Secession Remains Unpopular 150 Years After Civil War

Rasmussen Reports released a national poll of American adults on Thursday which shows most Americans are generally opposed to new states or breaking up current states.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, only 21 percent of those surveyed believe a state has the right to leave the union and form a new country, while 59 percent do not think states have that right. A majority -- 55 percent -- thinks sections of individual states have no right to secede from a current state to create a new one, while 22 percent think that right exists. A much stronger majority -- 70 percent -- wants their states to remain as they currently are but 17 percent would want to leave their current state to create a new one. Only 24 percent of those surveyed think its very likely or somewhat likely that new states will emerge from current ones over the next 25 years, while 68 percent think its not likely to happen.

The poll also shows 44 percent think it would be bad for the nation to have more states while 12 percent think it would be good and 24 percent think it would have no impact.

The poll of 1,000 American adults was taken from Sept. 23-24 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.