White House Responds to Texas Secession Petition
Responding to petitions from Texas and seven other states calling for the right to secede, the White House has called for healthy debate, but to not let "that debate tear us apart."
"In a nation of 300 million people — each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs — democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that's a good thing," Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement, wrote in a statement called "Our States Remain United." "Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the ...
Comments (26)
Steven Kite
Considering that "strong leadership from states like Texas" is what got the US INTO the mess it's in now... I'd say that rather than secession, Texans should be more concerned with expulsion - or at least a ban on political participation.
You're still in the room but would be well advised to sit down and shut up for a few centuries.
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't agree with succession and I fear what Texas would become if it happened. But the debate about it isn't what is tearing 'us' apart. It is a government that will not stop centralizing power. The loss of individual rights and increasingly turning states into little more than geographic federal government boundaries.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Insane Texans. Sane POTUS.
Ben Sargent
Can we please get fewer wussies in the Office of Public Engagement? Instead of telling these petitioners, "Can't we all just get along?," someone up there needs to remind them firmly that in our constitutional system "secession" is simply not a legitimate concept. Let's all admit that and get on with political life in the real world.
Sidney Lambert III via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This is a right to be exercised, not called for. Self determination, by definition, is not a debatable issue with an entity wishing to retain control, hence the Continental Congress did not field a team for years of discussion in the U. K.
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
People are not insane for want to protect their rights. I would more question the sanity of someone that would yield them so easily.
Judy Burns via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is unfortunate that the white house has to waste valuable time on ridiculous "movements" like this one.
Chad Presley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What other choice is there when the Federal Government is out of control ? They disregard the Constitution. They steal our rights away. Vote them out of office ? Yea right. Lot of good that will do us when they are all bought and paid for by bankers and corporations...
Bill Bush via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I believe this question was settled in 1865. So much for fealty to the Constitution.
Rick Archer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Some of you still don't get it. What rights have been taken away by the federal government? The Texas government is one of the most corrupt there is. Why not vote their asses, including Perry out of office. If Texas seceded it would fall to the hands of the drug cartels. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
umm.. check out NDAA as a start.
Texas government is corrupt. Thats why I don't see succession as the answer, but that doesn't mean giving into the feds either.
Government is the problem.. not the solution. Lets have less of it.
Dale Curry
If you call for Secession, you are endorsing treason.
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We have more rights today than we had in the past (60s?). The "we are losing our rights crowd" are like Chicken Little. " Oh no! I have to wear a seatbelt."
The Supreme Court ruled on 1867, states can't Secede and of course there is that Civil War thing to "preserve" the nation.
Justin Coons via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yeah, come on you Chicken Littles. The NDAA gives the president the power to indefinitely arrest anyone he wants, including U.S. citizens. Warrantless wiretapping is unopposed now that a Democrat is in office. The president conducts extrajudicial assassinations via robot death planes (even killing a 16-year-old American citizen.)
There are more than 2.5 million Americans in prisons, many non-violent drug users. But when a massive British bank spent a decade laundering money for drug cartels, they got a slap on the wrist.
This is TOTALLY still government by the people, for the people.
Deb Uetz
I'm a new commenter who is a native Texan transplanted into a "Blue" northern state, where most everyone tries to "get along." Its no fun up here! Being from the South my education taught me that neither the USA nor the CFA really 'won' the War. There was enough sin to go around; just as there is today. The American Revolution was declared treasonous by the British, and for all purposes, it was.
The colonies "succeeded from the mother country." The Confederate states of America did the same; for basically the same reason, economics. The Americans were the winners in the Revolution, and the USA were the winners in the War Between the States (not Civil War). Therefore this is usually the reason why the winners like to call the losers "traitors." Ben Franklin had a wise statement about treason; the winners get to determine which of the losers are traitors. The idea of secession is as old as America; we love freedom, we have a constitution, we believe in God. But when our fundamental rights are taken away we don't just take it, we fight back, even against ourselves. Texans are at least making a point about what makes our country great. I wish more of our states, including my adopted one would do the same. Its interesting that the states most pushing for secession are Southern states, I commend their courage. God Bless Our Nation!
Marilyn L. Moll via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Muddled mindlessness.
Elmcott Lana via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Geez---where do these people come from? Let's see if they are still willing to secede when they have to give up everything that comes from the federal government and start paying some really high taxes to establish and sustain their new nation. Wait--I think I see some of them backing up now!
Marie Megan
I can't believe all the people calling it treasonous to want to secede. Wait a second, that's what the Founding Fathers did to Britiain. They were all traitors and they would have hung from the neck if the Revolution had failed.
If you have a troubled family and you can't take being among them, is it wrong for you to want to leave them? Do you know the family members of the the Phelps family (that one that picket funerals) who have questioned it have been thrown out and branded as "traitors" for that?
When we say someone can't talk about that without being branded a traitor, we are discouraging the freedom to dissent. That said, however, if any of these groups are advocating violent revolution than that is VERY different.
If they are advocating a peaceful separation, well then they'll have to wait for over 60 % of the population to want it to before it'll even become an issue. Right now less than 10 % of the Texas population wants secession and of that I'd say only less than 5% seriously want it. For the rest it's just talk.
So saying, "You can't threaten that" is silly. Yes, you can always threaten to leave your family or break away from an organization and you should have that right. What you can't do is threaten to do so by violent means.
Plus I very clearly remember all the people in blue states who screamed about wanting secession after Bush beat Kerry. I was at university at the time and oh how the liberals in Austin went on and on about how the blue states should break away. Yet they didn't call themselves traitors for that and suddenly they've "forgotten" all about their secession talks.
Please, I remember their whining all to well.
Debra Uetz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What do you mean by "these people?" Those who know our nation's history and everything our ancestors did, legally or illegally, to maintain our freedom?
Brian Demmitt via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What a bunch of uneducated fools. Where do you think federal tax dollars come from? Idiots. Maybe if you lived in a state that was contributing significantly more than it was getting back, you'd understand. Or maybe you just lack the intelligence. Either way, stay in your crappy states and don't hate people for wanting to live the way the founders of this country intended. Btw, how do you think the U.S. obtained their sovereignty? This govt has become that which it used to despise. One more thing, if you think we've more freedoms than any time in history, you lack the intelligence to even contribute here. Go do some research, starting with the Patriot Act and Executive Orders. Run along now.
Brian Demmitt via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh, and it's SECESSION. NOT SUCCESSION. LMAO
Jim Baxa
Obama didnt answer the question. The question was not whether he is okay with secession, but whether he would allow us to go peacefully. The answer shows that he would threaten war instead of just allowing self-determination. Obama showed himself to be a warmonger!
Michael Hull
Jim Baxa, you're free to go any time you want. But you'll have to go elsewhere as most Texans think this secession talk is silly.
gypsy314 ne
I say there is nothing else to talk about. This traitor of a president has broken his oath with a number of other elected leaders showing there is no trust there and can not be trusted. If Obama and crew resign that would be a good faith showing and Texas could chance it further.
fuck obama
Self determination is a right recognized by the UN - Obama has no authority to reject out of hand a petition by the people calling for the exercise of this right. His correct response is to set out conditions for a state wide referendum on secession.
The choice is freedom or tyranny - it is all the more clear why the founding fathers enshrined the right to bear arms - when the federal government refuses to listen to its own people the we are living in tyranny.
constitution first
The White House recently responded to a petition on their "We The People" website regarding the issue of Texas independence. Below is the official response from the Texas Nationalist Movement.
The people of Texas adhere to the principle espoused in Article 1 Section 1 of the Texas Constitution which says, "Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States."
In the absence of a Constitutional prohibition to a State asserting its independence and with the firm knowledge that the actions of the Federal Government represent an definite impairment to the right of local self-government, the Obama administration's response to the petition for secession for Texas represents yet another argument in favor of Texas independence.
With their response to the secession petition, the Obama administration restates the opinion of other current and past world leaders such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashir Assad, Mao Zedong, Santa Anna and King George III who also believed that governments can and should deny the right of self-determination.
In doing so, they have couched their response with misinterpretations of the Constitution, a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and construction of the Union, ignorance of the intent and words of the Founding Fathers, contempt for the sovereignty of the States and thinly-veiled threats of violence against any State that exercises their right to self-determination.
We can agree on one point. Democracy is "noisy and controversial". This is exactly why the Founders created a union of Republics instead of a democracy.
Indeed the Founding Fathers abandoned the Articles of Confederation which is the only document in our history to cite a "perpetual union" in order to appropriately guarantee the sovereignty and independence of the individual states. This guarantee is found in the absolute silence of the Constitution on the issue of a State leaving the Union and in the 10th Amendment which guarantees that any powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government are reserved to the people and the States. This firmly established right is again spoken by Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, when he said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union .... I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us separate.'"
The right of self-determination is not one to be granted or withdrawn upon the whims of any particular administration nor is the current drive for the self-determination of the people of Texas tied to any particular administration. It is a right as fundamental as the right of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. It is a fundamental as the right to keep and bear arms. But as we have seen the assault on all of these other fundamental rights, it is no surprise that the sovereignty of the States and right of self-determination would be likewise assaulted.
However, if the contention of the Obama administration is to support the decision of the Supreme Court that the Union is an "indestructible union composed of indestructible states" then it is morally imperative that the Federal Government immediately release Texas from the Union. As the agreement which brought Texas into the Union specifically states that Texas could divide into 5 states, which would be invalidated by the Supreme Court's decision, and as there is no severability clause in the Joint Resolution of Annexation, this administration may have just shortened our journey to independence.
Beyond the arguments over history and law, through the release of this statement, this administration has, in effect, placed over 40 years of US foreign policy into question. Will this administration revoke its recognition for Kosovo? Will it recognize the independence of an independent Scotland or Catalonia? How will this affect its relations with the former States of the Soviet Union? Why did they support an independence vote for the people of Puerto Rico? Will this administration follow the lead of Bashir Assad and deny the people of Texas their right of self determination?
These questions and many more will be asked of this administration in the coming days as the global trend of self-determination has returned home to the cradle of liberty. People from around the world are watching the United States to see if the Federal Government will "practice what it has preached."
We, also, need not be reminded of the body count of the War Between The States. Nor should we forget the 180 who lay dead after the siege of the Alamo who stood and died for the right of self determination and the independence of Texas or the thousands of Mexican troops who died to deny us that right.
Since this administration is fond of quoting Abraham Lincoln, I would encourage them to take note of his words in an 1848 speech before the US Congress:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
It is the mission of the Texas Nationalist Movement to secure the independence of Texas. We will invoke the "first principles" spoken of by Thomas Jefferson. For it is our fundamental right and belief that "all political power is inherent in the people." We seek to take this issue to a referendum. It is our expectation that this administration will recognize our right to do so as they have done for countless other countries around the globe. It is our expectation that they will not interfere and let the people of Texas have their say. It is our expectation that this administration will hold fast their own words in the belief that "might doesn't make right." It is our expectation that Texas will be free and independent. For that we do not need the permission of anyone in Washington, D.C.