Talk:Texas v. White

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Contents 1 Added reference to supreme law of the land 2 How was this decision made? 3 Eight-man decision 4 Majority decision 5 Texas state constitution 6 Confused A Bit

[edit] Added reference to supreme law of the land

Would you mind revising this addition or explaining its placement? The 14th amendment was not added until 1868, however the case applied to events that happened in 1861.

VERY well put. My sincere apologies. --Cuimalo 04:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How was this decision made?

What were/are the relevant texts that this decision was based on? There's nothing obvious in the Constitution that implies that the union between the States is perpetual. I would think the founding fathers would have thought otherwise. Also, the union cannot be dissolved "except through revolution"--I take it they mean sucessful revolution? What was the Civil War but a failed revolution? (Disclaimer: I am not a secessionist or a southern sympathizer. Thank God for the Union victory and the end of slavery.) --Locarno 14:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Just as a personal opinion, what are the texts that the court base a lot of their decisions on? I don't know. A perpetuity clause was present in the Articles of Confederation, so the idea of such a clause was there among the founders, so it's obvious, at least to me, that the right to secede is (or was) available (especially since many saw the Constitution as an experiment that would only last a few decades), and that's only strengthened, in my opinion, by the 10th Amendment. Not to mention that, when Massachusetts was threatening to secede, president Thomas Jefferson said, "then let them depart". To summarize, I don't know. They were Lincoln appointees and they apparently did his bidding, that's about all the explanation I can give. --Age234 22:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eight-man decision

Who was the ninth Justice? How did he vote? Did he recuse himself? --BDD 00:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There wsa no ninth Justice. The size of the court has changed over time. Lincoln got to appoint a 10th Justice, but Johnson was denied the opportunity to appoint any, so the court shrunk through attrition in the late 1860s. From the SCOTUS page here on en.wp:

"In 1866, however, Congress wished to deny President Andrew Johnson any Supreme Court appointments, and therefore passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which provided that the next three Justices to retire would not be replaced; thus, the size of the Court would eventually reach seven by attrition. Consequently, one seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. By the Circuit Judges Act of 1869, the number of Justices was again set at nine."

The list of Justices on the Salmon P. Chase page confirms that the court had 8 members at the time. --Isra1337 09:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Majority decision

I wrote a bit about the majority decision, and I was hoping someone could review wether my interpretation of it is correct, and this isn't my area of expertise (Ironically, I wrote a paper on this decision, but I was looking at more abstract values). CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 16:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Texas state constitution

Rumor has it the Texas state constitution allows secession through votes from the state government. When the Republic of Texas was admitted to the union in 1845, the U.S. declared Texas was a voluntary member and has the right to be self-autonomous in the decision of remaining a state of the union. The 1869 Texas v. White case should reversed this part of the state constitution and declare the secession clause void by federal law. In the 1990's a number of Texas separatist militias appeared in the news media and spoke of the Texas state constitution is the only one to allow secession. Who's right on this?--207.200.116.11 01:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the militias are wrong. There is no secession clause in the Txas state constitution. As for when Texas was admitted to the union, I don't know if the federal government gave the option of Texas being autonomous or not. Anything to that effect would be in the resolution or law that admitted Texas in the first place, so you would want to check there. As well, even if Texas did have a secession clause that was overruled by the Supreme Court, it could technically still be in there. Just because the Supreme Court declares a law or clause unconstitutional doesn't remove it from law. The state would need to amend their constitution to remove it. If it is there and the Supreme Court eventually overturned Texas v. White it would again be valid. -- Johnny06man 12:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confused A Bit

This is a nice article but it puzzles me a bit. First, while I acknowledge the main impact of TEXAS VS. WHITE was to judge against secession, it doesn't really give a very clear explanation of what the technical issue was: "OK, so ... what's this business about the bonds and the state of Texas?" It's just not clear what the problem was and exactly what it had to do with the legitimacy or lack thereof of secession.

And in the end, I don't see how the technical issue was resolved: "So, uh ... what happened about the bonds?"

All this might be familiar and perfectly implicit to someone who is versed in the case, but speaking for those who are not, it's not obvious. The article might be clarified on this topic.

MrG -- 12 Nov 06