Texas leads charge away from United States

FORT WORTH, Texas, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Texas, the only U.S. state that was once a republic, is just one of several where a secession movement thrives today, movement leaders said.

Daniel Miller of Nederland is the head of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which wants to return the state to its former status, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Sunday.

In Vermont, the Second Vermont Republic wants to extract The Green Mountain State from what the group's founder, Thomas Naylor, calls "the American Empire." A group on the other side of the continent wants to forge a "Republic of Cascadia" out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Other states aren't planning to declare independence but are enacting laws that exempt them from federal regulations.

Montana, Tennessee and four other states enacted legislation declaring firearms made and kept within those states are beyond the authority of the federal government. Arizona proposed a state constitutional amendment allowing the state to opt out of federal healthcare mandates.

The Third North American Secessionist Convention was held in New Hampshire in 2008, organized by Kirk Sale of Mount Pleasant, S.C., founder of the Middlebury Institute for the study of "separatism, secession and self-determination."

Alaska and Hawaii also have secessionist groups.