The mercury plunged to 20-below on the morning of January 17, but the debate inside the North Dakota Senate chamber was sizzling like an egg on a Texas sidewalk in July. The Senate had taken a day to consider whether to permit Senator William (Bill) Martin’s Resolution A-2, presented the previous day, to be published in the legislative journal. A rugged, athletic cowpuncher, eighty-three-year-old Martin (Republican) epitomized the battle-hardened, courageous, and patriotic man of the agricultural West. Few in the legislature doubted his sincerity in proposing the flickertail state lead her sister states in secession from the “financial east” of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.
Martin’s bill of ten particulars is a crescendo of irreconcilable differences: agriculture v industry, rural v urban, rich state vs poor state, domestic policy v international interests.
Urban Representation and Tariffs
As the “dominant power in Congress” due to their densely populated urban areas, Martin charges, the said nine states enriched themselves through manipulative tariff laws, protecting “their manufacturing industries at the expense” of the agricultural commodities of the “producing states.”[1]
To be fair, not all of New England needed to enter Martin’s computations, as the Atlantic fishing industry, crippled by similar legislation, has more in common with Midwestern ranchers than the population within commuting distance of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and D.C. Though not specifically mentioned, no doubt Martin intended to saddle the east with the District of Columbia.
Financial Oligarchy
“Through such manipulated, unjust and discriminatory measures,” Martin continues, “said eastern states” have nurtured “a financial oligarchy,” consolidating banking and financial power on Wall Street with the intent of turning the people of the other states into “financial peons.”
Fewer local banks forces farmers and ranchers to seek mortgages from the large banking institutions of the east. Do not underestimate the significance of Martin’s use of the phrase “financial peons.” In a system of peonage, a peon is a debtor held in servitude, forced to labor for the benefit of his creditor. Do you think Martin is engaging in mere hyperbole? Consider that the same day, Ed O’Neal, president of the Farm Bureau Federation (a Rockefeller-founded organization), declared to Minnesota farmers, “We will no longer tolerate economic oppression; we will be free. We will not be degraded to peasantry.”[2]
Foreign Lending Run Amuck
With money siphoned from the west to the east, observes Senator Martin, “the New York Stock Exchange and the House of Morgan,” have extended “huge, unnecessary, and uncollectable loans…to every country on earth,” while their affiliated brokerage services market questionable stocks and bonds of same countries “are sold to the people of this country to their loss and damage.”
A bank may decide to loan money to a risky borrower, if they feel comfortable accepting the risk, and the consequences to the depositors and shareholders if the borrower defaults. As long as those consequences (losses) are high, a bank will tend to err on the side of caution. But if someone else pays the bill, such as the taxpayers (through the government), the bank is incentivized to lend to high-risk over low-risk borrowers. It’s perverse.
Rather than incur the loss from uncollectable foreign loans, “said eastern states have influenced the administration of our Government to loan money to foreign governments which were then, and are now, unable to [re]pay.”
With the Uncle Sam as the piggybank to every financially unstable nation in the world, the “financial oligarchy” is free to loan to multinational corporations doing business in those unstable areas. It’s a win-win – for them.
Wars, and Rumors of Wars
Ascending the acme, Martin delivers a haymaker to the prominent eastern chin. The octogenarian hurls condemnation at the eastern financial cabal because, invariably when revolution or war occurs in a foreign countries, “said financial interest[s], desiring to protect their said loans to foreign governments, are the first in this country to talk war,” and demand the lives of “our young men” be sacrificed in order to “protect their money.”
An unalterable sense of distrust and disdain exists.
The Remedy
The resolution recommends the seceding states “have no treaty, or trade relations, no agreements or understandings whatsoever,” retaining the banner of spangling stars, leaving the eastern states “the stripes, which they so richly deserve.”
The latter indelicate phrase was the only issue of the tempestuous debate. Only one senator objected to the entirety of the resolution; the remainder concurred with the sentiment, if not the language. Voting 28-20, the resolution was published, not adopted, and referred to committee, where, a month later, it died of neglect. A transcript of the entire resolution is included in a subsequent post.
Aftermath
Needless to say, news of Martin’s resolution received nationwide publicity, which was exactly the senator’s wish. “We’ve got to reform, or we aren’t going to have any government,” said Martin. “This is presented for the education of the people to let them know the east is getting rich at our expense.”[3] Martin received a barrage of letters and telegrams from across the country, 80% positive according to the senator, including a telegram from the president of the National Farm and Herd Management Inc., declaring, “Your secession program magnificent. In conference here with Prof. Pitkin of Columbia [University] outlining similar plan. Kindly forward all details my office. Absolutely with you for benefit of majority and same governmental principles based on ability, not patronage.”[4]
The national press refrained from flinging shovels of heaping scorn at the North Dakota resolution. Even the Wall Street Journal wrote sympathetically, “And why should they not resolute these eastern sinkholes of iniquity out of the Union…our wickedness has left us surrounded with at least our numerical proportion of destitute unemployed and with our nerves bordering on demoralization.”[5] The Washington Post, New York Times, and leading news wires acknowledged the sentiment as 100% genuine and, at least to some degree, justified.
Not An Isolated Incident
Would it surprise you to know that Senator Martin presented his resolution in 1933? At the time, the Union consisted of 48 states; Alaska and Hawaii did not join the Union until 1959. In 1933, North Dakota was only 44 years old, achieving statehood in 1889, but that was long enough to regret the decision.
Sectionalism had been growing since the money panic of 1907, with a growing divide between the urban centers and suburban/rural areas, and not just in the farm belt either. In May of the same year, the Illinois Taxpayers Association appeared at the head of a movement to divide the state, separating the lower, rural areas from Chicago and its environs.[6] Addressing the plight of the disunited farmers. syndicated columnist Charles P. Stewart observed that Chicago “is just as parasitic as [the big Atlantic seaboard communities] are, and even more directly so, being right in the farm country – as are the Twin Cities, Omaha, St. Louis, etc.”[7]
From the local diner to the Grange Hall, Stewart had his ear chewed off by discontented farmers increasingly willing to sever political ties that bound them to urban fiscal swamps. Farmers in the Nebraska panhandle agitated to break away from Omaha, seeking to join Wyoming or Colorado.[8] Secession talk was not limited to farmers or the Midwest. In February, the Beverly Hills City Council voted to “secede” their high school from the Los Angeles school district.[9] In Pennsylvania, 90% of the property owners sought to secede from Wilkins Township in order “to obtain lower taxation.”[10]
Secession Talk Again
It’s safe to say that the discontent has not diminished but grown deeper and wider. According to the Daily Mail, “Efforts to bust out of the union are gathering steam from California to Texas,” as more than 25% of U.S. adults support state secession.[11] At 31%, the secession movement in Texas (dubbed TEXIT) is growing, but 36% of Alaskans are ready to cut the cord with the lower 48, the highest percentage in the country.
“The secessionist star [is] rising,” according to Paul Roberts of the Seattle Times. Researchers found that the issue cuts across all political distinctions. Secession is more popular with younger adults than boomers. More republicans support secession than democrats, but a large group of democrats are on the fence. Independents are the most “undecided” – no shock there, they can’t make up their minds EVER! Of course, the usual naysayers – Newsweek, Business Insider, Financial Times, etc. – prophesy gloom and doom to any state seeking to reclaim its sovereignty.
But it truly is a bi-partisan issue, in red and blue states. Federal overreach, a wide-open (or non-existent) southern border, out-of-control spending, runaway inflation, and job-killing executive orders are just some of the issues driving the citizens of the states to jettison the federal albatross. The Texas GOP had the opportunity to place secession on the ballot for the March 2024 Republican primary, but, no surprise, they found a way to drop the ball. Despite receiving 11 boxes of signed petitions from thousands of Texans, the GOP disqualified every petition on a technicality, thereby ensuring that the people of Texas have no opportunity to express their will. So much for consent of the governed. This country needs men like North Dakota Senator Bill Martin more than ever.
[1] State of North Dakota, Journal of the Senate of the Twenty-Third Session of the Legislative Assembly (Bismarck, ND: Bismarck Tribune, 1933), 127-40. Unless otherwise specified, all quotes are from the pdf version, available for download at https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/23-1933/regular.
[2] "Farm Bureau Head Tells Minnesotans That Help Is Near," Bismarck Tribune, January 17, 1933. Newspapers.com.
[3] “Secession Plan Is Offered in Senate at Monday Session,” Bismarck Tribune, Jan. 17, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[4] “Martin Gets Letter Barrage from Many States on Plan to ‘Secede,’” Bismarck Tribune, Jan. 23, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[5] “Our Own Disunited States,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 1933, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[6] “Illinois Does Not Want Secession,” Champaign and Urbana Citizen, May 12, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[7] “Farm Interests Handicapped by Urban Representation,” News-Journal, Feb. 20, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[8] “Panhandle is in Notion of Pulling Away,” Norfolk Daily News, Feb. 27, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[9] “Beverly Hills Council Backs H. S. ‘Revolt’,” Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, February 15, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[10] “May Form New Municipality,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 20, 1933, Newspapers.com.
[11] “Goodbye-America!” Dailymail.com, Mar. 7, 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13165371/Goodbye-America-voters-want-state-secede-union-Texas-California-New-York-Alaska.html.
Well said, amazing how things of the past are so applicable to today.