Fact about Texas

[Old Hippie]

Sharing a popular email

Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast , and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas . Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?

In every man, woman and child on this planet, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride off in a pickup. There is a little bit of Texas in everyone.

Texas is the Alamo ... Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for the cause of freedom.

We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and Davy Crockett, and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes.

John Wayne paid to do the movie himself . That is the Spirit of Texas .

Texas is Sam Houston capturing Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana at San Jacinto .

Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett and Sam Houston National Forests .

Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend .

Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country.




Texas is floating the rivers of the Hill Country on a hot summer day.



Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas.






Texas is beaches you can drive on and have many memorable bon-fires with close friends.






Texas is that warm feeling you get when someone asks where you're from.

Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.

Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork .

Texas is Mexican foods like nowhere else, not even Mexico .


Texas is chicken fried steak and world famous Bar-B-Q.



Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall, the Ballpark in Arlington and the Astrodome. (guess now the Reliant Stadium too)..

Texas is larger-than-life legends like Michael DeBakey, Ann Richards, Denton Cooley, Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Gene Autry, Audie Murphy, Tommy Lee Jones, Waylon Jennings, Farrah Fawcet, Janis Joplin, Sandra Bullock, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Eva Longoria, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Sam Rayburn, Howard Hughes, George H.. W. Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, and let's not forget GEORGE STRAIT- PANTERA, the Big Bopper, Tex Ritter, George Jones, Clay Walker, Mark Chestnut, to name ONLY a few..

Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments, EDS and Compaq, Whataburger, Southwest Airlines , Bell Helicopter and LOCKHEED MARTIN AEROSPACE, Home of the F-16 Jet Fighter and the JSF Fighter, Valero..

Texas is NASA.

Texas is huge herds of cattle, beautiful horses and miles of crops.


Texas is home to the world famous King Ranch.



Texas is home to the most amazing sunsets of gold over an empty field.

Texas is hundreds of deer running around neighborhoods and fields.

Texas is skies blackened with doves and fields full of deer.

Texas is a place where towns and cities shut down to watch the local high school football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and for the night In Old San Antonio River Parade in San Antonio.

To drive across Texas is to drive 1/3 the way across the United States .

Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities.

If it isn't already in Texas , you probably don't need it.

No one does anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas .

By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U...S. That can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. Flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland , California , or Maine , and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Klein Oak High or anyplace else at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet. Do you know why? Because it is the only state that was a Republic before it became a state.

Also, being a Texan is as high as being an American down here. Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington , D.C. And we can divide our state into five states at any time if we wanted to!We can become a republic again at any time the voters of Texas choose, and we included these things as part of the deal when we came on.
That's the best part, right there.

Texas even has its own power grid!! And don't even lie to yourself... Did I mention Live music capitol of the world?

If you are a REAL TEXAN, you won't even need to be told to pass this on.


GOD BLESS TEXAS !

[Old Hippie]

Now all of that said -- I keep hearing the debate that we gave up the right to secede when we agreed to Federal banking and branch banking back in the late 80s or early 90s. Anyone have factual citations on that?

[46stude]

I have read that there had never actually been a word-for-word clause in our annexation documents that said we particularly reserved the right to leave the Union without incedent at any time we decided.

The War of Northern Aggression made that abundantly clear.

[ARBOLA]

I am looking but cannot find anything on the banks, yet. "Today, the Supreme court would have difficulty with the case.
When Texas originally petitioned the US to become a state, it was a sovereign nation unto itself "The Republic of Texas" and was given the right to break into five States, and also to leave the Union as well.

Texas v. White was decided when Texas was an occupied territory in the south (and sediment against any state that left the Union was still poor). Under the original petition to Statehood, most believe Texas could leave the Union If it so desired. It would certainly be an interesting court challenge!"

I know this is common information, but i have some lawyer bud's looking into it. How long they will look for no pay is another thing.

[46stude]

Here's a good article on the subject from one of my favorite websites:

http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm

[taxidave]

I wrote the following for another thread about a year ago. I believe that the Founding Fathers meant for any state to reserve the right to leave the Union.


Ruminations on The Right To Secede

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The first union of the original 13 colonies was effected by Articles of Confederation, adopted by them in 1781. These articles formed a confederation of sovereign states in a permanent union. Their 'permanence' lasted a bare seven years until 1788, when 11 of the states withdrew and ratified the new Constitution, which became effective on March 4, 1789.

Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of this union of the sovereign states being permanent. This was not an oversight. When New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia ratified the Constitution, they specifically stated they reserved right to reclaim the governmental powers granted to the United States. This claim to the right of secession was understood and agreed to by the other ratifiers, including George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention and was a delegate from Virginia.

At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.

In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, cleared up what the "the people" meant saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." Simply, states were soveriegn; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.

A textbook used at the Military Academy at West Point prior to the 'Civil War' (War of Northern Aggression), written by Judge William Rawle, states. "The secession of a State depends on the will of the people of such State."

Thomas Jefferson, in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change it's republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it."

Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state will declare that it prefers separation...to a continuance in the union.... I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us separate.'"

Just before the War of 1861, many unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. The Northern Republican and Democratic parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.

Many northern newspapers editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede.

New York Tribune (Feb 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism Justified
the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify
the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in
1861."

Detroit Free Press (Feb 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the
seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but
evil--evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content."

New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment
throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."

Walter E. Williams writes, "Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H. L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, 'It is poetry not logic, beauty, not sense.' Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives, 'to the cause of self determination -- government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.' Mencken says, ' It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves.'"

In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Turn Madison's guarantee upside down and you have today's America.
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