Middlebury Institute

The Middlebury Institute for the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination is a political think tank and activist organization founded in 2005. The current director is author Kirkpatrick Sale. The goal of the institute is to foster a national movement to place secession on the national political agenda and encourage secessionist and separatist movements here and abroad.

The Middlebury Institute was founded in 2005 in Middlebury, Vermont by signees of the Middlebury Declaration of 2004. The document states that there is a growing militarily based "American Empire"; suggests the possible implosion of that empire "in the near future"; defines separatism as decentralization, dissolution, disunion, division, devolution, or secession, expressing a preference for "states that operate with participatory democracy and justice, which is only attainable as a small scale"; calls the separatist and self-determination movements "the most important and most widespread political force in the world today" and commits to advancing secessionist networking and scholarship. It maintains a list of current North American separatist groups on its website.

In November 2006 the Institute sponsored the North American Secessionist Convention in Burlington, Vermont which attracted 40 participants from sixteen secessionist organizations and described itself as the first gathering of secessionists since the Civil War. Delegates included a broad spectrum from libertarians to socialists to greens to Christian conservatives to indigenous peoples activists. Groups represented included the Alaskan Independence Party, the Cascadia Independence Project, the Hawaiʻi Nation, The Second Maine Militia, The Free State Project, the Republic of New Hampshire, the League of the South, Christian Exodus, the Second Vermont Republic and the United Republic of Texas. Delegates created a statement of principles of secession which they called the Burlington Declaration.

Middlebury's Second North American Secessionist Convention in October 2007, which was co-sponsored with the League of the South and held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, received local and national media attention. It also received negative attention for its association with the League of the South.

In 2008 the Institute sponsored a Zogby International poll which revealed that 22% of Americans believe that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede and become an independent republic." Additionally, 18% would support their own state seceding. That year it also sponsored a third secession convention in Manchester, New Hampshire.