When Americans hear “secession,” the image that comes to mind is a Confederate flag. But New York these days has its own southern rebellion.
The Southern Tier, that is. The terrible economic conditions upstate have led 15 towns along the Pennsylvania border to explore splitting off from New York and becoming part of the Keystone State.
The reason?
Gov. Cuomo’s ban on fracking, which prevents them from tapping into the natural gas of the Marcellus Shale that is bringing jobs and opportunity to neighboring Pennsylvania.
In Bradford County, for example, revenue from natural gas has allowed the county to retire a $5 million debt and lower property taxes by 6 percent.
“The Southern Tier is desolate. We have no jobs and no income,” Conklin Town Supervisor Jim Finch told a Binghamton TV station. “The richest resource we have is in the ground.”
Thanks to Gov. Cuomo, it’s going to stay there.
Now, this isn’t the first secessionist movement New York has seen. In fact, Staten Island voters approved a secession referendum in 1993. But the last time anyone successfully seceded from New York was when Vermont did so back in 1777.
The irony is large.
When the Southern states that became the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter in 1861, they did so because they were bent on preserving an institution — slavery — inimical to free labor and opportunity.
While in New York today, it’s the governor who’s bent on denying the workers opportunity — and the would-be secessionists of the Southern Tier who want to see this opportunity expanded.