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The growing movement to secede from Illinois and become the 51st state

Explore episode Jul 5, 2026

I don't want to sell my house. It means too much to me. And yet I had sense almost of being propelled out of the state because our state is so corrupt and the taxes are so high. And I just thought, why should I have to be the one to move?

G.H. Merritt

The growing movement to secede from Ill…

Where this was said

G.H. Merritt: The Founder's Epiphany

At 6:38 · chapter starts 6:20

Merritt first got the idea for New Illinois in 2018 while living in northern Illinois near the Wisconsin border, frustrated by the state's high taxes and the sense that Chicago's power created few opportunities elsewhere.^{[1]

— Connor Towne O'Neill

"New Illinois founded 2018–2020: G.H. Merritt first conceived of New Illinois in 2018 out of frustration over high taxes and Chicago's polit…"

06:19} She and her husband considered moving, but something stopped her: her father's house. Standing in it, she had what she describes as an epiphany — why should she be the one to move? The state was pushing her out through corruption and taxation, and she refused to accept that. From that personal refusal came the movement's deceptively simple tagline: 'Leave Illinois without moving.' In October 2020, she formalized the group's intentions by standing on the steps of a western Illinois courthouse and reciting both the original Declaration of Independence and a new one for New Illinois.