Let Texas Split

[melchar]

The reprehensible Republican party in Texas voted to secede from the US. They can't do that. Texas CAN split into 5 states: do that. The US keeps the state's north part & it's called 'Texas'. The south part becomes a new state - let's call it 'Houston'. It doesn't ask to join the US. Problem solved.

Comments

[dantesspirit]

LOL. It'll never happen.

West Virginia Republicans have been trying to get parts of Virginia to join them *and* secede for decades.

[melchar]

With Texas, the option to divide into 5 states at a later time was part of their articles of confederation when Texas joined as a state. I don't know if West Virginia included that option when it became a state, so I believe the permissions are different.

[dantesspirit]

Even if the 1845 annexation agreement was still able to be applied, it says absolutely nothing about *leaving the Union*. Only that they can break up into 4 additional states *and* Texas (hence, '5 states').

In the 1869 Texas v White, the Supreme Court held that individual states could not unilaterally secede from the Union and that the acts of the insurgent Texas Legislature, even if ratified and agreed to by the majority of Texans, was 'absolutely null'. That even before the Civil War, states never had a legal right to secede, once they joined, that was it (essentially *none* of the states that tried to secede during the War, never actually did.)

That's the same reason WVa can't secede and can't take Va counties with them. SC Justice Scalia reaffirmed in 2006, that there is no Constitutional right for states to secede.

Besides, only *Congress* can admit new states, and they've repeatedly refused to allow Puerto Rico, despite *7* tries by the territory. So, Texas splitting? It'll never happen.