Texas and Secession

OK, Gov. Perry may have been doing some posturing for the upcoming Primary next year, but what's with all the furor about this remark? Geraldo Rivera, crackshot journalist (I'm going to show you Al Capone's empty vault on live TV!) accused the Governor of committing TREASON of all things. I wonder who is trying to look stupid now? There was nothing treasonous in what Gov. Perry was proposing with his talk of secession. He was merely restating the option that Texas has the right to exercise its sovereign right to secede if the Government of the United States oversteps its authority, and puts the interests of the people of Texas at risk. Before everyone in other states start a scramble to do likewise, you need to know that Texas is unique in all of the United States on this point. When Texas applied for statehood to the United States, we were already a sovereign nation in our own right, fully recognized by the US government. So when Texas joined the Union in 1845, it was not just an annexation of a US territory, but it was done by a treaty between two sovereign powers, with the appropriate language to guarantee the peace and security of their respective peoples. This treaty had to ratified by both nations' legislatures before it could be implimented. One clause was that Texas had the AUTHORITY to secede from the Union if it determined that was the prudent course of action to benefit the people of Texas, but the actions have to be viewed from two different sources: State or Republic.

There will be some who want to argue that Texas' right to secede was abrogated when it was forced to ratify the 14th Amendment with all the other Confederate States at the end of the Civil War but I don't think that would hold up to international law. When acting as the State of Texas, we are bound by the strictures placed on us by the14th Amendment like every other state in the Union. However, as an Independent Republic, joined to the United States by Treaty, which allows the state the option to secede over excesses by the United States government, it is perfectly allowable.

I don't think the country needs to worry that Texas is going to secede. That was a colorful, casual remark with not much passion behind it. However, if the government of the United States tries to get heavy-handed with the people of Texas, I may just lead the fight to secede myself! DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS! (It's so much more than a slogan!)