Is Texas Headed for Secession?
By Carole Hornsby Haynes February 6, 2024
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." Confederate President Jefferson Davis - States Rights
In his January 24 statement on Texas’ Constitutional right to self-defense against invasion, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.” This sounds strikingly similar to the language in the secession ordinances of Southern states that asserted the states were united under the compact known as the Constitution which lays out certain responsibilities of the federal government and the executive branch toward the states. It was the abdication of those responsibilites that triggered the Southern states to “dissolve the union.”
Despite the current narrative that secession was illegal as well as treasonous, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that forbids a state from leaving the Union. Indeed the guiding principle of our War for Independence from Great Britain was that all people have a right to consent to those who govern them. A nonrevised history of the founding of America proves that the Constitution would never have been ratified if the state’s right to secede was denied. Yet in his 1861 Inaugural Address Lincoln refuted this: “The Union of these States is perpetual.”
Although the states expected to be treated equally under the union, a federal tariff -- tax – was imposed on European manufactured goods to protect New England merchants. Because the South was an import-dependent section, its citizens paid as much as 80 percent of the tax. The average tariff rate of 15 percent was increased by the 1861 Morrill Tariff to 37.5 percent and covered a far greater list of items. Shortly afterwards, the tariff was raised yet again to 47.06 percent. The South decided that it no longer could give its consent to be governed and seceded from the union.
Owing his election to his support of protectionism, Republican President Lincoln vowed in his first inaugural address to collect the taxes even it meant invasion. He said he had no intention of disturbing slavery while admitting that he had no constitutional right to do so anyhow. Yet when the states seceded and refused to pay the tariff, Lincoln manipulated the Confederates – as he later admitted – into firing the first shot at the tariff collection point of Fort Sumter,built and owned by South Carolina. This attack served to enflame Northern opinion and started a war that claimed the lives of 620,000 Americans.
At that time, 95 percent of the U.S. government’s revenue came from import tariffs. The South paid as much as 80 percent of the tariff with most of it being spent on the Northern economy and very little benefit to the South. Loss of that income to the federal government and the North would be devastating. Because the Northern economy was dependent upon manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton, loss of that would be devastating.
After the bloody American Revolution in which people lost lives, property, and fortunes to gain their freedom from a tyrannical Great Britain, the colonials did not intend to swap one tyrannical government for new one. Therefore, they were very cautious about their sovereign rights as states. Yet now the Southern states were being forced militarily to remain within the union.
More than 160 years later, Texas finds itself again subjected to federal tyranny that is encouraging an invasion of people from all over the world. Will Texas secede again?
Last week Nikki Haley said that Texas could secede. After the media pounced on her, she caved and now claims that Texas does not have the right to secede. Her confusion is not surprising. Here is a passage that in often included in news stores -- verbatim. “The Union’s victory over the Confederates in the Civil War, as well as the 1869 Supreme Court decision Texas v. White, which maintained that states cannot unilaterally secede from the United States, largely settled the question.”
Have Americans forgotten that, under the Constitution, only Congress – not the Supreme Court nor the president nor any war – has the legislative authority to pass laws? A decision by the Supreme Court is not law but only their interpretation and, too often, the Supreme Court of unelected, tenured and often left leaning judges, is wrong.
Immediately upon being sworn into office, Biden signed a Proclamation which ended construction on President Trump’s southern border wall. Since then at least 3.8 million illegal aliens – more than the population of least 22 states – have walked through the Southern open border, according to nonpublic data from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by the House Judiciary Committee.
By some estimates, more than six million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border into the U.S. under the Biden administration. Although many come from Mexico and Central America, we really have no idea how many come from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South America to escape poverty, violence, and desperation. Thousands of single military age men from Communist China have been crossing the border into Texas.
Mass illegal immigration began under Obama as a key strategy for the transformation of America and Biden is continuing the implementation. Texas has become a land of violence, crime, drugs, child trafficking, and migrants who are on the Terrorism Watch List. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, between 2011 and end of January 2024, “299,000 illegal aliens were charged with more than 513,000 criminal offenses which included arrests for 950 homicide charges; 64,833 assault charges; 9,307 burglary charges; 60,295 drug charges; 1150 kidnapping charges; 25,759 theft charges; 39,993 obstructing police charges; 2,933 robbery charges; 6,487 sexual assault charges; 7,476 sexual offense charges; and 6,253 weapon charges.”
Biden’s open border policy is placing a heavy financial burden on Texans. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the cost to Texas alone for the estimated 2.2 million illegal aliens and their 766,000 U.S. born children living in the Lone Star state is more than $13 billion each year. Ten million of that is targeted for public education. Out of a student enrollment of 5.9 million in Texas public schools, nearly 900,000 are from illegal households. Nearly 11 percent of American students attend Texas public schools.
President Biden continued to ignore Gov. Abbott’s series of letters, including one personally delivered, which demanded that he perform his constitutional duties. Therefore, Abbott directed the installation of razor wire along a 30-mile stretch of the border with Mexico to stop the invasion of illegal immigrants.
The Secretary of Homeland Security challenged the razor wire in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-to-4 decision the court ruled that federal authorities could remove the razor wire, leaving the border wide open for millions more to cross the southern border into Texas. This was a ruling against America since many of these illegals move from border states into the nation’s interior.
Abbott has refused to remove the wire, noting in his statement that Biden’s lawless border policies have allowed more than 6 million illegal immigrants to cross the Texas southern border in three years, more than the population of 33 states in America. He cited the Constitution as the authority for Texas to repel the invasion. To protect states from lawless presidents who do not enforce federal laws protecting states, the Framers included Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3 that allows states to use force, up to and including “war,” in case of invasion. “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress ... engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” He also placed the federal government on notice that the Texas military will be used:
The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.
There is no question that America is being invaded through its southern border and the federal government is not only not trying to stop it but is actively encouraging it. Regardless of what judges may say, the states were created first and then they created the federal government while retaining their sovereign entity under the Constitution, including the right to stop invasions or deal with imminent danger.
In his recent commentary, General Michael Flynn explained the precedence of states taking the lead on military action without consulting Congress. Flynn’s first example is that of future Chief John Marshall arguing the right of states to self-defense during the Virginia debates over ratification of the Constitution.
In the Confederation, Congress had this power [to repel invasions]; but the state legislatures had it also.... To me it appears, then, unquestionable that the state governments can call forth the militia, in case the Constitution should be adopted, in the same manner as they could have done before its adoption. [W]hat excludes every possibility of doubt, is the last part of it – that “no state shall engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.” [J. Eliot, The debates in the several state conventions on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. III, 419-420 (J.B. Lippincott: 1901)
Flynn also cited the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. 1 (1820):
“It is obvious that there are two ways by which the militia may be called into service; the one is under State authority, the other under authority of the United States.” Id. At 36. Even in dissent, Justice Story agreed that when Congress stands by, “the States [may] sufficiently provide for their own safety against ... the sudden invasion of a foreign enemy.” Id. At 51-52
Flynn noted that numerous state courts have agreed on the right of states to use military force to defend themselves against invasion. In Pennsylvania:
[I]t is said that protection against invasion and insurrection is a Federal duty. True, it is so by an express grant of power. But, by the same constitution, every right not delegated is reserved to the states or people; and I find no clause in the constitution by which the right of self-protection is taken away from the states, in all respects. On the contrary, I find that in time of war, or when actually invaded, or in imminent danger not admitting of delay, the right of the state to keep troops or ships of war is reserved by express exception. [Speer v. School Directors, etc. of Blairsville, 50 Pa. 150, 164-165 (1865)
If the federal government continues to do nothing to stop the invasion, will Texas move toward TEXIT? It is highly unlikely that Texas will secede at this point.
The TEXIT movement has been growing rapidly in Texas. When its leaders tried to get a secession referendum on the primary ballot, the Republican Party refused. Excuse? Party leaders said most of the signatures were fake. Most of 100,000 signatures were fake? TEXIT leaders then approached the Texas Supreme Court and found a roadblock there. It seems that Republican establishment hacks are touting that secession is treasonous. Sound any different from the 1860s?
If Texas tried to secede, we could expect the federal government to use military force to keep the state in the union of states just as it did in the 1860s. The loss of Texas’s vast natural resources and taxes would be a devastating financial blow to the federal government just as loss of the tariff income from the South would have been for the federal government.
Although it may sound simple for Texas to secede and function as a country once again given its large land mass, population, and natural resources, there would be many hurdles to overcome, more especially at this time with the world engulfed in flames. But these are desperate times and Americans finally have awakened to the reality. If the federal government continues on its tyrannical path, people will rise up to protect their freedom. We could face open warfare and the beginning of a breakup of the union.
Interest in secession and nullification has been gathering steam for several decades and will continue to do so. Decentralization with a return to our founding principles of federalism and away from D.C.’s highly centralized, highly corrupt, and bloated inefficient bureaucracy is the only way that America will be able to survive as a free nation.