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 7 Last Sentence Needs Revision

[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 neither a secessionist nor 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)

Yes, the War Between the States was deemed then and later to be just a failed rebellion/revolution. There are provisions added to the Constitution in the 14th Amendment that specifically mention the case of states in rebellion. Read up on it.

Any successful rebellion from the United States would obviously be a de facto event.

DAW68.159.134.65 21:23, 11 August 2007 (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

Someone else might know more about the details of what happened to those U.S. bonds. However, the Supreme Court ruling did say that ALL acts of the legislatures of the various Conferate states were NULL. (In other words, null & void.) Thus, the sale of those U.S. bonds, owned by the state of Texas, which was done by the Texas Confederate legislature was a null act. All of those U.S. bonds that has been the property of Texas, thus, had legally continued to be the property of Texas until they were legally cashed in or sold, later. Mr. White, et al., lost their case. It was as if they had never "bought" them, and whatever money they paid for them was just money down the drain for them.

DAW 68.159.134.65 21:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Last Sentence Needs Revision

The last sentence reads: "Chief Justice Chase (1864), Justice Swayne (1861), Justice Miller (1862), Justice Davis (1862), Justice Field, (1863) were all President Lincoln appointees who essentially validated Lincoln's decision to go to war with the Confederate States of America after the war's cessation in 1865 which also makes this decision controversial."

The last part about "Lincoln's decision to war with the Confederate States of America after the war's cessation in 1865" is not correct and makes no sense. Lincoln was assassinated three weeks after "the war's cessation." Perhaps the author is referring to the radical Republican plan for Reconstruction that imposed military districts occupied by Union army troops on the defeated Confederate States?Johnmshaw 16:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have corrected the sentence by adding the correct punctuation and emphasis. The original sentence actually made sense if one read it correctly in its context, but it was actually unclear w/o the proper punctuation. This is a sign of the problems that can be caused by people who are too lazy to punctuate correctly. Here's the revised version:

"...who essentially validated Mr. Lincoln's 1861 decision to go to war with the Confederate States of America - after the War's cessation in 1865, which also makes this decision controversial."

I added '1861' to emphasize when the decision was made, and added a hyphen and an obviously missing comma to clarify it. What they were trying to say was that Lincoln & Congress made the decision to go to war in 1861, WITHOUT any decision by the Supreme Court to validate that act. In effect, the 1867 Supreme Court decision was an ex post facto one that referred to events that had already occurred in 1861-65. This is what makes the decision conroversial - particularly to people who argue that the Supreme Court should have been asked to act in 1861 on the issue of whether any secession by the States was valid or not.

Nobody knows what they might have ruled then, and that is a totally unanswerable question.

DAW 68.159.134.65 21:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)