Kirkpatrick Sale, director of the Middlebury Institute, discusses his article “The Sesquicentennial Is Upon Us;” why “War of Southern Secession” and “War Between the States” are more apt descriptions and should be used in place of “Civil War;” the tariff revenue at stake in the fight over Fort Sumter, which newly-independent South Carolina claimed as its own; how Northern industrialists and the Republican Party planned to preserve the union in order to transform the country into a major...

Kirkpatrick Sale, director of the Middlebury Institute, discusses Vermont's secessionist movement that derives from the state's unique historical independence, the need to scrap the US Constitution due to its failure to preserve freedom and liberty, the inverse relationship between population size and the ability of government to function properly, the strong secessionist language enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Liberal tradition of supporting a strong national government...