A New Hampshire legislator is attempting to get Granite State voters to consider declaring their independence from the United States. On Monday, Representative Mike Sylvia (R) introduced an amendment calling for a public referendum on the matter, which would be on the ballot for the 2022 general election.
Sylvia cited the Biden administration’s draconian COVID-19 orders such as CDC’s eviction ban and President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates as main reasons to consider secession from the Union.
“There are hundreds of examples of the federal government overstepping its authority,” Sylvia said. “Enough is enough. We should put this before the voters to decide.”
While Sylvia understands that secession has its drawbacks, he believes that there would also be positive aspects to leaving the United States — among them no longer having to pay onerous federal income taxes.
“We are a donor state that pays out more in federal income taxes than what we get back,” Sylvia said.
Should 60 percent of both the state House and Senate approve the measure, it would be placed on the ballot for the statewide election in November of 2022. The GOP controls both houses of the legislature in New Hampshire but their margin in each chamber falls short of 60 percent. Governor Chris Sununu would not have to approve the referendum to get it on the ballot.
If the long shot measure were to clear those hurdles, the referendum would read: “New Hampshire peaceably declares independence from the United States and immediately proceeds as a sovereign nation. All other references to the United States in this constitution, state statutes, and regulations are nullified.”
In an interview with the website Free Keene, Sylvia asked that Americans in general and the people of New Hampshire in particular remember their history when considering the question of secession.
“The people of America have forgotten their history, if we take the time to look at our roots we can see that our constitutions have received ‘lip service’ for far too long. While I can not change the direction of the federal government, I can hold up the New Hampshire constitution and demand that we honor its clear directives. Article 10 reads in part, ‘whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government.’”
To get on the 2022 ballot, the legislation will need to be considered in the next legislative session which begins in January. In order to change New Hampshire’s constitution, 66 percent of voters would have to vote for the measure.
The referendum is strongly backed by an organization known as Liberty Block. The Liberty Block believes it’s past time for New Hampshire residents to reconsider their initial allegiance to the United States, especially considering what it considers the “corona fascism” of the past two years.
“The voters of this great state have not had an opportunity to reevaluate their relationship with our Lords in DC ever in their lifetimes; their ancestors made the decision to join the union 240 years ago, in a different world, one in which the federal government did not violate our every right, and did not steal half of our money to fund their tyranny,” the website states.
The Liberty Block feels so strongly about the issue that they published a list of 77 specific reasons that the citizens of the Granite State should seriously consider voting to secede. Most of the reasons are general and are about how the federal government has become far too large a presence in our everyday lives.
But some reasons are specific to the power trip that the federal government is on with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example: “The CDC is out of control, and the agency will only ever grow more tyrannical. This was before corona-fascism made the CDC into the most harmful agency to liberty of all 400 illegal executive agencies. By the way, did you know that the CDC took legal ownership over every rental property in the united states?”
The federal overreach Representative Sylvia, Liberty Block, and others oppose is a very real and present danger to the liberty of the people and the sovereignty of the states. But secession is not the only option available to those who wish to end federal overreach.
Another option — one that is recommended by The John Birch Society — is to insist that the Constitution be obeyed, not just at the federal level but at the state level as well. There is a reason why state officials as well as federal officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution. When the federal government exceeds the limits of its constitutional authority through vaccine mandates and other unconstitutional power grabs, state officials should — in fact, it is their duty to — exercise their proper power of nullification and declare the federal abuses “null and void” within their own state borders.
Regardless of the question of secession, every state officeholder who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, whether in New Hampshire or elsewhere, should honor that oath by opposing all violations of the Constitution.
