Texas Secession facts & arguments

As you may or may not be aware, Governor Perry recently mentioned a possibility of Texas secession which many in the media quickly mentioned this isn't an option or right of Texas. In order to put forth the facts and arguments including the U.S. Supreme Court decision in this regard I submit the following for your information and knowledge.

Texas Secession Facts
Q: Doesn't the Texas Constitution reserve the right of Texas to secede?
A: No such provision is found in the current Texas Constitution[1](adopted in 1876) or
the terms of annexation.[2] However, it does state (in Article 1, Section 1) that
"Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States..." (note that it does not state "...subject to the President of the United
States..." or "...subject to the Congress of the United States..." or "...subject to the
collective will of one or more of the other States...")
Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the United States, explicitly
or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent
State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary,
rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of
what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including
Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said).
Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that
"All political power is inherent in the people ... they have at all times the inalienable
right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper."
Likewise, each of the united States is "united" with the others explicitly on the
principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these
ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses
and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards
for their future security." [3]
Q: Didn’t the outcome of the “Civil War” prove that secession is not an option for
any State?
A: No. It only proved that, when allowed to act outside his lawfully limited authority,
a U.S. president is capable of unleashing horrendous violence against the lives,
liberty, and property of those whom he pretends to serve. The Confederate States
(including Texas) withdrew from the Union lawfully, civilly, and peacefully, after
enduring several decades of excessive and inequitable federal tariffs (taxes) heavily
prejudiced against Southern commerce.[4] Refusing to recognize the Confederate
secession, Lincoln called it a "rebellion" and a "threat" to "the government" (without
ever explaining exactly how "the government" was "threatened" by a lawful, civil,
and peaceful secession) and acted outside the lawfully defined scope of either the
office of president or the U.S. government in general, to coerce the South back into
subjugation to Northern control.[5]
The South's rejoining the Union at the point of a bayonet in the late 1860s didn't
prove secession is "not an option" or unlawful. It only affirmed that violent
coercion can be used—even by governments (if unrestrained)—to rob men of their
very lives, liberty, and property.[6]
It bears repeating that the United States are "united" explicitly on the principle that
"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and
"whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e.,
protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and
usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for
their future security." [7]
Q: Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White prove that secession
is unconstitutional?
A: No. For space considerations, here are the relevant portions of the Supreme Court's
decision in Texas v. White:
"When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble
relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as
perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no
place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through
consent of the States.
"...The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union ...remained perfect and
unimpaired. ...the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of
the Union.
"...Our conclusion therefore is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the
Union."
— Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700, 703 (1868)
It is noteworthy that two years after that decision, President Grant signed an act
entitling Texas to U.S. Congressional representation, readmitting Texas to the
Union.
What's wrong with this picture? Either the Supreme Court was wrong in claiming
Texas never actually left the Union (they were — see below), or the Executive
(President Grant) was wrong in "readmitting" a state that, according to the Supreme
Court, had never left. Both can't be logically or legally true.
To be clear: Within a two year period, two branches of the same government took
action with regard to Texas on the basis of two mutually exclusive positions — one,
a judicially contrived "interpretation" of the US Constitution, argued essentially
from silence, and the other a practical attempt to remedy the historical fact that
Texas had indeed left the Union, the very evidence for which was that Texas had
recently met the demands imposed by the same federal government as prerequisite
conditions for readmission. If the Supreme Court was right, then the very notion of
prerequisites for readmission would have been moot — a state cannot logically be
readmitted if it never left in the first place.
This gross logical and legal inconsistency remains unanswered and unresolved to
this day.
Now to the Supreme Court decision in itself...
The Court, led by Chief Justice Salmon Chase (a Lincoln cabinet member and
leading Union figure during the war against the South) pretended to be analyzing
the case through the lens of the Constitution, yet not a single element of their logic
or line of reasoning came directly from the Constitution — precisely because the
Constitution is wholly silent on whether the voluntary association of a plurality of
states into a union may be altered by the similarly voluntary withdrawal of one or
more states.
It's no secret that more than once there had been previous rumblings about secession
among many U.S. states (and not just in the South), long before the South seceded.
These rumblings met with no preemptive quashing of the notion from a
"constitutional" argument, precisely because there was (and is) no constitutional
basis for either allowing or prohibiting secession.
An objective reading of the relevant portions of the White decision reveals that it is
largely arbitrary, contrived, and crafted to suit the agenda which it served:
presumably (but unconstitutionally) to award to the U.S. federal government, under
color of law, sovereignty over the states, essentially nullifying their right to selfdetermination
and self-rule, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, as
well as the current Texas Constitution (which stands unchallenged by the federal
government).
Where the Constitution does speak to the issue of powers, they resolve in favor of
the states unless expressly granted to the federal government or denied to the states.
No power to prevent or reverse secession is granted to the federal government, and
the power to secede is not specifically denied to the states; therefore that power is
retained by the states, as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment.
The Texas v. White case is often trotted out to silence secessionist sentiment, but on
close and contextual examination, it actually exposes the unconstitutional, despotic,
and tyrannical agenda that presumes to award the federal government, under color
of law, sovereignty over the people and the states.

A Poll was taken by a group identified as Rasmussen which said 75% of Texans are not in favor of Secession. I'd debate that Polls result or at the very least wonder if those polled are truly Texans.
Q: Is Texas really ripe for a secession movement?
A: Probably not (yet). Texans generally aren't the rugged, independent, libertyconscious
folks they once were. Like most Americans, they happily acquiesce to
the U.S. government's steady theft of their rights and property via unlawful statutes,
programs, and activities.
Unfamiliar with historical or legal details, being largely products of public (i.e.,
government) "education," today's Texans easily adopt the "politically correct" myths
that litter the landscape of American popular opinion. Many don't even know what
the word secede means, and believe that the United States is a "democracy" (hint:
it's not)[8].
But public opinion and ignorance won't stop us from suggesting that secession is
still a good idea for people who value their rights and personal liberty more highly
than the temporal affluence, comfort, and false security provided by the U.S.
welfare/warfare state. By raising public awareness of even the concept of secession,
we hope they might plant seeds that will some day yield a new resolve among
Texans for liberty and self-government.
Q: How would Texas—and Texans—benefit from secession?
A: In many ways. Over the past century-and-a-half the United States government has
awarded itself ever more power (but not the lawful authority) to meddle with the
lives, liberty, and property of the People of Texas (as well as those of the other
States).
Sapping Texans' wealth into a myriad of bureaucratic, socialist schemes both in the
U.S. and abroad, the bipartisan despots in Washington persists in expanding the
federal debt and budget deficits every year. Texans would indeed gain much by
reclaiming control of their State, their property, their liberty, and their very lives, by
refusing to participate further in the fraud perpetrated by the Washington politicians
and bureaucrats.
By restoring Texas to an independent republic, Texans would truly reclaim a
treasure for themselves and their progeny.