There’re a lot of odd things going on in politics: Democrats are holding anti-Republican protests and calling them Town Hall Meetings; Republicans have been tweeting about Saturday Night Live and Meryl Streep – but even when they’re angry the people hollering on Facebook or Twitter seem to be enjoying themselves.

But, last week, a new cause so unusual popped up I wondered: Who are these people?

It turned out the new campaign was the brainchild of three men: One had joined the Marines when he was 18, retired 22 years later, and joined a local Moose Lodge; the second had also been a Marine, a drill instructor at Parris Island; and the third had been a preacher in small town churches, who’d also worked in the shipping department of a packing company.

Eventually each of the men – who lived miles apart – had gotten into politics, met, and last week they rolled up their sleeves and went to work to restore an ancient right which the first friend explained on Facebook by saying ‘the states created the federal government not the other way around’ – then adding, ‘So we should always retain the right to leave the union.’

By ‘we’ he meant North Carolina.

The roadblock the retired Marine saw standing in the way wasn’t Appomattox – it was a clause in the State Constitution added after Appomattox that said North Carolina could not secede again.

You might have expected the three comrades to take to Facebook or Twitter – along with the anti-Trump Democrats and the pro-Trump Republicans – to build support for their campaign.  

But they didn’t.

They didn’t need to.

Because all three were state legislators. 

So 151 years to the week after General Sherman – leaving Columbia, South Carolina in flames behind him – headed north toward Raleigh three Don Quixotes, standing on the floor of the State House, introduced a bill to give the people of North Carolina back their right to secede.