Can Texas Secede?
When the United States Annexed
Texas, Did They Allow the Former Sovereign Republic
an Escape Clause?
By Howie Doyle
Texas
is not the most humble of states. In fact, some
big-talking Texans have been known to stretch a fact
or two just to make sure that the other states know
exactly where they – or we – are coming from. It’s
almost like a house rule in Texas. You can usually
tell by the trace of a smirk, or the bemused wrinkle
in the corner of an eye, when the truth is being
groomed for future use as a tall tale or legend.
One such legend, which the author has been guilty
of perpetuating is the assertion that Texas is the
only state in the Union that can, upon the will of
the people, secede from the United States and break
into five independent nations.
I have heard this repeated hundreds of times
through the years – mostly in the tone of my own
voice, but by varied and sundry others as well,
ranging from talk show hosts to teachers to the
contractor in the next booth at a restaurant. Our
oral history has established that we “cut a deal”
with the United States when we joined the Union,
because we are Texas with a capital “T.” As Stephen
F. Austin was reputed to have said, “Texas doesn’t
need the United States, but the United States needs
Texas.”
A Blood Feud Attitude The fact that this
assertion is not entirely true doesn’t prevent us
from printing t-shirts, throwing up websites, and
slapping stickers on our bumpers that proclaim,
“SECEDE!” It’s not entirely false, either. And if
technically it would be easier to make pigs fly
under their own power than it would be to secede, we
know we could always jam our Stetsons down tight,
strap on our Colts, and make things happen the way
Texans historically do. Six flags may have flown
over our soil, but today you will see only the Lone
Star flag and Old Glory, and they fly at an equal
height, at that. (Ours is the only state flag which
is deemed appropriate to fly on level with the stars
and stripes, due to our former status as an
independent nation.)
That is not to say that Texans are not American
patriots. In fact, saying that in certain quarters
(generally rural, and further from the spiritual
blight that pervades the ‘big city’) can get you a
Texas-sized spanking. Our great-great-grandfathers
took on Santa Anna’s legion for the cause of
independence. We came to this dance with the United
States, and we will make the same sacrifice for her.
Read the Fine Print There is much tongue-in-cheek
braggadocio and cockiness that accompanies such talk
of secession, but for those interested in the
factual history of the state, the story behind
Texas’s on-again-off-again courtship with the Union
is a fascinating one. Even before Texas took control
of its destiny on the grounds at San Jacinto on
April 21, 1836, the United States had its eye on the
state. With the assertion of its independence,
statesmen from the U.S. and the newly-sovereign
republic began talking annexation. In September,
1836 Texas voted for annexation by a landslide, and
the state made a formal proposal to U.S. President
Martin Van Buren in August, 1837. Van Buren said the
offer could not be accepted, citing concerns of war
with Mexico, as well as thorny constitutional
issues. The U.S. Congress intended to consider the
issue the next year, but former U.S. President John
Quincy Adams took the floor of Congress on June 16,
1838, speaking on the issues of Texas annexation and
slavery, and simply refused to stop talking. After
three weeks of Adams’ filibustering, Congress
adjourned for the summer.
Duly scorned, Texas pulled the offer off the
table. The subject was not advocated again until Sam
Houston began his second term in 1841. The United
States was cool to our overtures, and Houston made
no progress toward uniting Texas with the Union.
At the time of its independence the state of
Texas typified the wildest of the wild west. It was
populated by sporadic clusters of farmers and
ranchers – only 40,000 across the entire state – who
produced their own food and building materials.
There was no trade deficit with other countries
because there was little trade. In the decade that
Texas was bona fide nation we had no national
currency.
Our forebears were scratching at the earth to
create something of value; something that would
last. Texas had few of the amenities at the time
that one associates with civilization, i.e.
organized schools, maintained roads, banks or
manufacturing industries. Law-enforcement consisted
of justices of the peace and sheriffs. We were
pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, confident in
our ability to do so, but perhaps little-aware of
the enormity of the job.
U.S. sentiment toward annexing Texas warmed
considerably in 1843, as it became apparent that
Great Britain had designs on the republic. They
didn’t necessarily want to annex the state, but they
did wish to prevent their upstart American cousins
from doing so for multiple reasons. These included
preventing U.S. expansion to the west, weakening the
U.S. tariff system, thwarting the growth of slavery,
and maximizing its own commercial profit through
trade with Texas.
U.S. President John Tyler was determined to
prevent Texas from becoming Britain’s puppet or
satellite, so he proposed annexation. Tyler and Sam
Houston negotiated a treaty of annexation which was
subsequently rejected by the U.S. Senate in June,
1844. The idea didn’t flatline after this defeat.
James K. Polk was elected to the U.S. Presidency in
1844, partially on the strength of his
pro-annexation campaign platform. The American
people had an interest in Texas.
By the time Polk was elected there was urgency to
complete the annexation in order to prevent the
realization by the British of their strategy.
Sam Houston and other advocates for annexation
realized that the Texas frontierwas shaky as a
political entity; the reach of its independent
spirit probably exceeded the grasp of its ability to
exist as a sovereign nation. The United States had
formidable military might, government programs, and
money.
Some Americans opposed annexing Texas into the
Union because it had the potential of shaking the
political tightrope the nation walked between the
free states and those which advocated slavery. Texas
would add another slave state to the U.S., one
almost four times as large as the largest state at
the time. The northern part of Texas went beyond the
latitude boundary for slavery defined in the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, which created political
problems, if not actually being subject to the terms
of that compromise.
Grand Soap Opera of the Wild West Politicians and
slaveholders in southern states wanted to see Texas
enter the Union as more than one state in order to
counter the previous admission of slave-free states,
even though few Texas citizens were either slave
owners or slaves. It was this faction that accounts
for the whole can of worms about secession.
Under Polk, the United States moved quickly to
complete the annexation by passing a joint
resolution offering Texas statehood.
By the first of March, 1845, Andrew Jackson
Donelson was en route to the Lone Star State,
carrying a “Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to
the United States.” He aimed to ask for Texas’s hand
in marriage.
It was a shotgun wedding, by all accounts, as
public opinion in Texas strongly favored acceptance.
This positive attitude was encouraged by special
agents – lobbyists – sent from America to fan the
flames.
It’s a good thing that nobody asked if there were
any objections to the nuptials. Britain was working
behind the scenes to prevent Texas’s acceptance of
annexation by convincing Mexico to publicly
acknowledge the independence of the Republic of
Texas, provided that Texas not entertain offers of
annexation from any other country.
It was a maneuver worthy of this frontier soap
opera, as Mexico and Britain both hoped that this
acknowledgement would ease Texans’ anxiety about
impending attack from Mexico, and thereby chill the
frontier republic’s interest in gaining military
protection and capital from America.
Division into States, Not Secession The
resolution for annexing Texas included a clause
providing for the subdivison of Texas into four more
states. Under this clause there existed a ban on
slavery in states drawn from territory north of the
36ยบ30’N latitude referenced in the Missouri
Compromise. New states carved from the southern
section could determine their own policy on slavery
by popular vote.
Texans now had a decision to make: to join the
United States, or to remain sovereign with the tacit
approval of both Mexico and Great Britain. These
were the options placed before both the Texas
Congress and a convention of elected delegates in
the summer of 1845, and both chose to join the
United States.
By October, Texas had voted to ratify its State
Constitution, which was then accepted by the U.S.
Congress. On December 29, 1845 President James K.
Polk’s signature on the resolution made Texas a
state. In the ceremonial transfer of authority held
in February, 1846, outgoing Republic of Texas
President Anson Jones declared to new Texas governor
James Pinckney, “The final act in this great drama
is now performed; the Republic of Texas is no more.”
While he certainly got the drama part right, to
this day the sovereign Republic of Texas proudly
lives on in the hearts of many Texans.
A Destiny Blessed and Manifest Big-thinking
Texans were well aligned philosophically with the
United States, as both looked to the western
frontier with visions of manifest destiny.
The ambitious young state of Texas acted to
extend its grasp, promoting claims that Texas’s
territory rightly encompassed half of what is now
the state of New Mexico and extending up into
Colorado. Had Texans prevailed in this claim it
could have created political pressures to divide the
state according to the clause in its Joint
Resolution for Annexation. California was in the
process of joining the U.S. as a free state, and
southerners in and out of Texas wanted equal
representation for their slavery interests.
The odds that Texas would actually be divided
into multiple states diminished in 1850. The nation
admitted California as a free state, and at the same
time the U.S. Congress paid Texas $10 million to
relinquish the territorial claims that could have
invoked a split. By thwarting this possibility at an
early stage, the U.S. Congress – either
intentionally or unintentionally – doused any
existing fires for subdividing Texas. It is notable
that up to this time secession was neither a bone of
contention, nor even a prevalent subject of
discussion. The new state and the nation were doing
well in establishing the balance of their
relationship.
Secession Without Division Much changed in the
U.S. political landscape during the next decade to
upset that balance. In 1861 Texas was compelled to
choose sides as brother prepared to take up arms
against brother in a war that ripped the fabric of
our nation. Slavery in Texas had grown rapidly
following the annexation of the state, and by 1860
slaves constituted approximately 30 percent of the
state’s population.
Southern states had begun seceding to form the
Confederate States of America. Sam Houston, who
served as Texas’s governor from 1859 to 1861,
opposed secession. The avowed Unionist worked to
slow the process, but the fever to secede increased
when, in late 1860, it became likely that Abraham
Lincoln would be elected to the presidency. On the
first day of February, 1861, an unfairly stacked
Secession Convention met and voted in favor of
secession by a margin of 171 to six.
Sam Houston then helped force a public referendum
on the issue upon which citizens voted on February
23, 1861. The results: 46,153 for it, 14,747 against
it. Of voters in 122 counties, only 18 counties
showed a majority against secession.
It was thus decided. Texas seceded from the
United States on March 4th, the same day Abraham
Lincoln was inaugurated as President. Although Sam
Houston opposed the move, cotton-growing Texas sided
with the slaveholding Confederate States of America,
joining just as the Civil War began.
War Grinds to a Halt on Texas Soil It took four
years of harsh battle for the Union to conquer vast
expanses of territory and compel the Confederacy to
surrender. Although General Lee surrendered his Army
of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, the Civil
War’s last land engagement was fought on Texas soil
more than a month later!
The Battle of Palmito Ranch was fought in the
southernmost reaches of Texas on May 13, 1865.
Ironically, this last battle ended with Confederate
victory. By this date, over 560,000 Americans, blue
and gray, had lost their lives.
The Confederate states emerged from the war with
their tails between their legs. By December of 1865
all of the ex-Confederate states except Texas sought
readmission to the United States.
The Unionists in Texas eventually prevailed. In
November, 1869 Texans voted to accept a revised
state constitution. On March 30, 1870, President
Grant signed an act entitling Texas to U.S.
Congressional representation, thereby readmitting
Texas to the Union. But Can Texas Secede?
Many assert (without necessarily advocating the
act) that Texas can secede from the Union. Based on
the fact that the U.S. Constitution does not
prohibit secession, some would interpret any state’s
status as part of the United States as being
voluntary. Supporting this view is language in the
original Texas Constitution of 1836, which was
repeated in the post-Reconstruction Texas
Constutiton of 1876, declaring that, “(The people)
have at all times the inalienable right to alter
their government in such manner as they might think
proper.”
A U.S. Supreme Court decision rendered in 1869
seems to obviate these persistent claims to
sovereignty. Commenting on its 5-3 decision on Texas
v. White, Chief Justice Salmon Chase stated that the
Union is “composed of indestructable states,” and
established on behalf of the high court of the land
that secession is illegal.
Exactly how the division of the Lone Star State
into smaller states is tied to the issue of
secession may be lost to the vagaries of history, or
perhaps, vagaries of logic. It is, however, only the
stuff of legend, as the state’s annexation treaty
did not include any provision to secede.
As much as the author, a Texan, loves and honors
the United States, it is much too distressing to
concede in print that Texas cannot, after all,
lawfully secede. As Patrick Henry may have said were
he a Texan, “Give me liberty or give me vagaries.”
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