Texas Republicans call for referendum on secession from US

Texas Republicans are pushing for a referendum in 2023 to decide whether the state should secede from the US, reports newsweek.

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The demand that Texans be allowed to vote on the issue in 2023 was one of many measures taken as part of the Texas Republican party platform since last week's state convention in Houston.

In a section titled "State Sovereignty," the platform reads: "In accordance with Article 1, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has violated our right to local government. Texas' rights to amend are ignored, objected, rejected, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to hold a referendum accordingly."

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In another section on public administration, the platform states that Texas Republicans want the State Legislature to pass a bill in its next session "requiring a referendum in the 2023 general election for the people of Texas to determine whether the state of Texas should confirm its status." independent state."

According to The Texas Tribune, the myth that Texas could secede from the US persists due to the state's history of independence. Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and spent nine years as a separate nation before becoming a US state. Texas then seceded from the Union in 1861 and then was re-admitted after the end of the Civil War in 1870.

The US Constitution does not provide for secession, and in 1869 the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that states cannot unilaterally secede from the Union.

“If there was any constitutional issue decided by the Civil War, it was the absence of the right to secession,” the late judge Antonin Scalia once wrote.

However, modern separatist efforts have continued in the state for decades, and calls for secession tend to get louder when the president is a Democrat, according to the Tribune.

It's not clear how popular this is with Texans, but the Texas Nationalist Movement's website claims that nearly half a million Texans support its work to "make Texas an independent nation again."

The movement's efforts are backed by Texas Republicans. Last year, State Representative Kyle Biedermann introduced a bill calling for a "Texit" referendum, which was approved by Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West. The bill ultimately failed.

The bill was condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with Republican State Representative Jeff Leach calling it "a disgrace to the Lone Star State" and "the definition of insurgency."

In addition to the referendum question, delegates also voted in favor of more than 270 platforms as the convention closed on June 18. The votes will be counted and confirmed in Austin.

Texas Republicans also approved a resolution saying President Joe Biden was "illegitimately elected," signaling continued support for former President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The Texas Republican Party's new party platform also called for the complete repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Other platforms also pointed to a further shift of the party to the right, focusing on cultural issues. The platform describes homosexuality as "an abnormal way of life" and also states that the party opposes "all efforts to affirm transgender identity".

The platform also calls for a complete ban on abortion and "equal protection for premature babies." Abortion is currently illegal in Texas after about six weeks of pregnancy, but a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed abortion rights nationwide and lead to Texas passing a law banning abortion.

The new Texas GOP platform also states that the education system should focus on "transmitting core academic knowledge, understanding why Texas and America are exceptional and positively contributing to our world, while also offering additional subjects."

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She encourages students to learn about the "world of the premature baby", including that life begins with fertilization. She also requires the state legislature to pass a law banning the teaching of "sex education, sexual health, sexual choice or identity in any public school in any classroom."

Historical background

The Texas separatist movement in the United States of America is well known. This movement is gaining momentum because of the feeling that the concept of "Texan" is becoming a basic value for most citizens of the state. However, the desire to become a separatist is restrained by the government, reports After Empire.

The state of Texas was founded in 1821 by Stephen Austin, the "chief colonizer" in Mexico at that time. Mexico gave him a grant to populate Texas territory and fight off Comanche raids. With this grant, Austin brought the first three hundred settlers to Texas in 1822. Austin has since been called the Father of Texas. The state capital bears his name.

Almost all of the settlers were from South America. In 1829, Mexican President Anastasio Bustamante banned slavery, but gave Texas the right to delay the entry into force of this ban for one year, but slavery in the State continued to exist later. By 1836 there were over five thousand slaves in Texas.

In the future, relations between the Mexican authorities and the Texans began to deteriorate. In 1830, Bustamante prohibited the immigration of North Americans to Texas. This led to several revolts against the government in 1832. In 1833, Texas wanted independence from Mexico and sent Stephen Austin to the capital as a representative to ask for statehood for Texas. As a result, Austin was imprisoned for two years on suspicion of treason. The new president of Mexico, Antonio López de Santa Anna, began to turn the federal government into a centralist one. This was the reason for the revolt of the Texas colonists.

The Texan Revolution began on October 2nd, 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales, when the Texans fought off Mexican attempts to take a small cannon. At the same time, the Texans waved a flag on which it was written: "Come and get her!" Over the next 3 months, the revolutionaries defeated all Mexican troops in the region.

The Republic of Texas was proclaimed on March 2, 1836. This date is celebrated every year in Texas. The revolutionaries justified their separatist actions by the need to protect fundamental rights, since Mexico had canceled the bilateral Federal Pact on the Rights of Texas, adopted earlier. But the main reason was still that Santa Anna was going to abolish slavery in Texas, which the Texans continued to maintain despite the statewide ban.

In the Republic of Texas, there were two opinions about the future fate of the state: its presidents Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar. Houston wanted Texas to join the US, while Lamar wanted Texas independent and expanding its borders all the way to the Pacific. Lamar became known as the father of Texan nationalism, but Houston's idea won, as there was a threat of a new Mexican invasion of Texas, and in addition, the threat of an economic crisis loomed.

In 1845, Texas joined the United States as a slave state, and when the Civil War began, it also joined the Confederacy, despite the protests of Sam Houston. Houston was removed from power, and Texas became part of the Confederacy. That being said, many people wanted to simply declare Texas independent, but the ideals of the Confederacy defeated the ideals of an independent Texas. US President Lincoln recognized Texas as a former independent state, but his view of Texas joining the American Union meant that Texas missed the opportunity to secede from the US.

In the so-called. During the period of reconstruction after the Civil War, in 1869, the Supreme Court was held, called "Texas v. White." Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, in his letter to the court, noted that the Federal Constitution "in all its provisions seeks an indestructible union of indestructible states." Thus, the Supreme Court declared that no state can secede after the US wins the civil war against the Confederacy.

After a period of recovery in the state of Texas, the number of separatist movements decreased, and the cowboy lifestyle began to develop. And for some time it seemed that all the specifics of Texas come down to this “cowboyism”.

However, in the 1990s, a new wave of nationalist movements swept the state of Texas under the slogan: "Texas is a completely different country." At the same time, there was an ideological division among the citizens of Texas on the question: should they stay in the US or should they try to become a sovereign state? In this situation, several separatist movements emerged.

One of the most active, the Republic of Texas separatist group, claimed that the US illegally annexed Texas and that Texas was occupied by the US. Also, the "Republic of Texas" demanded to be recognized as an alternative government to the US government. In 1996, the group broke up into 3 factions. At the same time, the leader of the "Republic of Texas" group, Richard McLaren, kidnapped 3 people - and demanded the release of one of the members of the "Republic of Texas" from an American prison. However, McLaren's wife convinced him to surrender to the authorities, after which he was arrested and imprisoned for 99 years. Thus ended the history of the Republic of Texas organization.

Now the Texas Nationalist Movement, one of the heirs of the Republic of Texas, is distancing itself from its hardline predecessor and working under Daniel Miller to break away from the United States.

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