From Pine View Farm

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Of course, facts never stopped a Republican before. Dick Polman analyzes Rick Perry’s secessionist fantasies.

The fact is, Texas can’t secede even if it wanted to. In the 1845 language that brought Texas into the union, there isn’t a single word about any secession option. One might also suggest that the secession issue was settled forever in 1865, after 600,000 American soldiers lost their lives fighting over it. The bottom line, however, is that the U.S. Supreme Court settled it in an 1869 ruling…which means that the so-called Texas secession option has been judicially dead for the last 140 years.

From the decision in Texas v. White: “When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States.”

The current Texas governor, we can assume, isn’t really as dense about Texas history as he appears. This was all just a calculated bid to gin up the GOP extremists (for political reasons that I will mention shortly). His calculation is actually easy to spot. Because while Perry purports to be outraged by big government in Washington – last week he called it “oppressive” and condemned its “interference with the affairs of our state” – in reality he is in constant pursuit of big government’s bucks. And whenever he brings that “oppressive” money home to Texas, he brags about it.

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2 comments

  1. Karen

    April 21, 2009 at 1:20 pm

    Perry may know it’s not an option, but I’d wager his audience doesn’t. Look who he’s playing to. In a word: Rednecks, all the way around. The “gimme my guns & beer” crowd. To find that crowd, you have to look beyond Houston, or Dallas, Austin, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, any of the bigger cities. If you have a hard time finding them, they’re the ones who are yelling he can treat his woman any way he wants to & the guvmint better not get in his way.

    Those are the ones who don’t know the ability to secede was taken out of the equation.

     
  2. Frank

    April 21, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    They’re still fighting the War of Northern Aggression.