Texians Draw Fire

As is often the case, any argument in favor of an independent Texas usually draws heated responses.  Most run to the fact that Joint Resolutions of Congress fairly annexed Texas into the Union, and that the election of 1845 was fair and legal, both points of which are patently false.  But, let's allow one of our more articulate readers make the points:

I have no problem with your opinions as expressed on your blog - we are all entitled to our own opinion. We are not, however, entitled to our own facts.

"The US president Polk was elected partly on a platform to get Texas into the Union.  The only problem was that Texians had no desire whatsoever to join.  Any vote that came up was soundly defeated."

This is a complete falsehood. The referendum on annexation received 94.4% of the vote in favor of joining the USA.

OCTOBER 13, 1845
Annexation ordinance and state constitution submitted to the Texas voters for approval. (The vote tally on November 10, 1845, was 4,254 to 267 in favor of annexation; the total vote, compiled January 1, 1846, was 7,664 to 430 in favor of annexation.) 
Sure, you can claim that was illegal as well, but you certainly can't use the argument that the people of Texas were against annexation. And, if you claim that was illegal, you can't turn around and say that secession was OK because of a referendum.

As far as annexation via resolution being unconstitutional in the US:

DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901)
"A treaty made by that power is said to be the supreme law of the land, as efficacious as an act of Congress; and, if subsequent and inconsistent with an act of Congress, repeals it. This must be granted, and also that one of the ordinary incidents of a treaty is the cession of territory, and that the territory thus acquired is acquired as absolutely as if the annexation were made, as in the case of Texas and Hawaii, by an act of Congress."

And as far as secession, it was illegal once Texas' government and people chose annexation:

Texas v. White, United States Supreme Court, (1868) 
"The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States."
Q. E. D.

Sorry, but by the standard of "the Will of the People," the people of Texas consented to annexation in 1845, and the nation they chose to join did not have an opt-out clause. They should have read the fine print. Actually, not even the fine print - the preamble says "to form a more perfect union." You don't get a "more perfect Union" by allowing states to leave at a whim.

Texas can be independent via the 49 other states agreeing to it, or by fighting and winning a war of independence. Good luck with either option.

One more small detail (and believe me, I skipped a LOT of items that are inaccurate in your post): Texas did indeed join the Confederacy. 

On March 23, 1861, the Texas Secession Convention ratified the CSA Constitution.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/23march1861.html

The people of the State of Texas assembled by delegates in Convention, ordain, That the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, adopted March 11th, 1861, by the Congress of the Provisional Government of said Confederacy, for the permanent government thereof, subject to ratification by the respective States, is hereby ratified, accepted, and adopted for the purposes therein expressed on the part of this State, acting in its sovereign and independent character.

This reader did a fine job of making my points, and I wish to thank him or her (was not clear from the information provided).  And to finish the argument, I simply need to point out that the words, "annexation of foreign countries" do not appear anywhere in either the Constitution of the united States or of The Republic of Texas.  Therefore, Joint Resolutions of Congress have no validity under either system of law.  It was no more legal or valid than the annexation of Iraq, which is also a captive nation of war.


So, let's examine the points one at a time, shall we?

The vote tally on November 10, 1845, was 4,254 to 267 in favor of annexation

 I re-iterate the point that annexation has no force under either Texas nor US law, nor under international law. Furthermore, 4,521 votes were registered in that referendum.  At the time, Texas had a registered population of roughly 200,000 people.  Damn it, Jim!  I'm an artist, not a mathematician, but that looks to me like about 97% of the population opposed, or at least didn't give a rat's (expletive) about joining the US.  And that assumes that the election was fair and lawful, which they rarely are.


Strike three comes with the vote to secede in 1861, which saw a 4-to-1 ratio vote in favor of independence a mere 18 years later.
Just to close the case, there were several attempts to vote Texas into the Union before the one cited by the reader, and those were completely rejected.  Thus, I question the veracity of the election, since the turn-out was so low and since it went in favor of Union, which had been rejected so many times before.


To address the reader's other point here, I did not claim that the 1845 election was illegal, I said that the 1865 election was, since only those who swore allegiance to the Union were allowed to vote.  Hardly a fair referendum, I'd say.


The reader goes on to quote DeLima v. Bidwell, which was decided 40-odd years after the fact and is the basis for the globalist take-over of the US at the present time through treaties such as Kyoto and Agenda 21, which any red-blooded Unionist would surely point to as treasonous.  I hardly find that conclusive, since grandfathering is considered illegal in our current system of law.  It's akin to outlawing the use of cars and then throwing anyone in jail who once used one before the enactment of the law.  And none of that argument makes the word "annexation" appear in the Constitution.  My copy is still bereft of any mention of the word.


Under international law, only a treaty has any force of law.  Joint Resolutions of Congress do not appear anywhere in the ICC or other international codes.  We are talking about relations between nations.  The reader is assuming a relationship akin to statehood.  Quite different beasts, that.


The reader goes on to say that the Union does not have an opt-out clause, yet in the First Amendment, the right of the people to associate is well understood and has considerable precedent.  The right of contract is also a fundamental part of Western law.  Joining an organization involves both association and contract.  If one party fails to live up to its obligations, then the other party has the absolute right to dissolve its bond.


This concept is at the very heart of the Declaration of Independence.  By the reader's argument, the colonies did not have the right to dissolve their bond with England, and so the very existence of the Union is without substance, therefore it does not have the power to annex or otherwise create States within itself.


By extension, if I were to join the Kiwanis Club under certain obligations and conditions, and the Kiwanis failed to meet their part of the bargain, I would not be allowed to quit the Club.  This argument is false prima facie.


The reader points to the concept of 'a more perfect Union.'  Yet, I would argue that not only was the Union dysfunctional at the time Texas and the Confederacy seceded, but in fact has become more so since that time.  Therefore, since the Union has failed to perfect itself, and has devolved from its original state, therefore ipso facto the States have not only the right but the obligation to dissolve from the Union, and seek to form yet a more perfect one outside the existing bounds.


As for the point about joining the Confederacy, the reader points to Texas' ratification of the Constitution of the CSA.  To that, I simply state that Texas acted in every way as a soverign nation, with president and Congress whose powers and activities were in every way equal to the president of the Confederacy and the US.  Does that sound like a subordinate state to a union to you?  I didn't think so.


I thank the reader for his or her well-reasoned argument and citations.  I agree that it is hard to sort out the truth in a land where autocratic fascism has rewritten the history books.  However, I also have the advantage of being a seventh generation Texian and the son of a politician/historian.  My information comes a bit more direct from the horses' mouth than most textbooks dare provide.


My family's root far exceed those of either the US or the Republic of Texas.  We helped found the Republic.  We also support and uphold the autonomy of the indiginous nations of the Comanche, Kickapoo, Lupan Apache, and Navajo, as well as others.  As conquered peoples of the American empire, we can certainly sympathize with their plight.


Sailing around planting flags does not claim the soil, any more than five flags on the face of the Moon make it the sole possession of the US.  The native rights of those who live on and work the soil are supreme, in any course of law.  That is something established in English law as far back as the Magna Carta, and even as far as Roman administrative law.  While the reader presents a fine argument, there are numerous holes in it, including presumptions and prejudices that hold no weight.  


I have posted the email in toto and I leave it to the good folks who come here daily to decide.  I clearly stated in my original post that I had neither the time nor the space to present the entire argument.  Therefore, there are many parts missing.  I invited the reader to examine the facts for themselves, just as I did.  I hope it is clear that I do not make decisions lightly or without ample proof.


In summary, I offer the words of Thomas Jefferson, who built a fine argument in favor of dissolving ties with England, that most Americans can find little fault with:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

And from the Texas Declaration of Independence:

"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression."

I see no further need to argue the point.