“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot, to boot.”
Texas Democrats were quick to condemn the governor. State Representative Jim Dunham characterized Perry’s comments as “anti-American,” stating that, with regard to secession, Perry “should have said ‘That’s silly’…He refused the opportunity to disavow it and I think that’s very, very significant. Because what I read in the paper today is that the governor says secession is a possibility.”Evidently Democrats like Mr. Dunham believe that a sovereign political body like the former Republic of Texas has the right to join a political union, but does not have the right to leave that union should the relationship ever cease to be mutually advantageous. This is what I refer to as the “roach motel” theory of political union – you can check in, but you can’t check out.
That’s not to say that I think it would be a good idea for Texas to leave the Union. I don’t. After all, it’s not as if some great libertarian wave of freedom has spread across the Lone Star State. The current state constitution reads as if it had been written in Brussels, not Austin, and I don’t imagine that a constitution of the Second Republic of Texas would be much different. Indeed, I suspect that if Texas were to secede, the result would simply be a repetition of the same mistakes that brought the US federal government to this point, albeit in a smaller geographic area.
And from what little I’ve seen from the various secessionist movements active here in the state, I don’t get the feeling that they’re motivated by a burning desire to establish a great new bastion of individual liberty stretching from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Although they may be as frustrated with a wildly out-of-control federal government as I am, that looks to be where the similarities end – I certainly don’t share the raging anti-immigration sentiment that seems to fuel so many of these movements.
Besides, Rick Perry ain’t Thomas Jefferson. It’s clear that his post-Tea Party secessionist bombshell and his recent attempts to resurrect the Ninth and Tenth Amendments by refusing federal “stimulus” money are little more than cheap political stunts designed to get to the right of Republican challenger Kay Bailey Hutchison before the upcoming primaries. Based on his record as state governor, Perry is just a run-of-the-mill, big-government Republican. As President of the Second Republic of Texas (assuming Chuck Norris had been declared ineligible for the office by virtue of having been born in Oklahoma), Perry would only replicate the same failed socialist policies of D.C. in Austin.
As ill-advised as secession under the current circumstances may be, to argue that the mere idea of secession as a political option should be taken off the table entirely, as Representative Dunham implied, strikes me as equally ill-advised. The threat of secession is a check on government overreach, and one that is consistent with the principle of peaceful association, as well as with the somewhat murkier notion of government by consent of the governed. Surely if the government’s legitimacy rests on the consent of the governed, that implies that the governed may withdraw that consent at some point. To suggest otherwise would be to utterly destroy the few existing remnants of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
As usual, the furor over Governor Perry’s comments about secession misses the point entirely. Of course it’s just a political stunt by a Republican governor up for re-election. And no, I don’t want to associate with many of the groups actively pushing for Texas to secede from the US. But to suggest that secession can never be a viable political option is to deny the freedom of association that lies at the heart of representative government. And if, as Mr. Dunham appears to believe, secession is never a legitimate option for any group of people, no matter how unsatisfied they may be with their current political arrangement, then surely both the American Revolution of 1776 and the Texas Revolution of 1836 were illegitimate. For what were these revolts if not acts of secession? What does Mr. Dunham think the American Declaration of Independence was, exactly? It was a secessionist manifesto, as was the Texas Declaration of Independence.
So although now is probably not the best time for Texans to consider actually seceding, one would be mistaken to scoff at the idea or to dismiss it outright. After all, it’s not as if it couldn’t be done. The Second Republic of Texas would be the world’s
thirteenth largest economy, with a number of important resources, including a large, well-educated workforce, natural gas, oil, vast stretches of farm and ranch land, major international airports, beaches, plenty of guns, and Lyle Lovett. What else would we really need?
1 Comment
April 17, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Instead of a knife between our teeth, we have the drool of Chuck Norris on our lips!