Democrats: Texas gov should disavow secession talk

By KELLEY SHANNON – 30 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican Gov. Rick Perry insisted Thursday that his remarks about secession were not intended as an argument that Texas should leave the union, but Democrats still called his comments reckless and anti-American.

Perry's comments following an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday never did advocate Texas breaking away from the United States but did suggest Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede. And that was enough to feed opinions for and against secession on Web sites, cable TV and talk radio across the nation.

At the Texas Capitol on Thursday, Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, joined by several fellow Texas House Democrats, said some people associate talk of secession with racial division and the Civil War and that Perry should disavow any notion of seceding.

"Talk of secession is an attack on our country. It can be nothing else. It is the ultimate anti-American statement," Dunnam said at a news conference.

The Democrats are proposing a House resolution expressing "complete and total disagreement with any fringe element advocating the 'secession' of Texas or any other state from our one and indivisible Union."

Perry emphasized Thursday that he is not advocating secession but understands why Americans may have those feelings because of frustration with Washington, D.C. He said it's fine to express the thought. He offered no apology and did not back away from his earlier comments.

In his remarks, which were in response to a question from The Associated Press, Perry said he didn't think Texas should secede despite some chatter about it on the Internet and his name being associated with the idea. Perry answered the question as he walked away from the rally where some in the audience had shouted "Secede!" during his speech.

"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," Perry said Wednesday.

A day later, Perry said he found the fascination with the remark interesting.

"I refer people back to my statement and I got a charge out of it," he said. "I was kind of thinking that maybe the same people that hadn't been reading the Constitution right were reading that article and they got the wrong impression about what I said. Clearly I stated that we have a great union. Texas is part of a great union. And I see no reason for that to change."

Perry has been speaking out against the federal government lately over federal economic stimulus spending. He's also in a tough race for re-election against a fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and is trying to portray Hutchison as a Washington insider.

Last week, Perry joined state lawmakers in showing support for a Texas resolution championing states' rights provided for in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He voiced support for states' rights again Thursday. He also defended freedom of speech to a room full of journalists.

"This is America, baby. First Amendment. We like it too, as well as the Second and the 10th (amendment)," he said.

Dunnam suggested Perry is positioning himself for his political future.

"We all knew he wanted to be president. I just didn't know it was president of the Republic of Texas," he said to chuckles from onlookers.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle responded, "It's unfortunate that Rep. Dunnam is trying to distract from the fact that yesterday thousands of Texans, including many in his own district, expressed their extreme displeasure at Washington's rampant taxation, big spending and bloated government."

Other Democrats weighed in with criticism of Perry's remark.

"Talk of secession would be laughable if it weren't mentioned in a serious way," said former ambassador Tom Schieffer, considering running for governor in 2010.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, said some issues should not be made legitimate in any way.

"By not rejecting out of hand the possibility of secession, Governor Perry is taking a step down a very dangerous and divisive path encouraged by the fringe of Texas politics," Ellis said.

happened before. personally I have always enjoyed the Texas spirit of independent sovereignty. they take their ad campaign, "Texas - it's like a WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY" seriously. Texas Longhorns, the most beautiful southern girls on the planet, GREAT tex mex food, Dallas Cowboys, H. Ross Perot, the list goes on and on. it's a huge place geographically and they have a LOT OF MONEY (OIL MONEY THAT IS). Her cause was stated once before:

http://www.americancivilwar.com/documents/causes_texas.html

Hard to argue with that.

That someone of Perry's political expertise would find it appropriate to raise the subject of secession says something about Texas voters. I'm not sure what it says, but it's not flattering.

Sigh.

Maybe it is flattering. I like it when people place the interest of their state on equal terms with the national government -- that's federalism.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, I think its quite American to do that.

The feds are created by the contract between the states, this contract can be disolved.

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It is quite American to leave America and become another country? I'm having a hard time accepting that concept.

So did Lincoln and he won the argument by force, not law.

B

Texas was another country first before joining.

But as said above Lincoln settled this debate a long time ago with the army.

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Some dare call it treason.

The US Constitution clearly describes how states enter the union. It does not say anything about how they can get out. Since that is the case, they fall under the Amendment clause. In order to secede, a state needs to get 2/3s of the Congress, the President and 3/4s of the state legislatures to agree. THAT is the contract and those are the terms.

So was Vermont. Big deal.

Wrong.

It is called state's rights. Look it up.

Please expound..............?

Part of the deal, is that our Lone Star State flag, flies above the United States flag. We take it serously.

No, he ENFORCED the law. As I stated, show me in the US Constitution the mechanism or the clause that assents to unilateral secession. Absent the consent of the governed of the nation, no state, once a part of the United States, can secede. There is nothing complicated about this, and had the Founders intended for it to be some simple act, they would have said so. They did not. And they did not because the last thing they wanted to see was the creation of a continent of warring states, just like the Europe they were rejecting, and easy prey for colonial powers. We can be grateful for Lincoln seeing and enforcing the law exactly as the Founders intended, as otherwise we would have had a proto-fascist slave state on the American continent in constant war with the free, with European meddling and conquest the end result.

The US Constitution is a contract with an explicit way in, and with no way out. Again, I ask you to show me in the COTUS where it says otherwise. People are not citizens of states, they are US citizens, and state residents. As US citizens, they have a right to be protected by the Federal Republic from actors within ANY state in which they reside who wish to use extra-Constitutional means to exit the union and set up some other form of government. The Constitution uses this word: "guarantees". I, as a US citizen, am GUARANTEED a republican form of government, not by the state, but by the Federal Government:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article04/18.html

If a bunch of yahoos hijacks the state government, they have interfered with that contract. In 1865, this guarantee was made even stronger, in the wording of the 14th Amendment, which explicitly states that above all else, I am a US citizen. The state has no power in my status as a citizen, they cannot by any force of law make me a citizen of any other government or state. I am free to move from state to state, not to worry that I will be free in one, and enslaved in another, or trapped in an insurrected state that will not act to restore my US citizenship. The 14th states that now all my rights are protected by THE FEDERAL government and they will act to stop any state actor from interfering with my right to be a US citizen - I am GUARANTEED that. If some state legislature decides to remove from me the protections and privileges I enjoy as a US citizen, they are EXPLICITLY in violation of the 14th Amendment and as the Amendment says, Congress will see to it that those rights are protected. The state has no legal right to declare me some other class of, or type, citizen of some made up fantasy government. They have no power over me in regards to my legal status as a citizen of the US, no power to make a citizen of some other place, no power to force me to be otherwise or punish me if I refuse, that power, as a result of the Civil War, is removed from them FOREVER. Period.