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Sunday, August 22, 2004

Five Lone Stars

I believe that it's still the case that at every home football game at Texas A&M University, the student body still sings the State Song of Texas, "Texas, Our Texas":

Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty State! Texas, our Texas! So wonderful so great! Boldest and grandest, Withstanding ev'ry test; O Empire wide and glorious, You stand supremely blest.

[Refrain] God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,
That you may grow in power and worth, Thro'out the ages long.

The melody, unfortunately, is one which makes "The Star Spangled Banner" seem easy to vocalize by comparison.  And I was unaware until doing some research tonight that the lyrics, originally approved as the state song in 1929, were amended by act of the 73d Texas Legislature in 1993 to change the phrase "Largest and grandest" to its current "Boldest and grandest."  I don't think I've been to a game at Kyle Field since 1993, so I don't know whether the Aggies are accepting that modification or — as the rest of the state did for years after the admission of Alaska into the United States in 1959 — they're simply still ignoring that other large oil-rich state (which after all, used to belong to them Ruskies and don't touch the "real" US of A directly anyhow).  Big on tradition, those Aggies are.

Which brings me, through uncertain logic, to a bit of whimsy published in Sunday's edition of the WSJ's OpinionJournal Online that evidently appeared earlier this week (as noted by Big Trunk at Power Line) in the paper version of the Journal.  It's cutely entitled in both, "Austin Powers:  Mess with Texas? Sure. Divide it into five states." 

And I'm pleased to read that my last real (but still unpaid) journalistic home, the Texas Law Review, published an earlier version of the article.  By law review standards, the TLR has always had a pretty good sense of humor; witness my law school classmate's published note from 1980 entitled, "Good Intentions, New Inventions, and Article V Constitutional Conventions," which featured a socratic dialog between Thomas Jefferson and the late Prof. Charles Black of Yale Law School, set in the historic Scholtz Beer Garten in modern-day Austin.

The point of the article (you were wondering when I'd get to that?) is that whenever it damn well chooses to, Texas can split itself into five separate states — thereby bringing its current residents' representation in the US Senate from two to ten and similarly magnifying its current residents' proportional power in the Electoral College.  You may think this would only be possible in some weird politico-erotic dream of House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay, but there's actually a fairly compelling legal argument that this could be done, based on the US Constitution and the specific, rather peculiar legislation under which Texas was originally admitted to the Union in 1846.

But it'll never happen.  Not because it can't, but because we're too ornery to be able to agree amongst ourselves which of the new states would get to keep the name.  Even if we used the four cardinal points of the compass, we'd come up one short, and who'd want to be the "compound-direction" state, or the "ordinal" state (sounds too much like "ordinary," and no Texan would go for that)?  And we'd have another fight to the last man over who got to take the Alamo.

Besides, as the "Empire" allusion from the state song so modestly implies, Texas is the only state that was ever an independent nation.  As every Texas public school child who's taken the manditory course in Texas History knows, the Republic of Texas had its own army, navy, foreign policy, and so forth from 1836ish until statehood in 1846, and there were some Texans who argued even then that it shoulda been Texas annexing the United States rather than the other way around.

We're still pretty patriotic down here about our state and its unique history.  Heck, one of the state-court judges here in Houston, bless her heart, starts every morning's court session not only with the Pledge of Allegiance to the US Flag, but with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Texas Flag:

Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.

See?  "One and indivisible" — unless and until we happen to change our minds!

And as far as that "increasing proportional representation" bit goes:  We're patient folks.  We'll just wait for California to fall off into the Pacific.

Giant Texas flag and Longhorn Band at UT's Memorial Stadium

Posted by Beldar at 02:30 AM in Humor, Politics (2006 & earlier) | Permalink

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Comments

(1) Birkel made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 5:08:07 AM | Permalink

If Colorado goes through it's whole "We want to help the D's so we'll split our electoral college vote" BS, then surely Texas can punk the rest of the smaller states with threats to keep the status quo. One letter from Texas to Colorado should suffice.

(2) Roofer made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 8:34:35 AM | Permalink

All this is subject to the caveat of as best I recall:

The proposition you're discussing was actually the plotline of a book called "The Power Exchange," written in the late 70s or early 80s by a fellow named Alan Erwin. Erwin served on the Public Utility Commission of Texas in the early 80s and is the nephew of the man for whom the University of Texas' events center, the Frank Erwin Center, was named.

This book, coming on the heels of the energy crisis, was about oil and politics. I believe the Texans were at odds with the northeasterners (deja vu) over the commodity, and control of the Senate was at stake. Someone dredged up the clause from the articles of annexation that allowed Texas to divide itself into five states. My memory gets murky about what transpired from there, but the position that the United States took, and that, of course eventually won the day, though whether by legal means or force I can't recall, was that the articles of annexation had been nullified when Texas seceded from the Union. I recall it being a really good idea for a book, but I also recall feeling flat after the denouement, whatever it was.

(3) Kate made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 2:07:38 PM | Permalink

Living out here in the the land of Fruit(s) and Nut(s) makes one Native Texan and Ag wax nostolgic on the sheer mention of "Texas Our Texas". I couldn't just read the lines, I had to sing them. Too bad for my husband because I'll be singing it all day now. As to dividing into 5 states to garner more electoral votes, it will never happen, but we Texans like to think (and hold it over everyone else's head) that if you keep accusing people of being "Texas Republicans" as if it's unseemly, we're going to scare the dickens out of you!
Thanks for reminding me I gotta call my mom.

(4) Bryan Ruffin made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 2:33:40 PM | Permalink

Texas is only one of 15 states that were independent nations at one time. Hawaii is the other, most obvious, and the 13 original founding states of the US are the others. When George III recognized our independence he didn't do it collectively, but individually. Until the new constitution in 1889, the US was about as much of a nation as the EU is now.

(5) Glen made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 7:52:40 PM | Permalink

Sounds like a great idea. Name should be no problem. Consider the precedent of the Carolinas, the Dakotas and Virginia. West Texas already goes by West Texas. All you need to add to Central Texas are North Texas unless they prefer Texarkana, East Texas and South Texas. Heck, if they want to why not just convert their state legislature to a coop to govern all of the States of Texas. Why they could even call their state government the United States of Texas.

With their new found political clout in Washington then I would appreciate their support for the Californias. We already have several by geography, politics and culture: Southern California, Northen California, Central California and the People's Republic of Berkeley.

Viva la liberacion!!!

(6) Sparkey made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 8:43:16 PM | Permalink

Roofer is correct...

The Senate never ratified the 1846 treaty so President John Tyler simply passed the Senate and presented a simple declaration of the annexation of Texas to Congress, which passed it by joint resolution. That ungratified treaty gave Texas the right to leave the Union, an option it chose on Feb. 1, 1861. However, after the CSA was decisively defeated each of the secessionist states had to readmitted to the Union. Hence, even if Texas had legally succeeded for the Union it was later readmitted under a new set of rules. So even if the 1846 treaty had been ratified it (the treaty) was superceded when Texas applied for readmission to the Union.

BTW, my family came to Texas in 1848; we've been here a while... Gig'em!

(7) JingoJim made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 9:39:30 PM | Permalink

Glen has it right. Hell I would move to any of the five states. What a wet dream that would be. Texas with 10 Senators......GOD

(8) Beldar made the following comment | Aug 22, 2004 9:56:38 PM | Permalink

I think Hawaii was a kingdom, but I confess not to know much about the details of its history. I probably should've said "independent republic" — somewhere, the ghost of my Texas History teacher is frowning down at me.

Mr. Ruffin's points are well taken, but by the time of the Declaration of Independence — which I think would be the operative event, rather than King George III's belated recognition of it — the colonies were functioning through a common Continental Congress, fielding a national army distinct from their state militias, and at least attempting to speak as one on foreign policy. I don't recall that any significant foreign powers ever recognized any of the colonies as separate nation-states, whereas by contrast, they did so recognize Texas.

The TLR link above is actually only to an abstract of the first five pages of the article. I dunno if the authors dealt with the legal objections raised by some of my commenters or not. But anyway, if it's not clear from my original post, I'm a Texas nationalist (so to speak), and wouldn't favor the split anyway.

(9) TMigratorious made the following comment | Aug 23, 2004 7:54:32 AM | Permalink

Ah, yes, but you haven't lived until you've heard 100,000 bleading-heart Austin, Texas liberals (led by Aggie Robert Earl Keen, no less) sing "Texas Our Texas" on Congress Avenue, Austin's main street. This remarkable event occurred at Austin's millenial celebration, A2K. (Robert Earl also achieved the--unique, in my experience--feat of combining "Texas Our Texas" in the same set with "All Along the Watchtower.")

Robert Earl accomplished this near miracle by first winning over the crowd with his frequently covered holiday classic, "Merry Christmas from the Family." For the uninitiated, read the lyrics here.

(10) TMigratorious made the following comment | Aug 23, 2004 7:55:00 AM | Permalink

Ah, yes, but you haven't lived until you've heard 100,000 bleading-heart Austin, Texas liberals (led by Aggie Robert Earl Keen, no less) sing "Texas Our Texas" on Congress Avenue, Austin's main street. This remarkable event occurred at Austin's millenial celebration, A2K. (Robert Earl also achieved the--unique, in my experience--feat of combining "Texas Our Texas" in the same set with "All Along the Watchtower.")

Robert Earl accomplished this near miracle by first winning over the crowd with his frequently covered holiday classic, "Merry Christmas from the Family." For the uninitiated, read the lyrics here.

(11) Antinome made the following comment | Aug 23, 2004 2:11:33 PM | Permalink

Hawaii was recognized by the U.S. as an independent nation in the 1840s It was a Republic for about 3 years in the 1890s before annexation:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Republic%20of%20Hawaii

California also had the Bear Republic for a few months

(12) Bryan made the following comment | Nov 24, 2004 1:05:37 PM | Permalink

Was there ever a map drawn that would show how the boundary lines would (or even might) have been drawn? Just wondering......appreciate any leads to resources of which you might be aware.

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