Will White House be forced to respond to Texas secession petition?

American Thinker ^ | 11/13/2012 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

The more than 25,000 Sunshine Patriots who signed the petition to have Texas secede from the United States might get a response from the White House.

Yahoo News:

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Looks like the Obama administration may have to respond to a petition seeking the green light for Texas to secede from the United States-one of 20 such requests filed on the official White House website since Election Day. At the time of the writing of this post, the Texas secession petition had garnered 25,318 signatures-above the White House's self-imposed rules for requiring a reply.

(A "Recount the election!" petition filed Nov. 10 had 16,238 signatures. "Regulate Internet Pornography"? Not a big winner. It was filed Nov. 4 and had only 501 signatures.)

The White House may opt out of replying. Under its own rules, "To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition." Other secession petitions include requests for Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, Oregon, New Jersey, North Dakota, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama and New York. (Spoiler alert: No, the White House won't approve secession.)

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No, the White House won't approve secession. And yes, the signers are indeed sunshine patriots. To cut and run when things look bleak perfectly fits the description of Tom Paine, who wrote of them, ..."the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country..." "Shrink" is what these so-called Americans are doing. Giving up. Surrendering. Is there any other way to describe their cowardice?

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

0bama will acknowledge these petitions as well as he’s responded to Benghazi. These petitions are lists of people 0bama wants to know about. I’m sure ‘Big Sis’ will gladly take these names and put them on ‘no fly’ lists.

[WVKayaker]

Giving up. Surrendering. Is there any other way to describe their cowardice?

So, this says to me, "Hail, Obama the King"?

It is broken, FRiends. We no longer own our country. The Fedrool Gum't has co-opted our monies, our properties, and our livelihoods. Regulations, taxes, and redistribution are the law of the land, now. The States are sovereign, but titless...

I will go with those Founders who broke ties with the form of gum't which reduced them to serfs or less! They were common folk just trying to make a life in a new world. THIS IS A NEW WORLD!

The TEA Party was a citizen rebellion due to unjust actions by the recognized gum't. The Declaration of Independence was given to that king by our Patriot Founders when the Throne no longer wanted to do anything but tax, tax, tax.

Sound familiar? But now, it is not only that we are taxed to death (and beyond), but class warfare, racial warfare, and redistribution is the only thing going FORWARD!.

[SnakeDoctor]

I’m not a secessionist ... but I don’t by the “sunshine patriots” trope. They’re no more sunshine patriots than were Jefferson, or Adams, or Robert E. Lee, or Sam Houston.

These are good people that are tired of negotiating how they live their own lives with statists in California and New York; of fighting for the freedom of fellow citizens who resist genuine liberty at every turn; of trying to convince the “governed” to stop consenting to encroachment in exchange for pitiful “benefits”.

They’ve realized the country doesn’t seem to want them around, and they’ll be fine on their own. The country needs them more than they need it.

“When in the course of human events ...”

Atlas eventually shrugs.

SnakeDoc

[butterdezillion]

Actually, I think when he said he wanted to “radically transform” the nation he was saying he DOES want to go down in history as the man who tore apart this country. And I think he’s pretty much already succeeded.

[itsahoot]

The White House will respond by opening the Southern Border and declaring Amnesty, Texas will then be a deep blue State.

Count on it.

[SeekAndFind]

Here’s a more important discussion I’d like to start — IS THE UNION A PERMANENT STATE? OR DOES THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDE A MEANS FOR STATES TO SECEDE?

Here’s what I personally believe ( and I could be wrong ).

The original 13 states formed a “Confederation,” under which each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” The Constitution didn’t change this; each sovereign state was free to reject the Constitution. The new powers of the federal government were “granted” and “delegated” by the states, which implies that the states were PRIOR and SUPERIOR to the federal government.

Even in The Federalist, the brilliant propaganda papers for ratification of the Constitution (largely written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison), the United States are constantly referred to as “the Confederacy” and “a confederate republic,” as opposed to a single “consolidated” or monolithic state. Members of a “confederacy” are by definition free to withdraw from it.

Hamilton and Madison hoped secession would never happen, but they never denied that it was a right and a practical possibility. They envisioned the people taking arms against the federal government if it exceeded its delegated powers or invaded their rights, and they admitted that this would be justified. Secession, including the resort to arms, was the final remedy against tyranny. (This is the real point of the Second Amendment.)

Strictly speaking, the states would not be “rebelling,” since they were sovereign; in the Framers’ view, a tyrannical government would be rebelling against the states and the people, who by defending themselves would merely exercise the paramount political “principle of self-preservation.”

The Constitution itself is silent on the subject, but since secession was an established right, it didn’t have to be reaffirmed. More telling still, even the bitterest opponents of the Constitution never accused it of denying the right of secession.

Three states ratified the Constitution with the provision that they could later secede if they chose; the other ten states accepted this condition as valid.

[Sporke]

Do you think your name isn’t already on their lists? You post on Freerepublic!!!! LOL

[Toespi]

You are wrong. Obama WANTS this nation to fall apart. We are in the middle to end stage of the “fundamental transformation of America”. Including open, obvious unconcealed voter fraud, that would make a third world country blush.

[fella]

Sounds like the country folk in “Fly-Over” land are tired of being dictated to by the big coastal cities.

[IslamE]

Amnesty should be the straw, they are out of control, amnesty with 9% unemployment, they are drunk on their power!

[IslamE]

So true, I’m starting to believe the civil war was just put on hold until they could get the blacks to help the confederates enslave all of humanity!

[treetopsandroofs]

Hussein will talk down to the petitioners and Big Media will proclaim victory for their messiah — for being a “Uniter”.

[SeekAndFind]

I’d like you and every one else on this thread to consider one case -— Texas v. White, which was argued before the United States Supreme Court during the December 1868 term.

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase read the Court’s decision, on April 15, 1869.

Chase (then the Chief Justice), ruled in favor of Texas on the ground that the Confederate state government in Texas had no legal existence on the basis that the secession of Texas from the United States was illegal.

The critical finding underpinning the ruling that Texas could not secede from the United States was that, following its admission to the United States in 1845, Texas had become part of “an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states.” In practical terms, this meant that Texas has never seceded from the United States.

However, the Court’s decision recognized some possibility of the divisibility “through revolution, or through consent of the States”

Now, I do not like revolution. We already went through something like this in the 1860’s and over 620,000 lives were lost.

But what does “consent of the states” mean?

My understanding is this — IT IS NOT UP TO OBAMA OR THE WHITE HOUSE TO GIVE CONSENT. EVERY SINGLE STATE IN THE UNION WILL HAVE TO VOTE TO ALLOW TEXAS TO SECEDE.

Good luck with that.

As the Lyrics of the Song by the Eagles said: “You can check out anytime you like but you can NEVER LEAVE.”

[justice14]

civil war  noun a war between political factions or regions within the same country.

[Safrguns]

Let’s answer this question first...

How many times in Obama’s 4 years has he been required BY LAW to simply respond to a LEGAL court order... let alone produce any information or documentation proving his eligibility to hold office?

How many times did that happen? and how many times did he comply?

Answer that question, and you have your answer to this one.

[teflon9]

Czechoslovaks, Soviets, Yugoslavs and Sudanese didn’t think their nations would ever break apart, either.

[supremedoctrine]

The author of this ridiculously abbreviated piece is all wet if he calls them ‘Sunshine Patriots”, and thinks they’re cutting and running.The people that are cutting and running in the wake of this election are those that are still fretting about “what went wrong” and how we really have to think about Hispanic outreach seriously, etc. etc.,and how to avoid making the same mistakes “next time”. Will there BE
a next time? is what this petition implicitly asks.
Whatever anyone may think of it, this
is the ONLY provocative thing I’ve seen to fully assess what one group believes the real options are, and act on them in a formal and dignified way.

[bgill]

No. If it’s not signed by celebs, it’s not worth their time. However, in return, the WH will do everything in it’s power to slap down every state that questions them.

[teflon9]

Nothing in the US Constitution says that the Union is like a street gang (”blood in, blood out”) or a roach motel. Besides, what nation in its right mind would bloodily suppress a secessionist movement in the age of instant news. If Texas really, truly wants out of the Union, DC would be hard-pressed to stop it.

[supremedoctrine]

As far as I know, virtually ALL of the 50 states have this same petition going, so don’t suggest it’s just “kook” states.