With chatter about Texas leaving the union on the rise, two new books remind us what it was like the last time we tried to go it alone.
Secession
An 'Atlantic" piece says there are — but does that really mean anything in a population of 29.1 million people?
A mutual desire to secede from the republic makes for strange bedfellows.
Too many people, most of whom don’t know what they’re talking about. In defense of our (mostly) great state.
When citizens petitioned the White House to release their beer recipe, the WH responded in less than a month. Texas secession will take longer.
A petition calling for the Obama administration to let Texas secede from the United States had more than 95,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning.
The state attorney general on Obamacare, secession, and challenges to Texas sovereignty.
The matter of whether Rick Perry has advocated secession arose on Fox News last night. He insisted that he has never used the s-word, except to refer to signs at tea party rallies that say "SECEDE." As far as I know, he is right. Here is what Perry did say back on April 15, 2009, during a raucous aftermath of an Austin tea party rally, when a reporter shouted out: “Some have associated you with the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state.…” Perry replied, “Texas is a unique place. When we came in the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.” Not true, and it's rather amazing that Perry made such an egregious historical error. He didn't use the s-word, but what he did say was incorrect. Texas did not enter the union with the right "to be able to leave if we decided to do that." It's pretty much American History 101 that states don't have the right to leave the Union. Hundreds of thousand of Americans gave their lives to preserve that principle.
America could have two governors who favor secession after the November elections. The other would be congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee, who is trailing Bill Haslam by 36% to 25% in the latest Mason-Dixon poll. The Hotline quotes Wamp as saying that Tennessee and other states “may have…
A writer for the online Texas Republic News ("Dios, Libertad, y Tejas") has discovered that Texas Monthly once advocated that the state secede from the Union. It's true. The cover story ("Is Texas Too Big for its Britches?") ran in January 1975, and we sold a lot of magazines. We knew that secession sells 34 years before Rick Perry did. "I thought it kind of amusing that among those weighing in on the matter was Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka,' writes author James Aalan Bernsen, 'who loudly proclaimed that bringing up secession and independence made Perry look like a kook. It’s like the “S” word was somehow poisonous, racist or hate-filled." (No, just, well, kooky.) Editorial by James Aalan Bernsen - Texas Republic News
John Sharp has a spot on YouTube criticizing his former, or perhaps current, and possibly even future friend Rick Perry for his remarks about secession. Here is the text of "The Greatest Country on Earth," in which Sharp does not mention Perry by name: During World War II my father was shot in defense of the greatest country on Earth, and I proudly wore the uniform of a United States Army reserve officer. So I'm offended when it becomes acceptable for anybody to talk about Texas leaving the Union. I'm running for the United States Senate because we need mainstream, common-sense leadership to clean up the mess in Washington, D.C., not a bunch of radical, anti-American rhetoric. I'm John Sharp and you bet I approve this message. The words "mainstream," "common-sense," and "leadership" appear on screen as Sharp utters them. Sharp looks, well, sharp in the spot, but it struck me as weird that, as a candidate for the Senate, he attacked the governor. Sharp has a problem with some Democrats who are less than thrilled that he bailed Perry out of a tight spot by agreeing to lead the campaign for a reformed business tax in 2006, giving Perry cover for passing a tax that was identified more with Sharp than with Perry. I hear reports that Perry and Sharp remain close and talk frequently; this makes me think more of both of them, but I doubt that Democrats would have the same reaction. The YouTube video allows Sharp to try to distance himself from Perry.
The secession controversy generated by Rick Perry has a long history in Texas politics, going all the way back to Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar, the first and second presidents of the Republic of Texas. The two presidents had totally different visions of Texas, which persist today. Houston recognized…
