Posted on 04/17/2009 10:17:36 AM PDT by RED SOUTH
Article VII sets out the provision for original ratification, and that Article IV empowers Congress to admit new States, but that no provision of the Constitution authorizes a state to leave the Union or bars it from doing so. The constitution does not say anything about states leaving.
Texas is the only state that can secede.’
I have been proposing that 12 states secede and form The Western States of America.
If legally, only Texas can secede, and the other 11 cannot- then I suggest:
Texas take over Idaho- Montana- Wyoming- N Dakota- S Dakota- Nebraska- Kansas- Oklahoma- Colorado- Nevada- and Utah-
Call all those areas TEXAS—with the current names called REGIONS.
Tell the Feds to get out and off all the land that they have control over now....Drill for oil and gas—Mine for gold and other items— and keep the coal mines going and open new ones in S Utah. Keep the ranchers and farmers producing what they are good at producing...
The states outside that region- particularly Kalifornia which buys 80% of their electricity from outside of their own borders—can figure out how much their energy purchases are going to cost them in the future.
TEXAS—and all it’s regions NEVER sign the Kyoto Treaty.
The Declaration of Independence was the same sort of silly tantrum. People fleeing Cuba for the shores of Florida... more silly tantrums (and son on and so forth).
And before you say there’s no comparison between the 18th century British Crown or Communist Cuba and today’s federal gov’t, take a gander at the DHS memo and ask yourself what it’s leading to.
People who dismiss this topic as “silly” or “wacko” haven’t the slightest clue what’s actually happening to this country.
+ 1
The point is the CONSTITUTION IS BEING TRAMPLED.
And States’ Rights are being completely assaulted by big federal govt. Perry brings attention to this, and ALL AMERICANS should be concerned.
We all know that Texas won’t secede....but, will strong for states’ rights. ALL STATES SHOULD DO THE SAME.
Excellent points.
I’m sure we can find all sorts of quotes from British newspapers in the 1700’s that would resemble what we have been hearing from the media in the last week.
I think an equally relevant question is “can states AFFORD to secede”?
In the case of California, where I live, CA would sink to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean if it split, financially speaking.
The United States did nothing of the sort. They never "seceded" from Britian, because they didn't exist. Thirteen COLONIES in British north american DECLARED INDEPEPENDENCE from their mother country, and then formed a government and nation, becoming the United States of America. These colonies had NEVER been "part" of the United Kingdom to begin with, they were simply under control of them. The only way they could have "seceded" from the United Kingdom is if they were a county on the British isles, like Cornwall. Instead, the colonies were little satilette areas set up by charter, and had no rights and no representation in the British Parliament. They will simply governed by british law, nothing more.
Compared it to states seceding is absolutely ridiculous. Territories, Protectorates, colonies, etc. have a totally different legal status and relationship with the mother country. Would you argue Guam has the same status and "rights" in the United States as Texas?
Well, I think the Constitution is certain on this point. There is no clause that says a state cannot leave of its own accord. Since all powers not specifically granted to the Federal government are reserved to the states and the people, the answer lays right there: it is their decision.
Now what gets them in trouble is if they decide to fire upon the feds. At that point, they have declared war on the US and the US can respond in a similar fashion. Now, lets look around and note where the military bases of note are located. Hum, seems to me they are not located in the liberal states for the most part probably because they detest the military in the first place. No problem, they can have the Zero talk them back into the fold.
Vince
Vince
ABundy, when your plans are focused on retreat, they are not focused on victory.
What you folks will wind up doing, is turning your nation into a state instead of a union. The United States held power around the word due to it’s size.
Texas will merely be a nation the size of France, or Germany. It wouldn’t wield global power. So the first thing you would accomplish, is to make good governmental policies irrelevant on the global stage.
You would be trying as a state to combat China and the U.N. You wouldn’t have a prayer of victory on that level.
Either we stand up as a nation and turn this ship around, or all is lost.
>For myself, I’ve taken an oath never to countenance disloyalty or rebellion.
Which oath is that?
>The bigger question....what can stop them?
Bullets, Training, and Logistics.
THAT can stop them.
Ah, Jim Robinson is secesh..........
I would think that since they would lose the Border U.S. Patrol they might find a much larger influx of drug lords and radical Islamics. I mean what better place to train than Ft Hood. The U.S. probably won't have troops there.
The words 'specifically' and 'explicitly' appear nowhere in the Constitution. The Constitution reserves to Congress the power to admit states and approve changes in their status after being allowed to join. Implied in that is the power to approve their leaving.
The question is not can they secede but can states be purged or expelled. That is can the states north and east of New York be purged from the union?
The union will be preserved but the Euros will be kicked out
Q: Doesn't the Texas Constitution reserve the right of Texas to secede?
A: No such provision is found in the current Texas Constitution[1](adopted in 1876) or the terms of annexation.[2] However, it does state (in Article 1, Section 1) that "Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States..." (note that it does not state "...subject to the President of the United States..." or "...subject to the Congress of the United States..." or "...subject to the collective will of one or more of the other States...")
Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the united States, explicitly or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary, rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said).
Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that "All political power is inherent in the people ... they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper."
Likewise, each of the united States is "united" with the others explicitly on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." [3]
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Q: Didn’t the outcome of the “Civil War” prove that secession is not an option for any State? [BACK TO TOP]
A: No. It only proved that, when allowed to act outside his lawfully limited authority, a U.S. president is capable of unleashing horrendous violence against the lives, liberty, and property of those whom he pretends to serve. The Confederate States (including Texas) withdrew from the Union lawfully, civilly, and peacefully, after enduring several decades of excessive and inequitable federal tariffs (taxes) heavily prejudiced against Southern commerce.[4] Refusing to recognize the Confederate secession, Lincoln called it a "rebellion" and a "threat" to "the government" (without ever explaining exactly how "the government" was "threatened" by a lawful, civil, and peaceful secession) and acted outside the lawfully defined scope of either the office of president or the U.S. government in general, to coerce the South back into subjugation to Northern control.[5]
The South's rejoining the Union at the point of a bayonet in the late 1860s didn't prove secession is "not an option" or unlawful. It only affirmed that violent coercion can be used—even by governments (if unrestrained)—to rob men of their very lives, liberty, and property.[6]
It bears repeating that the united States are "united" explicitly on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." [7]
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Q: Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White prove that secession is unconstitutional?
A: No. For space considerations, here are the relevant portions of the Supreme Court's decision in Texas v. White:
"When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
"...The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union ...remained perfect and unimpaired. ...the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union.
"...Our conclusion therefore is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union." — Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700, 703 (1868)
It is noteworthy that two years after that decision, President Grant signed an act entitling Texas to U.S. Congressional representation, readmitting Texas to the Union.
What's wrong with this picture? Either the Supreme Court was wrong in claiming Texas never actually left the Union (they were — see below), or the Executive (President Grant) was wrong in "readmitting" a state that, according to the Supreme Court, had never left. Both can't be logically or legally true.
To be clear: Within a two year period, two branches of the same government took action with regard to Texas on the basis of two mutually exclusive positions — one, a judicially contrived "interpretation" of the US Constitution, argued essentially from silence, and the other a practical attempt to remedy the historical fact that Texas had indeed left the Union, the very evidence for which was that Texas had recently met the demands imposed by the same federal government as prerequisite conditions for readmission. If the Supreme Court was right, then the very notion of prerequisites for readmission would have been moot — a state cannot logically be readmitted if it never left in the first place.
This gross logical and legal inconsistency remains unanswered and unresolved to this day.
Now to the Supreme Court decision in itself...
The Court, led by Chief Justice Salmon Chase (a Lincoln cabinet member and leading Union figure during the war against the South) pretended to be analyzing the case through the lens of the Constitution, yet not a single element of their logic or line of reasoning came directly from the Constitution — precisely because the Constitution is wholly silent on whether the voluntary association of a plurality of states into a union may be altered by the similarly voluntary withdrawal of one or more states.
It's no secret that more than once there had been previous rumblings about secession among many U.S. states (and not just in the South), long before the South seceded. These rumblings met with no preemptive quashing of the notion from a "constitutional" argument, precisely because there was (and is) no constitutional basis for either allowing or prohibiting secession.
An objective reading of the relevant portions of the White decision reveals that it is largely arbitrary, contrived, and crafted to suit the agenda which it served: presumably (but unconstitutionally) to award to the U.S. federal government, under color of law, sovereignty over the states, essentially nullifying their right to self-determination and self-rule, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, as well as the current Texas Constitution (which stands unchallenged by the federal government).
Where the Constitution does speak to the issue of powers, they resolve in favor of the states unless expressly granted to the federal government or denied to the states. No power to prevent or reverse secession is granted to the federal government, and the power to secede is not specifically denied to the states; therefore that power is retained by the states, as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment.
The Texas v. White case is often trotted out to silence secessionist sentiment, but on close and contextual examination, it actually exposes the unconstitutional, despotic, and tyrannical agenda that presumes to award the federal government, under color of law, sovereignty over the people and the states.
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Third, new States of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provision of the Federal Constitution.
Article 1, Section 1.
THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1. BILL OF RIGHTS
Sec. 1. FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY OF STATE. Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.
Sec. 2. INHERENT POLITICAL POWER; REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit.The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.
Sec. 3. EQUAL RIGHTS. All free men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges, but in consideration of public services.
I don't think it would be a legal issue, but rather, a military issue.
...you forgot New Mexico.
Doesn't the 10th Amendment mention how to interpret the sounds of the Constitution's silence?
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