| 1. Josh is absolutely right that DeLay is confused and can't make up his mind. He seems to alternately suggest that Texas can secede, that it can't secede, but it can force the Senate to kick Texas out, and that it can't secede. DeLay's position seems to be "I have no idea what I stand for, except for the fact that I'm right." Well, isn't that always the conservative position? Isn't that why we invaded Iraq?
But there's much more wrong here.
2. Texas did not join the US via treaty. There was a treaty, but it was rejected by the Senate. So Texas was admitted by a joint resolution.
From Wikipedia:
In 1843, the United Kingdom opposed annexation, but President John Tyler decided to support annexation. Despite Mexican dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna warning that annexation would be "equivalent to a declaration of war," Tyler signed the treaty of annexation with Texas in April 1844. The Senate overwhelmingly rejected it on June 8: 35 to 16. The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate to confirm a treaty.
James K. Polk, a strong supporter of territorial expansion, won the presidency in November 1844. Tyler, knowing the Senate would not ratify the treaty, changed course and had his allies in Congress submit the annexation bill as a joint resolution in December. With President-elect Polk's quiet support, Congress approved annexation on 28 February 1845. The vote in the Senate was 27 to 25.
3. Texas can't split up into five states like some sort of super-amoeba. The provision referred to already allowed parts of other states to be carved out of Texas territory. You don't get a do-over to carve things up differently over 150 years later. Wikipedia again:
Both the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas and The Ordinance of Annexation contains this language providing the basis for forming up to four additional states from the present Texas:
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 provisions of the Federal Constitution.
Land from the Republic of Texas became major parts of New Mexico and Colorado, and smaller parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. No additional states have ever been carved from Texas.
4. There is an entire mythos about Texas having some sort of special right to secede. Again, Wikipedia shoots this down, even citing a Supreme Court decision specifically denying that Texas has the right to secede:
A popular urban legend has grown stating that Texas has a special right to secede from The Union. A thorough reading of all documents for annexation shows that no provision is made for Texas to secede from the United States. [5] Texas has the same rights granted to it as any other state, but also the right to form from its territory 4 states in addition to "Texas", essentially creating 5 states. [6] Furthermore, in its 1868 decision in Texas v. White, the United States Supreme Court ruled that secession of Texas from the United States was illegal. The court wrote, "The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States."
6, WIkipedia also shoots down the notion that because Texas wasn't admitted by treaty, the annexation wasn't valid:
While this was an awkward, if not unusual, Treaty process it was fully accepted by all parties involved, and more importantly all parties performed on those agreements making them legally binding. see Contract Law
7. Furthermore, Texas already tried seceding once--remember the Civil War? Well, Texas lost the Civil War, along with the rest of the South. End. Of. Story.
8. Although it's a bit garbled in this clip as well as elsewhere, the general sense behind this, as a fallback position, is that Perry is just standing up for "Texas state sovereignty" and "10th Amendment rights" which are supposedly being trampled by Obama and the Democratic Congress.
(8a) Well, if that were true, there's an easy remedy: the federal court system. That's what we've been doing for a couple of centuries now. Except, of course, when Texas and the other Southern Stats tried secession and Civil War instead. (Pardon me, I meant to say, "The War of Southern Aggression.")
(8b) And besides, this is patently false. The 10th Amendment says:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
But the right to tax and spend--which is what these folks seem to be all riled up about, clearly is "delegated to the United States by the Constitution", including the 16th Amendment, which authorized the income tax.
Now, there's so much bullshit being slung by the GOP these days that it's always dangerous at best, and downright wrong at worst to think you've spotted and refuted it all. So let's just say that this is at least a "good enough" refutation of the most eggreggious lies jumbled together by the likes of Tom DeLay in the above clip. |
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