This is a topic that has been building for the last couple of years. I myself have been in online discussions of the topic, mostly on other Substack sites. After the last one, I decided to lay out my thoughts on the subject here, on my own site, and with maybe a bit more detail than I could in commenting on others.
To begin with, I think it is an EXTREMELY bad idea. The last one did a lot of damage to the southern states by 1865. I am a lifelong history buff, and I have read a lot about the last Civil War over the years. And one cause of that war was that politicians and many of the people of the southern states made the mistake of believing their own propaganda. Propaganda has its uses, but you never want to fall into the trap of believing your own! There are several areas where the leaders of the Confederate States believed things going into the war that turned out not to be true.
Too many southerners told each other “One southerner can whip any five Yankees!” That may—or may not—have been true of the eastern factory workers they were thinking of. But it turned out not to be true of Midwestern farm boys. Many of them fought in the western theater of the war, and when good leaders were found for them—Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and some others—the Confederacy went down to defeat, first in the western theater and finally in the east. Even in the east, Lee’s army learned the hard way to beware of one particular unit, the “Iron Brigade” of soldiers from Michigan and Wisconsin. They wore black slouch hats instead of the more common forage caps; and the Confederate troops knew they were in for a real fight when those hats showed up.
And the Midwestern farm boys weren’t supposed to be there! Many in the South assumed that the “western states” (which we now know as the Midwest) would side with them against the Northeast. After all, they were sending their farm produce down the Mississippi to sell! They had not noticed that the growth of the railroads had made other options available—because the southern states had not built nearly as many railroads. They also forgot in the states formed from the Northwest Territory—Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin—slavery was illegal from their very beginning. The Northwest Territory Ordinance of 1787, which provided for the settlement of the region, was passed by the old Confederation Congress before the US Constitution was adopted, barred slavery in the region. And that Ordinance was confirmed by the First Congress under the Constitution.
The Confederates assumed that Britain and France would side with them. After all, they were major markets for southern cotton! But they forgot that the British had abolished slavery in their remaining colonies during the 1830s. The English aristocrats were somewhat sympathetic to the southern planter class, many of whom were descended from younger sons of the English aristocracy who came to America in the mid-1600s. But the mass of the English people were solidly anti-slavery, and it would have been political suicide to back the CSA too openly. And it turned out the French would not do anything without the British. (The French had also abolished slavery in their remaining colonies, too.) The war did one thing that damaged the South for years afterward—the British found they could get cotton from Egypt and India!
So the southern states went into the war believing some things that were not true. Those wrong assumptions made them a little too arrogant about their propects when the war did start.
And even the southern states were not quite as unified as it looked on paper. The state we now know as West Virginia did not exist in 1861. That area was part of Viriginia, and rebelled against their own state when the war began. Since they bordered Ohio, it wasn’t hard to to get help from Union troops. There had always been some friction between the mountain regions and the coastal aristocracy. The Civil War resulted in what had been the western counties of Virginia seceding from their state and entering the Union on their own.
And it wasn’t just western Virginia that was not thrilled with slavery. Inhabitants of the mountains of eastern Tennessee were not that into slavery—many of their young men went north to join the Union Army, resulting in several regiments of Tennessee volunteers. The northeastern area of Alabama would have liked to have done what West Virginia did, but like East Tennessee, they were too far away at the beginning of the war. By the time Union troops were close enough to help them, it was becoming clear that the Confederacy was going down.
The Confederates also botched it in Kentucky. Kentucky was on the border, and when the war started, the state government declared neutrality, and ordered both sides to keep their forces out of the state. But southern arrogance resulted in Confederate armies moving into Kentucky—and Kentucky reacted to the invasion. There were several battles fought in the state, but Kentucky was lost to the Confederacy, and turned into a base for Union armies that eventually conquered the South.
But that’s the past—what about today?
One obvious difference from 1861 is that today’s “blue states” are not a contiguous region like the Confederate states appeared to be back then. The New England states are on the east coast, while California, Oregon and Washington are on the west coast. There are a few blue states in the middle, especially Illinois and Minnesota—Wisconsin goes back and forth, and so does Arizona.
But the usual “red state/blue state” maps do not show the real picture. You could get a better idea if you look at the national elections by Congressional districts instead of by states. But the best I have found is on a website called “Brilliant Maps.” That site, apparently run by a Canadian living in the UK, has maps of both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections showing the vote by counties. And what is more, their maps use five different shades of red and blue to show how strong the vote was in each county. Here is their map for 2020: https://brilliantmaps.com/2020-county-election-map/#more-4456
This makes a completely different picture from the usual “red state/blue state” map. In the whole US, there are only three states that are completely blue—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Hawaii. Even Vermont has one light red county; New Hampshire has two! There are only two states that are completely red—West Virginia and Oklahoma. The state I live in, Indiana, has 92 counties. Only five of them are blue. Two of those are urban areas—Marion County (Indianapolis, the state capital) and Lake County (Hammond and Gary). The other three are dominated by college towns. Monroe County is home to IU, Tippecanoe County has Purdue University, and St. Joseph County has Notre Dame. There are other universities in Indiana, but they have only been able to turn their counties a lighter shade of red. Kentucky only has two blue counties, home to the cities of Louisville and Lexington. Tennessee has three blue counties—two of them are home to Nashville and Memphis. Even most of the states that are considered reliably “blue,” like Illinois and New York, have half or more of the state’s counties voting red.
It might be argued that those blue counties are the cities where most of the state population lives. That may be true; but where is their food grown? All of those people living in cities are an asset in elections. In an actual civil war, they will be a liability, not an asset. They will want to have food, electricity, and fuel to heat their homes and run their transportation—and most of that comes from outside the city limits. Whoever controls the countryside controls everything brought into those cities.
This is why the British lost the American Revolution. They had the most powerful navy in the world at that time, and one of the most powerful armies. They could take any city—they held Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, and Charleston at various times during the war. But they could not control the countryside. While General Howe had his army in Philadelphia, General Burgoyne invaded with another army from Canada; his Indian allies turned the whole countryside against the British, and he surrendered at Saratoga—and the French decided to ally with the Americans. In 1780 the British switched to a southern strategy, under the impression that there were many more Loyalists in the southern region who would support them. There were some—but not enough. They took Charleston and Savannah, but any outposts they established away from the coast kept getting picked off. Finally Lord Cornwallis set out with his main army and two smaller units. One of those was a force of Loyalist troops led by the Scottish officer Patrick Ferguson; he was killed and his force destroyed at Kings Mountain in South Carolina by a group of militia from North Carolina, Virginia, and “overmountain men” from what later became eastern Tennessee. The other small force was a mixed group of Loyalist dragoons and British infantry led by Banastre Tarleton. At Cowpens, also in South Carolina, Tarleton’s force met General Daniel Morgan, with a force of local militia backed by some Continental infantry and cavalry. Tarleton and some of his dragoons escaped on horseback, the rest of his force was destroyed. Cornwallis pushed north into North Carolina and Virginia, and finally went to the coast at Yorktown. He was hoping the British fleet could help him there. But a French fleet and Washington’s army arrived first. It took two more years for a peace treaty to be signed, but after Yorktown the British government knew they had lost the war. King George III even considered abdicating the throne.
Controlling the cities was not enough. And it is still a problem in modern warfare. It was a major problem in Vietnam. And even with drones and satellites it was a problem in Iraq and especially in Afghanistan. And despite what Joe Biden and Eric Swalwell have said, nuclear bombs might help against cities—but they won’t do much against open country. (But using them might turn even more of the country against the government if they try it!)
But apart from the possibility of warfare, there does seem to be a “sorting” going on. California has lost population recently, for the first time in its history. New York is losing population also, and a fair number of other states. And the losses are mostly in the “blue” states. Texas and Florida are among the leaders in states that are gaining population. This has actually been going on for some years. Glenn Reynolds, of the Instapundit blog, has been suggesting a new sort of “welcome wagon” operation to greet new arrivals to conservative states—but also to remind them not to vote for the policies that drove them out of their former homes.
But there is a risk in this trend. We already have a lot of people who seem to be living in “bubbles”—all of the people around them share the same ideas. The classic expression of this was a quote by Pauline Kael, a film critic who wrote for the “New Yorker,” after the 1972 election: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.” And she was saying this after Nixon won 49 states in the presidential race! Granted, New York City has always been inclined to think itself cosmopolitan when it is actually quite provincial. The classic expression of this was their magazine cover from 1976:
The danger of these “bubbles” is that a group of people who don’t know anyone who disagrees with them will get the idea that they are the majority, and can therefore force their opinions on the rest. But thinking you have a majority is not the same as actually having one.
Apart from the concerns about states seceding from the US or a civil war starting, there are also concerns about holding existing states together. In Oregon, several counties in the eastern part of the state have started looking at seceding from Oregon to join Idaho. They have even put it on the ballot in some of them. The reason: they are culturally very different from the coastal cities, and are feeling like they have no real voice in the state government. This is not a small matter—last I saw, there were seven counties considering this move; but Oregon’s counties are larger than the ones in the eastern states—those counties in Oregon who want to secede amount to about half the land area of the state!
And it isn’t just Oregon. I have been seeing reports for years that most of Illinois would like to kick out Chicago. It has so much population that it dominates the state government. And Chicago politics have been corrupt for many years. The city also has not had a Republican mayor since 1931! A few years ago, there were proposals being made to break California up into four to seven new states. Again, the state government is dominated by the coastal cities, and the inland regions that make up most of the state are getting fed up. And even inland, the northern part of the state is not like the southern part. That’s why the suggestion was for at least four new states rather than two.
Ideally, the way to work out some of this would be for people to adopt a “live and let live” attitude. Let the conservative areas do what they wish, and let the liberal areas do as they wish. Unfortunately, there are too many people in this world who want to control others. If they decide a certain way is best, they want to impose it on everyone else! And it seems to be especially common among those who go into government!
How this will work out, I do not really know. I am concerned that things could get ugly, maybe more so in some areas than in others. A lot will depend on local governments. In 2020, a lot of cities faced riots over the George Floyd matter. But it was worse in some cities than others, depending on the reaction of local authorities—and sometimes who those authorities were. Here in Indianapolis it was not as bad as other places. There was a bit of rioting, but only for a day or two. The city has a Democrat mayor—but he ran for office on a law-and-order platform a few years before. He had been the local federal prosecutor before running for mayor, and had pushed a major crackdown on gangs. He also has a Republican governor above him. The governor did call in the National Guard; they provided security for the state government buildings, which freed up more city police to deal with the unrest. It was over fairly quickly, compared to some cities. And so far I have not seen or heard anything of Antifa activities locally. We will be electing a new mayor and a new governor this year and next. The Indianapolis mayor’s office has been shifting back and forth in recent years—Democrat followed by Republican followed by Democrat. But the city does not have enough people to outvote the rest of the state. The last time a Democrat was elected governor was in 2000. What will happen this fall remains to be seen.
What will happen across the country also remains to be seen. My own hunch is that there will be some violence and a lot of noise. But both will be worst in the cities and states controlled by the Democrats. Where the state and local authorities do not tolerate it, the unrest will not last long.
One thing to remember: the noisiest people, on both ends of the spectrum, are almost always a minority. At some point, the majority are going to want some peace and quiet. And the side that refuses to give it to them will pay for their behavior.
And any effort to "make change happen" might have unexpected consequences. There was one with Unigov in Indy. The smaller city of Indianapolis had Democrat mayors from 1956 to 1968, when Richard Lugar was elected. When Unigov happened, most of the suburban areas brought into Indy were heavily Republican--there wasn't another Democrat mayor until 2000! I doubt if the Indy Democrats expected that, but it happened.
If there's one thing I have learned in life, it is that nobody is as smart as they think they are--and that is especially true of our political class! I think over the next fifty years or so the cities will continue to shrink, suburbs and small towns will grow--until something happens to reverse that trend.
Frank, thanks for commenting!
As far as limiting the size of cities, I am not sure how it could be done. And there is not only the official "city" but also the larger "metro area." When Unigov passed in 1970, Indianapolis took over most of Marion County; but the same law that allowed them to do that barred them from going past the county line. These days, a lot of the population of the metro area is in the outlying counties. I would not be surprised if half or more of the people in the Indy metro area actually live outside Marion County. One thing I have noticed--a lot, possibly most, of the new construction, both residential and commercial, is outside of Marion County now.
It's somewhat similar in my hometown, Cincinnati. In fact, the US gov't designation of the Cincinnati metro area now includes 7 counties in Ohio, 3 in Kentucky, and 4 in Indiana! And yet, the actual legal City of Cincinnati is less than half the area of its own Hamilton County. Cincinnati never got any kind of Unigov deal. So there are more than 3 dozen legal "cities" and "villages" in Hamilton County alone, besides the outer counties.
Someone with interesting views on cities is Joel Kotkin. Here's a current article from him: https://unherd.com/2023/05/what-really-divides-america-2/
He has written a lot at a website called New Geography. Some years ago, when there was a lot of noise about the new rise in central cities, he looked at actual data and figured out that the real growth was still in suburbs and exurbs. He's been a dissenting voice ever since.
The truth is, the rise of our big cities was not planned by anybody--it mostly just happened with the growth of industry in the mid-20th century. Now the pendulum is starting to swing the other way. The big cities are losing population slowly. Hamilton County (OH) peaked in 1990; they've lost 100,000 people since then. I suspect it's similar in Indy.