that might differ from reality. But even the civil war, many a societys saw fundamentally and many wouldve said pernicious lady shaped by the presence of slavery. For their part, innumerable white southerners thought northerners and antagonist and meddling people determined to undermine the south slavery based social system. It matters little whether a real chasm separated people in this way. The new york daily tribune put it well in the spring of 1856. The truth is though we are but one nation, we are two peoples, we are a people of e quality and the people of any quality. These two peoples are united by a bond of Political Union but whenever a collision comes which brings out the peculiar characteristics of the two, they are seen to be as unlike as almost any two civilized nations on the face of the earth. That same year in 1856, a young north carolinian, a cadet at west point, offered the southern viewpoint, our manners, feelings in education are as if we were different nations he wrote. Indeed, everything indicates plainly a separation written are we two nations today or do you think we are more different or do we think we are more different than we are. Guest in many ways we are two nations. Pick up the washington washington your reading stories by people very different from people of the other parts of the country. I think we could still get along but i think the speaker just now hit on some very important, namely that its very psychological, there was a convention of the states in 1860 want to try and patch it together. They thought its crazy. We dont want to go to war, let us work things out. Remarkably the northerners offered to put slavery in the constitution. The most antislavery people said we will make it so slavery will always be part of our u. S. Constitution, Abraham Lincoln said he would go along with that. But it didnt work. One of the southern delegates said thats not enough. You also have to respect us. You have to respect their slavery. In the northerners said no, we cant do that. That need for respect is always there. And never more than today. And i think it fuels a lot of the frankly nastiness of the politics. The willingness of people to go to either extreme. Host the book is american secession, phone line split up regionally. Shelley in utah. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just want to say respect is very important and also the fact that we have a president that bullies everybody all the time, that does not help our common denominator of getting this altogether. Havee great grandma and i 18 children great grandkids. I truly believe there is a better life for them but the way the direction we are going, the middle class is being gone and we are having just the rich and the poor. Happyneed to find a medium line, we need more middleclass than we do the rich and the poor. Thank you for taking my call. Those were good points and congratulations on all the kids. I think what youve done is describe both why people like and why people dislike donald trump. I dont want to get the politics , you are talking about the basic issues that help elect trump. At the same time youre talking about the way in which a lot of americans, half of americans think its about the worst thing that happened. Way, in 1972,his Irving Kristol said the culture wars over. Left kind of the got a wakeup call, maybe they didnt win the culture war after all. Was a992 to 2016 there broad consensus that we wont shake things up much, will now we are and with trump. And that is helped to produce the divisions im talking about so im not to take sides, i am just saying though divisions are there. Host one of the biggest cyst what are the biggest Secession Movements today . Guest there is something called calexit california. There are Secession Movements hampshire,as, new vermont, oregon. So they are small now, they start small but they can build up quickly and surprising. If it happens this time i think there would be politically correct, what do you mean . Guest rather than defending rlavery it might be the wokeie states in the union saying we cant take it anymore. Host good morning. The haves and the havenots telling them what they need. We have a big problem in mississippi because the whole thing that holds america together is holding down black people. Controlling those particular groups of people. We are the people that brought said that he that is last shall be first. We moved to the first position, black people started looking out for one another. Given themselves everything they need on a white man to give it to them. Its the have trying to tell the havenots what they need and this is where the problem is in black people this is whether states that it here incause i live mississippi, the flag is never talked about. We miss use fear and we ignore it, we worry about illegal immigrants, iraq, iran and everywhere else. Host got your point. Guest you are making good points, although i disagree. The goal actually a think should be for all of us to be treated equally. No priority to anybody. That means may be looking more carefully at people who have been hard done by. , the messages got to be we are well count in the same way. Host who is Don Livingston . Guest he is a secessionist. He is a philosopher, a student someone from, and a philosophical perspective likes the idea of secession. There are people out there. He lives in South Carolina, he is not a racist in any way, shape or form. He is somebody who is talked up secessionf southern and southern distinctiveness. Ofis a good example for me the people who want secession. Host out of port charlotte, florida, good morning. Caller earlier when you first started your broadcast you mentioned the Washington Post. Your reason is what exactly . What youre reading when you pick up the Washington Post. You are going to bid in and out. Guest for the last couple of years there has been a not just slantded antitrump mostly slant the tents to commute to get the people who support trump are kind of less than human and that bleeds over from the front page to see the opinions to the sports section even. I havent seen in the weather section but its premuch all over the paper. Host do you have a followup question. Caller im surprised you would say that about a newspaper that is historically been reporting facts and historical accuracies. Opedw section from their are two separate things and your use of the word deplorables just goes back to see what your bias is. You are obviously conservative and are you hoping for secession . Is that what youre hoping for . Host not at all guest not at all, it was written in opposition to secession. I just said its out there. And there are things we should do now to remove that thread. One of those things is to talk things down. I stand by what i set about the Washington Post. I think in many ways to great which but its a paper underwent a real change with its , the New York Times for example tries i think to be more moderate in its views. But lets not get into the post. Host randy in michigan says it seems your guest would like everything fast food style in our government and thats not how it works. Its a and slow and frustrating but its our american way. We allow contentious debates but when push comes to shove we come together as americans. Guest well i hope he is right. He is right about all of that. The structure of government is made to prevent bad things from happening, you have to go through a bunch of hoops, its not like that in the parliamentary system. Providesays the system better results i think, what our system lacks is a reverse gear. You get bad stuff enacted and then it cant be amended. What does brexit and the Scottish IndependenceMovement Mean first secession in america . Guest not anything. People tend to look for europe for this, that or the other thing. We dont have to look abroad. Brits, brexit was a form of regulatory reform. When i think about it. There are all these people here who might welcome secession. They include people who want to go their own way with respect to National Health, but there also a lot of people who think they are in a regulatory mores that we are being ruled by unelected regulators and what they are talking about is the federal regulations and the alphabet soup mix in washington. People mightf prefer a smaller country. With less of washingtons regulations. Host out in california, the morning. Believe that capitalism and trump go together and every man is capitalism will trump is in office. Theres one other thing. In this i reluctantly have to say as for immigration there comes a time in every nation, all nations when you no longer want immigrants to come into the country, you just have too many and when you are paying them instead of them working to make the country better, its just doesnt work. Guest well i agree with a lot of what you just said. We are straying from the topic a little bit. Im an immigrant myself. There is always a tendency for immigrants we get in here and pull the ladder up. But immigrants are a source of value to americans, the immigration debate i think should center around whether or bringing in her making nativeborn americans better off. Thats a different debate. Host what is secession light . Guest what i was think might be a solution to our problems. Secession light i describe as a greater grant of authority to the states or to a group of states over a whole bunch of issues. Its what the brits offered ireland in the 1880s, its the way in which all of the former british colonies have left peacefully, gained their independence. Its a form of selfrule. So may be rather than just breaking of the country, maybe the thing to do is keep the country together but allow the pieces in different parts of it to have greater control over what they want to do. Host is that legal under the constitution . Guest everything is legal under the constitution if you amend it. Something to get the game going which would be inactive secession and then that begins a discussion. No state has the right of secession, no state had that right in 1861 and they dont have it today. Because the voters in other states count. For example, dividing up federal property or the data. It begins a series of discussions and maybe what cup might come out of it would be a greater tolerance for different parts of the country going their own way over any number of things. It might be abortion and it might be National Health. The supremeole with court and Congress Play in what you are talking about if a Secession Movement is declared and we start walking down that path. Guest inevitably everything ends up in front of the Supreme Court. They do . D there is an 1868 case which says no right of secession, that was decided when the civil war was over. If secession was in the future, i think the Supreme Court would hesitate before giving a loaded gun to the president and also the originalists on the court would Pay Attention to the fact that the framers thought secession was perfectly possible. Host we are talking with Frank Buckley, the book is american secession the looming threat of National Breakup. If you have phone calls, phone lines are region. 2027488000 in the eastern or central time zones. 2027488001 in the mountain or pacific time zones. 3 for your text messages. Please say those, your name and where you are from. Caller mr. Buckley, i am concerned the lack of understanding in the country currently about the Electoral College, why it was it originated raid and originated and the discussions about eliminating at. Could fuel more secession activity and i would like your thought on that. Thank you. The Electoral College because anything else would have been a dealbreaker for many of the states, for the smaller states. We had a compromise that had to compromise a lot of things and some of the things you might not of light, slave ring slavery being an example. That was the price of getting a country together. As for the Electoral College, you can make a lot of arguments for and against it. Obviously it runs up against the basic norm underlying our constitution and that is democracy. So the ic of one man, one vote across the country is inconsistent with the Electoral College. The framers knew that, they had to argue against people like maddison who didnt want anything like that. The framers, most of them thought we dont want small states to be swallowed up by the big ones. The big ones back then were virginia and pennsylvania. The big ones today are new york and california. Same argument. Host jim on twitter is one of our longtime viewers. He often tweets every day. This is his comment on the segment. Comment on this segment, maybe we could start to , thect the 10th amendment powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. Maybe that would be good, only it is kind of late to bring the 10th amendment in. It has not had too much staying power. That has not influenced the debate much. I would like to see more devolution of power to the states ultimately. I think that would go in some way towards solving our problems. I dont know that the 10th amendment is host going to take us there. To dave in hail, host hale, michigan. I have been juggling this my mind about the todd mary election. We could not amend the constitution on the facts of a the republicans put up seven electors up there in the primaries. Democrats had two. I am independent, so it does not matter to me. Saying is a secret ballot, and then they keep it secret until the federal election, and then they open the becomes intohen it play. To theverybody has political side of the situation. For both sides. Count, ande vote may it may not count just like a regular person off the street. Your comments, please. I will get off the air. Host guest you make good points, but you lost me when you said why couldnt we amend the constitution. That is very hard to do. 38 states. There are probably a lot better ways of ordering our elections. And evidently, there is going to be messiness. In general, i think we have got take am that we can great deal of pride impaired with all of its messiness, we still do a great job. Host kevin in owings mills, maryland. I will deftly make a point to purchase your book. I believe that this secession is going to be economically driven. States deficit is at a point where it is getting tremendously out of control and it is going to at some point on everyone. Before that happened one before that happens, i would see secessions and other things that get us from up under the Financial Issues we have. I am hoping that this secession is not a bloody secession, not a violent secession, but something that is controlled. I think it would be economically driven to the soviet union was i dont think when they became russia they no longer were indebted. They got a clean slate as far as international Financial Issues. [indiscernible] host you make some good points and i agree with much of what you said im glad you brought up the soviet union. Just about every country in the world is staring down a Secession Movement. I dont know why we think we are immune from that. I would think we are prime ready for it. With respect to the economic consequences, it is really hard for us to break up if you dont take responsibility for your part of the federal debt. That would be a serious problem. Secession movements in other countries have been willing to talk about that and negotiate over that. Exit, as itprice of were. You have got to do that. Host a political story a politico story from a few years ago the independence movements inspired by brexit. ,ou talked about cal exit others are mentioned. Which one of those do you want to talk about . Guest what was the last one . Hawexit. Guest none of them have gotten anywhere close to off the ground. Is these things happen fast, and when they happen they come out of the blue. Something theo previous color set about whether talkeduld be violent, i about my experience in quebec, we talked about this and we sought. Terms ofy thinking in whether such a thing could happen here. Talk ofster secession going in quebec was something called bill 101. It was an antienglish piece of legislation. A lot of bingo people in quebec. The english did not call it bill 101, they called it bill for a one 41 is a highway between montreal and toronto. One of the things you would expect to happen if there was Something Like this in america would be uhaul would clean up. We sort ourselves out. We do it already. People are moving from illinois to texas or vice versa. There would be more of that. That is how you would solve things today, not through war. Too easy to get up and move. Host union, washington. Glenn, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a couple comments in the question. I will be brief. First, i holistic lee agree with what your guest is saying, especially the last statement. We dont need to go to war but we need to reconcile our deep differences ideologically asked people. That has nothing to do with race, as the caller from mississippi didnt he say that the of what keeps the u. S. Together is keeping black people down . I thought that was psychotic. The caller from california coupled Donald Trump Trump with capitalism. I agree with that. He represents freedom in capitalism. High andhim to look up rand, she is dead but look up ayn rand, look up her philosophies on capitalism. Youtube a person on with a channel called mark my words. Statistics and points out social scientists that show that if donald trump is elected again, he will be the last republican president because minorities of immigrants vote over 21 for the democratic party. Beth magically, if immigration continues it will be a matter of time before republicans will not be elected. What i would like to point out is this, at the founding of the nation maybe your guests can confirm this quite people in 96 90 8 white before we formed this country. The remaining percentages were native americans and slaves. We now have a nation where white people are 57 of the population. I would ask people that call white people racist, or think the nations racist against anyone that is invite, how did to 96 unless the framers who formed the nation made sure that race was not an issue . We all know they could not have put the territories together by abolishing slavery out of the gate and the constitution because look at what happened with the civil war. Governmentsmocratic democrats try to separate from the union to hold onto sale be slavery. Guest a couple of points i want to respond to. One, i suspect he is libertarian. Libertarians in particular may be tempted by the idea of secession. State, do not like that imagine the possibility of illuminating one entire level of government just like that. Eliminating one level of government just like that. As for the effect of immigration, it happened. It happened throughout the 19th century. All these people who, at the time, were thought to be undesirable the irish, Eastern European they came here and they changed us. That is an argument i hear from my friends on the left and it reminds me of the movie cabaret i do not know if your member the song the future belongs to me. Predicting the future is a mugs game and i would not get into that. As we talk about american secession, the looming threat the author frank brockley Frank Buckley with us. Nullification is basically a form of secession. The idea is, and it goes back to Thomas Jefferson which by the way tells you a lot of the people who are revered american heros are people who would have been sympathetic to some kind of secession. Nullification is the idea that a state can nullify a federal law. If you nullify one federal law, you can nullify all of them. Something drawn up by James Madison was a lot later the ideas the idea is we are not saying we can nullify a law, what we can do is get in the way. We are not going to help enforce a federal law in any way. That is exactly what is going on right now with sanctuary cities and sanctuary states like california, that do not want to enforce immigration laws. It is a game that has been played by a lot of democratic states. And a lot of republican states. It goes back to the 1840s were northern states did not want to fugitive slave lost her this is part of our history. Host how did that usually end . Guest it plays out the fugitive slave laws were not much in force. That was a reason the south was unhappy. Usually they do not go anywhere because we do not know exact what that means. Flashpoint, which even reminded me of fort sumter, had anland, oregon, ice office in portland. They were stormed barricaded, rather by antifa. They were not permitted to escape your the police did not do anything to help them. They were only permitted to leave when federal marshals u. S. Federal marshals were sent in to rescue them. That is not fort sumter, but it was remarkable. Host orangeburg, South Carolina. Caller good morning. How are you . Host doing well. Kind ofmy question i agree with what you are seeing saying. I am 74, as a child coming up i always thought i did live in two worlds. I did not know i was black until i was told i was black. I was five years old at the time. The fact that the world has , but we wentch through with slavery and everything shows that the show i watch last night, i think everyone should see it. It was on msnbc. Was evening america. It is something to watch. It has a lot to do with immigrants. Undocumented people. I cried when i watched it. Now,still crying about it how america has not really changed to respect people for who they are and not look at their color or their nationality. Though as a people, if we dont get together and respect each other, we will never solve the problems that is going in america today. Thank you. Guest there is a lot of truth in what you say, but dont you think that things have changed particularly in South Carolina . When you were growing up, Strom Thurmond was the senator. Strom thurmond changed over the years. The civil rights revolution has really taken hold, hasnt it . In all of the states, certainly in South Carolina. If that is the case, it seems to me secession should be thought of as less threatening because the stakes are lower. In 1861, it was a big deal. To r was justly flat justly foss to illuminate slavery. We dont have any of those horrible issues today. We have gone through the 1965 civil rights act, and nobody is much trying to undo that. But tooing to quarrel, think the quarrels are over things that are a lot less inortant than they were 1965, 1865 . United about a lot of important issues. What is dividing us in many cases seems to be far less important. Host janet on twitter comes back to secession light. It sounds like a plan to permit red states to go their own way in regards to civil rights. We are either the United States of america, or we are not. Guest that is the voice of liberal triumph is impaired in other words, voice of liberal triumphism. We are not talking about i help toi think it would spend time talking to people you disagree with. I think you would find they are not united racists. There are people who may have different points of view about things like abortion. That is perfectly fine. If that is your definition of an unacceptable difference, then we have to disagree. Host another quote from your book, other countries have common cultures or religions. What america has is an idea that constitutes our identity as americans. That idea is a liberalism in the classical sense. If we are to resist the call to secessions, it is our allegiance to our countrys liberal principle stuff will unite us. Guest there are people who want to tell you it is more than a creek, we are a people. I would say, we are a liberal creed. American nationalisms liberal nationalism. If youre american, you have to subscribe to the basic truths outlined in the declaration. Myyou dont do that, than to mind your less than american. People who do that eventually reveal themselves to be out of sync with what america is all about. Host what is america about . Guest america is about the possibles the printables founded in the declaration that preach liberty and equality. Those are good values. Host fulsome, california. Caller good morning tenement. Mr. Buckley, i have been thinking about the fact that the 2000 bush v gore election and to the 2016 election between trump and Hillary Clinton both went for the republican candidate in lieu of the idea that there were really more majority democrat voters. That thinking, that one person gets one vote, has been on my mind lately. I discovered that california has wer 40 Million People now, have two senators who represent us. State of vermont, and many others whose populations are less than one million, also have two senators. Power of my vote is really diminished by virtue of the fact that i live in a very populous state. To take that thought one step further, i hope my sourcing is right, but i read recently that the Impeachment Vote was in favor of conviction by i think 47 senators, but they represented 169 Million People. Those who acquitted, voted to acquit trump, represented 151 Million People. Fewer. 18 Million People i feel like the power of my vote, my one vote per person, is really diminished based on historical facts in the last 20 years. Guest you are absolutely right. Your vote is diminished. What we are observing here in the constitution is a conflict between what i think is a basic norm of democracy on the one hand, versus the way the constitution. Worked out with the Electoral College. If that is your problem now, i can well imagine how you feel if, as i expect, donald trump is reelected in 2020 this year. Maybe gets a few more seats on the Supreme Court. I think at that point, maybe people will say i want to respect democracy, and that means secession. Host connecticut, this is gary. Good morning. Caller i wanted to speak to the notion of secession as a sleeper issue. Ofulting from the failure reconstruction and the failure to properly punish the traitors who raised their hand against the constitution of the United States and the government of the United States. During reconstruction, slowly but surely, blacks were suppressed. Jim crow laws came into being. Southerners still refer to the war as the war of northern aggression. The lost cause. These people have been waiting to have a voice, and state and they now have one in the president. If you look to the issue of monuments, i do not know if you are aware of the colfax massacre in louisiana. There is a monument to three white racists who participated in the massacre of 150 black women and children, and it says it is here where northern carpet backing ended. We have monuments to people who were murderers and unrepentant traitors. I think thats where this is going. I think davis should have been hung. Not have a boulevard named after him. Many of the monuments themselves are inappropriate. Guest youre right. The prosecution of Jefferson Davis was pulled in he spent two years in prison. I honestly dont think that if he had been prosecuted life would be much different today. If he had been convicted and to a term of imprisonment, how would that make your life or my life any different . Youre right about reconstruction being a failed project. Another 100 years before we begin to remedy that. On the other hand, it seems that if that is how you are guard half of americans, then you have to ask if you want to be in the same country as them. Host about five minutes left with frank brickley Frank Buckley. We will try to get to as many calls as we can. Richard has been waiting in boulder, colorado. Caller hello. Are you there . Host yes. Caller a couple comments on a few things on secession. Is country basically it the minimum wage. If you look at the red states, go statebystate, most of them are an hour, and the likeple states washington dc close to 15 an hour. Colorado is 12 an hour. 13 in denver. [indiscernible] the separation of church and state we happen losing. In our constitution it is freedom of religion. In the mid1950s, they decided to put on the dollar bills in god we trust. God was never on the money until that period of being scared about communism. Indidnt have the word god the pledge of allegiance until the 1950s. Even though it was written by a socialist in the 1900s. Host what is your question . Caller two forms of thought. Seceding inave been the change of minimum wage. Guest that is a good thing by my view. Let them decide whatever they want. If they raise the wage too high and you have unemployment, maybe they will think better. The issues youre talking about are mostly issues that are within the province of state power. That is fine. Florida. In in jackson, caller i just wanted to make a statement concerning the issue of secession. Caller fromarlier colorado, it is a complex issue. The globalists caused these things, just like the proprietors of those that come from england, especially in the Southern State of South Carolina. If you look at it, you will see that those the investor class was looking at it from an investment standpoint. Notwithstanding the fact that they had to deal with the king of england concerning he wanted a part of the correction of the stamp act. It was the oligarchs that had caused these problems when they put the people in their situation. We got it today. It is the globalists that cause these problems. Causedeople to be people to be against each other. Guest i am glad you got talking about george the third. If you do not like secession, what you think about 1776 . That was secession. Great just exited britain. The empire. Host are you hopeful . Guest im hopeful that we will not have a secession. Even if it does not help my book sells. Host why . Guest i hope that americans will, at the end of the day say, this is nuts. We are divided over things we should be agreeing about. When we disagree, we should do so civilly and with moderation. I am hoping that happens. Or two moreor one calls. John and washington, d. C. Caller good morning cspan2 my name is john. Good morning cspan. I caught the tail end of the comments about confederate statues. Callers calling inciting that. Era. The civil war i am writing policy for the retainment of wages to black americans for the injury of slavery. We have been confused for a while. This country does not os reparations. Compensation and benefits denied to individuals known to have been enslaved people, who just so happen to be part black, part native american, with slavery there was a lot of forced sexual contact going on. Removing allg at of your confederate statues throughout this country because it represents treason, murder, slavery, and there is no part of your heritage legally that you have standing to keep that up when you fought against the United States of america. That the end of the public visual impact is over. Even in our courts we have statues of john marshall, who owned slaves. That is unnecessary. We do not see a statue of adolf hitler in the plaza of a court. , saddam hussein, do you think we would direct statues of him . A frenchman defined nationalism as people who have the same kind of history, but also the same kind of amnesia. They have forgotten things. Is messyhat america and requires compromise. Something like less than total victor on one side or the other. That is exactly what compromises. I like messiness. Messiness works. It is essential to keep the country together. Host in the last minute, you are a law school professor. What do your students think about this . Guest we havent gotten into it. I dont want to keep those issues before them, but as much as possible if you are a law professor, students should not have a clue what your politics are. I try to keep it that way. Host do they read your books . Guest i hope. Host are you going to have a conversation at some point on this . Guest i have a class on the framers debates. We will talk about it. It is there. Host Frank Buckley is the author of the book american secession the looming threat of a National Breakup. Announcer bringing you Live Campaign 2020 coverage here on cspan. A slight time change to former mayor Pete Buttigiegs town hall event in carson city, nevada. He is scheduled to speak live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. We will have that for you here on cspan. Style, barack obama for example spoke and what we call, in the speech writer jargon, the periodic style. This is the march of paragraphs across the page. Lincoln had it, of the people, by the people, for the pot for the people. Barack obama was compatible for that because of the black pulpit in his lifetime. Bill clinton was different. Bill clinton was talking to you all the time. Very conversational style. Reagan had that. For yourhat style candidate, your client is very different. Different for each of them. And with ford, it was very plainspoken. Announcer you can watch the rest of the conversation with craig smith, author of confessions of a president ial speechwriter tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Next, president ial candidate Michael Bloomberg speaks at the Virginia Democratic Party dinner in richmond. Their largest fundraising event of the year. Indelegates are at stake virginias primary, part of pe