Texas Could Vote to Secede From U.S. in 2023 as GOP Pushes for Referendum
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-secede-us...m-1717254?amp=1
BY KHALEDA RAHMAN ON 6/20/22 AT 5:51 AM EDT

U.S. TEXAS SECESSION GOP REPUBLICANS

Texas Republicans are pushing for a referendum to decide whether the state should secede from the U.S.

The demand for Texans to be allowed to vote on the issue in 2023 was one of many measures adopted in the Texas GOP's party platform following last week's state convention in Houston.

Under a section titled "State Sovereignty," the platform states: "Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.

"Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto."

Texas Republicans are pushing for a referendum to see if the state should secede from the U.S. Above, Kenny Wolfam open carries a pistol and wears a "Trump 2020" t-shirt while counter-protesting a "Moms Demand Action" protest at Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston, Texas on June 17, 2021.MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP/GETTY IMAGES

In another section on state governance, the platform states that Texas Republicans want the state Legislature to pass a bill in its next session "requiring a referendum in the 2023 general election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation."

The myth that Texas can secede from the U.S. continues because of the state's history of independence, according to The Texas Tribune. Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and spent nine years as its own nation before becoming a U.S. state. Texas then seceded from the Union in 1861 before being readmitted following the end of the Civil War in 1870.-- excerpt, rest at link above --


Newsweek isn't for it.

Texas Seceding From U.S. 'Would Mean War,' Law Expert Says

BY ADAM STATEN ON 6/20/22 AT 1:38 PM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-seceding-...rt-says-1717392


Texans hoping that the Lone Star State eventually breaks away from the rest of the nation to form a new country are likely to be disappointed when considering what the Supreme Court once said about their options for secession.

A case following the Civil War made it clear that the state's seceding from the United States is an unlikely and untenable scenario. In 1868's Texas v. White decision, the Court said leaving the Union can happen only through one of two ways: "revolution" or "consent of the States."

"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation.... The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States," the Court's ruling read.

At its convention over the weekend, the Republican Party of Texas voted on several measures for possible inclusion into the party's official platform, including one seeking a 2023 referendum on whether the Lone Star State should break away from the United States. The results of that vote are not yet known.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

All I've got to say is "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...."

Can Texas Legally Withdraw From The Union?

June 21, 2022 | TNM Admin

https://tnm.me/news/political/texit-is-it-illegal-for-texas-to-leave-the-union/

Those opposed to Texas becoming an independent nation love to reach into their bag of misinformation and claim that it’s illegal for Texas, or any State, to leave the union. It’s time to set the record straight on Texit and show them to be either misinformed or liars of the highest order.

The following is an excerpt from the book TEXIT: Why and How Texas Will Leave The Union by Daniel Miller. Pick up a copy of this book that will answer all of your TEXIT questions and help you destroy the lies and myths perpetuated by those who are opposed to it.

A common accusation by those opposed to Texit is that the act of leaving the Union is illegal. Let’s be clear. An accusation of the commission of an illegal act implies that those committing it are criminals guilty of a criminal act. Therefore, this is not a light accusation.

When pressed, however, no one seems to be able to point to a specific law that forbids it. Scouring the federal statutes produces no joy for the accuser as there is no law that explicitly forbids any State from asserting its independence. Given the passion with which this accusation is leveled, if it is not found in federal law, then surely it must exist in Texas statute. After all, the State of Nevada included one of the most strongly worded prohibitions on secession in its state constitution.

“But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States.”

However, there is no corresponding constitutional or statutory prohibition in Texas law, either.

It is a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence that something is illegal only if there is a law forbidding it. This is known as the legality principle, expressed in Latin as “nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege,” meaning “no crime without law, nor punishment without law.”

Paul H. Robinson, one of the world’s leading criminal law scholars, described its modern application in 2005.

Quote

---

“In its modern form it means that criminal liability and punishment can be based only upon a prior legislative enactment of a prohibition that is expressed with adequate precision and clarity. The principle is not a legal rule, but rather a legal concept embodied in a series of legal doctrines.”

---

If no law specifically prohibits a State from leaving the Union, then there must be some other law which, in their minds, applies in this instance. When pressed further, the accusation shifts to that of treason.

TEXIT Is Not Treason

The term treason has become an increasingly popular charge in this divisive political climate. While Texit advocates are the recipients of it at a higher than average rate, it has become far more common in federal partisan wrangling. Obama was accused of treason over the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has been accused of treason for his alleged ties to the Russian government. However, those who seem to be quickest to use the term seem to be most clueless as to its meaning.

Drawing from an English statute from 1351 that was created to limit the scope of treason, the framers of the United States Constitution included a specific definition in Article 3, Section 3, which stated that, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Recognizing that accusations of treason were often the tool of tyrants, James Madison explained the necessity to clearly define it in Federalist 43.

Quote

---

“As treason may be committed against the United States the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it: but as new tangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free governments, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the Convention has with great judgment opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger by inserting a Constitutional definition of the crime.”

---

Treason is a criminal act committed by an individual, not a political body and, therefore, cannot be committed by a State. To continue to level the charge of treason, one must believe that the entirety of the population of Texas who would vote in support of Texit would be individually guilty of treason. This, however, completely ignores the constitutional definition of treason.

Such a vote is not levying war against the United States unless one considers casting a ballot as an act of war. Nor is it adhering to or giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States. If so, who would that enemy be? An enemy of the United States is someone who has been declared as such by the United States Congress, generally through a formal declaration of war. In this instance, North Korea might perhaps fit the bill, since the Korean War was never formally concluded.

According to Carlton F.W. Larson, a professor of law at the University of California at Davis, “Certain nonstate actors can also count as enemies, and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State probably fit the definition.”



-- excerpt, rest at link above --