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From: Joe DiMaggio <joed@eden.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Date: December 1995

Ok, I got off my butt and went to a bookstore, where I found a fine compendium of Texana entitled "The Truth About Texas" by Anne Dingus (IHNW, IJLS "Anne Dingus") ISBN 0-87719-282-0.

Here's what it has to say about secession:

Texas does not have the right to secede, any more than any other state does. Which is not to say that Texas, or any other state, can't secede if it has a mind to; after all, 11 states did back in 1861. Many modern Texans have the vague idea - as did most secessionists - that because Texas entered as a former republic, it retained the right to leave the Union if it saw fit. However, no such clause appears in the congressional act authorizing Texas to join the Union. Because it was once independent, because it at one time did secede frmo the Union, and because its ideology is far different from that of the rest of the US, Texas has always clung to the idea of a guaranteed right of secession as a mark of its specialness and as a source of reassurance in case all else fails.

One privelege Texas does reserve, and a condition that appears in the resolution approving its statehood, is the option to subdivide itself into as many as four states (a total of five). But Texas is more likely to leave the Union again than to fragment its identity and its land.

On the Annexation of Texas:

Texans are justly proud of living in a state that was once an independant republic and that entered the Union by treaty, not by act of Congress. Surprise! Texas did *not* enter the Union by treaty. Though at the time of its admission the two countries were negotiating a treaty of annexation, President John Tyler, as one of his last acts in office, offered statehood under the terms drawn up by the House of Representatives. As a result, Texas got a better deal than it would have under the treaty. For example, it became a state immediately, without having to pass through a probationary period as a mere territory.

The terms of the congressional bill included a requirement that Texas cede to the US all forts, barracks, navy yards, and other property pertaining to the public defense, but it also allowed Texas to keep its public lands, a generous condition rarely found in annexation treaties. However, in exchange for that concession, Texas also had to maintain responsibility for its own public debt.

So this gives us...

T. Texas was an independent country.
F. Texas joined the US by treaty (it was an act of Congress). F. Texas has the right to leave the Union. T. Texas has the right to split into as many as 5 states.