"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

They’re Outta Here

by Lee

I’ve stated many times my belief that states should be allowed to secede from the union if they feel it necessary.  The United States is (or used to be) a voluntary union of states, joined together out of mulual self-interest.  When that union is no longer in the best interests of one of the states the state should be free to leave.  This is the way the founders intended the union to operate, and it did so until Abe Lincoln started the Civil War.  I bring this up because we still see some of this independent vultunary-union sentiment in Killington, VT.

Voting with a thunderous “aye,” Killington residents endorsed a plan Tuesday for the ski resort town to secede from Vermont.

The overwhelming voice vote inside the elementary school opened the next chapter in what could be a long and costly push to join New Hampshire, a state 25 miles to the east. Town officials estimated between 200-300 people attended the meeting, and that about two-thirds of them supported the idea in the voice vote.

“Other towns have been sitting back and waiting for Killington to break ground,” said Jim Blackman, 46. “It is Killington’s obligation to break that ground.”

Blackman’s comments were echoed by many of the dozen-odd residents who spoke at the town meeting.

Their comments mirrored Killington’s long-standing frustration over how much the town of roughly 1,000 pays the state in taxes and how little residents say they get in return to pay for the town’s school and municipal services.

That frustration drove town officials to launch the secession movement last fall. The town already has spent about $20,000 studying the feasibility and potential advantages of joining New Hampshire, the state where it was originally chartered in 1761.

People should not be forced into relationships they want no part of, and neither should states, cities, or towns.  Good for them.

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