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Texas secession?

Texas secession?

  • Anytime they want

    Votes: 47 54.7%
  • Bad times only

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • No way

    Votes: 35 40.7%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 3.5%

  • Total voters
    86
Let me pose a hypothetical question...

IF a large majority of Texans (or whatever state, really) decided they didn't want to be part of the USA anymore....

... what is your moral justification for making them stay? And could this justification also be used to prevent someone as an individual from leaving the US and renouncing their citizenship, but taking their assets with them?


I'll be interested in the answers to this...
 
Germany is techincally a "Federation of States" many of which were independent up until the Prussians forced a unification. We should allow them to split up into a whole bunch of warring factions? Cause that sounds like a great recipe for peace to have a major nation plum in the middle of Europe.

Fine, secede. We'll be sending in troops to occupy Federal property, and the Interstate Highways we built. We'll also be confiscating your currency, as it's United States currency. Enjoy converting everybody's life savings into pesos.

sending troops into Texas would be one choice the federal government could make.. or they could decide to negotiate a mutually amendable break.

war is not the only option, but it certainly is an option.

I don't really understand the anti-secessionist habit of calling for war as the first option.
 
Ya'll know why Texas doesn't fall off into the Gulf of Mexico?



Because Oklahoma sucks so much:mrgreen:
 
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Its not a question of why should anyone want to leave. Its a question of can they leave. Telling me I can't leave because its good for me, doesn't sound good to me.

Quantrill

No, they can't leave. It's a union, set up by the Constitution, to have the state subordinate to the federal government. Seceding is balking at that chain of authority. The only way people can revolt or a state can secede is "repeated, multiplied oppressions’ placing it beyond all doubt ‘that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties,’ could warrant the concerted resistance of the people against their government".
 
Texas is a state, not a nation. By the laws of the Constitution, the state is under the federal government in terms of level of authority. Texas agreed to return to the union after their treasonous joining of the Confederacy.

If anything, Texas (and all the states of the southern Confederacy) should be on the record as being treasonous.

I simply don't see leaving the union as treason. Treason means to help a foreign government make war against or to help a foreign government overthrow one's government. If Texas were to secede, it would not be helping any foreign government make war against any of the several states, or against the government of the union. It would simply be leaving them alone, and going its own way. It is a non-violent act. The only violence would be if the other states conquered and occupied it.

And again, I just don't understand why anyone, say, in Pennsylvania would feel that they have any authority to rule over the people of the state of Texas. But I guess that's just me; I'm not a control freak.

Furthermore, if the dollar crashed, are you saying it would behoove Texas to leave the union and the dollar and start their own currency? How would that help?

I'm saying they ought to be able to, not that they necessarily should.
 
It was never settled by a question of 'right' or 'legal'. It was settled by war. Might made the right. And were a state to try it again, the same thing would occur. Your free. Just don't try to leave.

You make a good point.
 
Germany is techincally a "Federation of States" many of which were independent up until the Prussians forced a unification. We should allow them to split up into a whole bunch of warring factions? Cause that sounds like a great recipe for peace to have a major nation plum in the middle of Europe.

Fine, secede. We'll be sending in troops to occupy Federal property, and the Interstate Highways we built. We'll also be confiscating your currency, as it's United States currency. Enjoy converting everybody's life savings into pesos.

And using another European example, I'm sure a British occupation and economic destruction of a seceding Scotland would work out so well in the long run. :roll:
 
No, they can't leave. It's a union, set up by the Constitution, to have the state subordinate to the federal government. Seceding is balking at that chain of authority. The only way people can revolt or a state can secede is "repeated, multiplied oppressions’ placing it beyond all doubt ‘that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties,’ could warrant the concerted resistance of the people against their government".

Where in the Constitution prior to 1861 does it state that a state cannot leave the Union?

Quantrill
 
How would the union survive if every state was free to come and go when it benefits them?

Maybe it wouldn't. But one would hope that it would provide enough of a benefit to make people want to remain members. There are valid reasons for states to form federations, so maybe the union wouldn't disappear. It might just get reshuffled somewhat, or broken up into two or three neighbor federations.

My position is that it is the right of the people of each sovereign state to decide into what compacts and treaties they wish to engage.
 
Why do you say ethnic and religious now? You didn't say it before.

Quantrill

I was addressing Kosovo when I talked about that. You responded to that by bringing in the Civil War as an example of the government repressing an ethnic and religious minority in the United States. So I just want to know which ethnic or religious group that dominated the South but not the North was being oppressed.
 
I think Texas should seceed. Then, when Dorothy's house get's swept up in a tornado, it will have a nice place to land with lot's of yellow brick roads. It can make an outsider feel like they are walking in fantasy land as they interact with the locals and hear them speak and talk about their views. Just like the merry ol' land of Oz I suppose.

Speaking in the most general of terms, of course, Texans choose their own realities I have come to learn. They have a long history of folklore and an honorable sense of BS that is both pleasant and sometimes cloaked in wisdom. The Lone Star state is a rare situation. Texan's are Texan's first and American's second, but you would be hard pressed to get them to come right out and say it. It's been that way since Judge Roy Bean and reality has been nurtured to flow in the true Texas way since Peco's Bill roped that tornado.

There's the facts and the truths and the Texas realities. Perception is reality. There is a lot of John Wayne reality in the outskirts of Texas and it cannot be denied as there are a LOT of outskirts in Texas.

Don't mess with Texas.

God bless Texas.
 
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I simply don't see leaving the union as treason. Treason means to help a foreign government make war against or to help a foreign government overthrow one's government.

Most interpretations of treason see any attempt to bring down a legitimate government, without cause, as treason. Guy Fawkes was executed as a traitor, and he tried to kill the King. He didn't conspire with foreign governments. It doesn't require foreign help to be treasonous. All it takes is trying to disrupt the function of said government without just cause. Syria isn't in the midst of a treasonous wave of actions, because there are legitimate levels of oppression by the state.

If Texas were to secede, it would not be helping any foreign government make war against any of the several states, or against the government of the union. It would simply be leaving them alone, and going its own way. It is a non-violent act. The only violence would be if the other states conquered and occupied it.

So that's my point. What would be the point of calling it a union if all states are able to come and go when they please? We would have no foundation for a nation, just independent states that share borders but are otherwise 100% sovereign from each other.

Arbitrary secession is not only illegal under the Constitution, I doubt the Framers were dumb enough to think that a new nation could survive by letting each state go it's own way without some point of singular authority.

And again, I just don't understand why anyone, say, in Pennsylvania would feel that they have any authority to rule over the people of the state of Texas. But I guess that's just me; I'm not a control freak.

It's got nothing to do with "control" and everything to do with a working system. The Framers set about creating a nation that was a union of independent states under the limited guidance of the federal government. If they wanted a free state sh!tshow, why did they even bother creating the federal government?

I'm saying they ought to be able to, not that they necessarily should.

They shouldn't. It sets a bad precedent, that any time a state doesn't get what it wants, it can just leave the nation. Imagine our political system in which each state can threaten to leave the union as a bargaining chip in Congress. Texas says, "either get rid of our income tax or we'll leave, become sovereign and put an oil embargo on you."

You think the political system in deadlocked now, just imagine this brave new America.
 
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sending troops into Texas would be one choice the federal government could make.. or they could decide to negotiate a mutually amendable break.

war is not the only option, but it certainly is an option.

I don't really understand the anti-secessionist habit of calling for war as the first option.

It doesn't have to be war. I'd just want to make sure that we protect our assets while a "mutual break" can be worked out.
 
I was addressing Kosovo when I talked about that. You responded to that by bringing in the Civil War as an example of the government repressing an ethnic and religious minority in the United States. So I just want to know which ethnic or religious group that dominated the South but not the North was being oppressed.

First of all, the right to seced is not based on oppression. If a state wants to seced, it had the right period.

The Southern states were being oppressed. They consisted of the Southern white people.

Quantrill
 
It doesn't have to be war. I'd just want to make sure that we protect our assets while a "mutual break" can be worked out.

sending troops in is an act of naked force, an act of war... no matter what verbiage you cloak it in.
 
Most interpretations of treason see any attempt to bring down a legitimate government, without cause, as treason. Guy Fawkes was executed as a traitor, and he tried to kill the King. He didn't conspire with foreign governments. It doesn't require foreign help to be treasonous. All it takes is trying to disrupt the function of said government without just cause. Syria isn't in the midst of a treasonous wave of actions, because there are legitimate levels of oppression by the state.



So that's my point. What would be the point of calling it a union if all states are able to come and go when they please? We would have no foundation for a nation, just independent states that share borders but are otherwise 100% sovereign from each other.

Arbitrary secession is not only illegal under the Constitution, I doubt the Framers were dumb enough to think that a new nation could survive by letting each state go it's own way without some point of singular authority.



It's got nothing to do with "control" and everything to do with a working system. The Framers set about creating a nation that was a union of independent states under the limited guidance of the federal government. If they wanted a free state sh!tshow, why did they even bother creating the federal government?



I'm saying they ought to be able to, not that they necessarily should.
[/QUOTE]

Where in the Constitution prior to 1861 does it say secession is illegal?

Quantrill
 
Let me pose a hypothetical question...

IF a large majority of Texans (or whatever state, really) decided they didn't want to be part of the USA anymore....

... what is your moral justification for making them stay? And could this justification also be used to prevent someone as an individual from leaving the US and renouncing their citizenship, but taking their assets with them?


I'll be interested in the answers to this...



And the crickets say.... chirp.... chirp.... chirp....

...as nobody wants to take that one on apparently....
 
Ha! The slaves weren't oppressed, it was the white people who owned slaves! They were the ones being oppressed!

Revisionism, anyone?

seems to me that there was no shortage of oppression occurring.
yes, slaves were oppressed... but that doesn't preclude the union from oppressing the south.. it just means that the union's oppression was more palatable than the
slave owners oppression.
 
And the crickets say.... chirp.... chirp.... chirp....

...as nobody wants to take that one on apparently....

A small group of people in relation to a large national population have no right to forcibly excuse themselves from their rightful place in the levels of government. They have a right to leave the nation and take all their stuff with them and renounce the US and all that but they do not have a right to remake their section of the nation however they see fit.
 
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