Kevin Gannon: Gonna be a lot of dunking on this today, so as someone who wrote his dissertation on secession movements, let me point out: 1. This is not a majoritarian mvmt. Like 1861 secession in TX, it's a minority coup 2. It looks majoritarian bc of gerrymandering and disfranchisement (1/2)

Gonna be a lot of dunking on this today, so as someone who wrote his dissertation on secession movements, let me point out: 1. This is not a majoritarian mvmt. Like 1861 secession in TX, it's a minority coup 2. It looks majoritarian bc of gerrymandering and disfranchisement (1/2)

Texas Secessionsts win GOP backing for independence vote: 'Major step'www.newsweek.com The state GOP has backed a referendum on leaving the American Union in its 2024 legislative platform.

3. Nearly 60% of TX's pop is BIPOC, and new pop growth in TX is basically a 10:1 BIPOC to white ratio. So before you fire up your "let them go" hot takes, consider that you'd be advocating for the abandonment of a lot of folks (many disfranchised or inadequately represented) who hate this shit too

Texas Secessionsts win GOP backing for independence vote: 'Major step'www.newsweek.com The state GOP has backed a referendum on leaving the American Union in its 2024 legislative platform.

Also worth pointing out that, despite all these yahoos' bleating about Texas's "proud history" as an independent nation, most of the original TX leaders couldn't wait to be annexed to the US and that was the goal of most TX "revolutionaries." (Except Mirabeau Lamar, but he was an outlier)

The only reason it took 9 years for TX to be annexed was bc of northern opposition (ironically, there were threats from Massachusetts to secede if TX became part of the US!). The reason TX whites wanted independence from Mexico in the first place was bc Mexico abolished slavery in 1829.

Even though white US settlers had taken an oath to obey Mexico's constitution and laws to get the land they settled on, as soon as Mexico made it clear they intended to enforce the law, even in Texas, slaveowners started talking revolution and annexation to the US.

So when you hear these present-day secessionists talking about an independent Texas, know that they're evolving a "glorious legacy" of a fifth-column movement of proslavery landgrabbers and oathbreakers, one that had disastrous consequences for both Blacks and Natives in the long run.

(if you want to know more, start with Frederick Merck's classic "Slavery and the Annexation of Texas," and Randolph Campbell's "An Empire for Slavery")

TBH I'm pretty sure the current secessionist totally feel like they're continuing the work of their revered forefathers

Texas: the most successful filibuster.

When I was going to a community college in Texas, I brought this up with one of my professors as part of why I wasn't particularly impressed by the grand revolutionary history of the state. He was... rather upset about my comments, and insisted it Wasn't Like That, Really.

A lot of the profs who teach TX history in the state are, shall we say, unreconstructed.

On behalf of community college history professors in Texas, I apologize for that guy. Many of us teach the plain facts that Kevin describes here.

I used to teach Texas History in middle school. Holy shit, our official version of Texas' history is soooooo far removed from reality.

I took the required (then, now?) 7th grade TX history and I don't remember learning all the b.s. a lot of people seem to think is real. I find that true about a lot of things in the public schools I went to. I assume it's because many/most of my teachers were POC.

The only state to take up arms not once but twice in defense of owning other human beings as property.

Also didn't the Mexican government have an agreement to tax them after a certain period, and when the bill came due the settlers flipped out?

Mexico abolished slavery by an act of Congress in 1837 (except for forced labor of natives). Texas was already an independent Republic by 1836 Treaties of Velasco. 1829 was the Guerrero Decree, which specifically exempted Tejas y Coahuila and was irrelevant since he was deposed a few weeks later.

The Guerrero Decree no doubt stoked the flames of revolution, but to say "Texas seceded because Mexico outlawed slavery" is obviously false.

CAAM | #blackhistory: On September 15, 1829, Afro-Mestizo Mexican President Vicente Ramon Guerrero issued the Guerrero Decree, prohibiting slavery in most of Mexicocaamuseum.org Between the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and 1829, 200,000 enslaved Africans were taken to New Spain, which we know today as Mexico. An estimated 1.3 million Mexicans today claim African ancestry, a...

In the eyes of the revolutionists, the decree, plus the fact they knew which way the wind was blowing as the new constitution was taking shape, was enough to convince them abolition was a settled fact and coming for them.

With respect, that's quibble over trivia. Whatever specific year Mexico legally banned slavery, the handwriting was on the wall when Texas seceded. Just as the handwriting was on the wall when the Confederate states seceded from the US. Both secessions were about preserving slavery.

Texas was one of four separatist movements that started when Santa Anna came to power. Yucatán (1841), Republic of the Rio Grande (1836) and Zacatecas (1835) also issued declarations of independence around the same time as Texas (1836).

Huh. I had to take a full year of Texas History as a San Antonio-area 7th grader and boy was that not any part of it. How odd.

One major reason was slavery, yeah, not the biggest one though. The biggest reason was Santa Ana's incompetence and many many Mexican states revolted against his dictatorial takeover.

They also had to wait for a free state to join before they could join as a slave state, right?

That's a tidbit about my home state I never knew. LOL just that idea of Massachusetts threatening to secede at all is pretty funny we're like so tiny

Wasn't Texas's initial revolution in part because Mexico outlawed slavery? Yeah, it seems like Texas's "proud history" is more about rich white people asserting / maintaining dominance than "independence."

Yep. See downthread. That was pretty much the whole revolution tbh

Yeah, I started writing that while you were in the process of posting. Would be *really* nice if we could compose a whole thread and post at once, rather than one post at a time.

The Mexican leadership changed to one that was opposed to slavery, and the Mexican government were in the process of outlawing it when Texas decided they no longer wanted to be associated with people who wouldn't allow them to keep slaves anymore.

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"Our proud history of being annexed in 1845 means we have the right to..." A) No it didn't. Never did. B) Screw 1845. Conquered by force of arms in 1865. Suck it.

Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk of the 19th century

Correct, and not repeated enough

Yep. We got 2 new congressional seats because of growth in BIPOC population but somehow have one less majority-minority district than 2010 map. 🤔

Yeah funny how that works huh

Watching this type of thing going on for decades, I knew it was coming. Again. Nothing like constantly getting my voting power eroded all my life. Doesn't matter we're the largest ethnic group of all groups in the state. Packed and cracked districts.

Good point, but for the idiots behind the independence stuff, I would really like for them to get to the find out stage at some point.

My take is never “Fine. Go.” but rather “If you keep insisting, we’re giving you back to Mexico.”

Returning Tejas to Coahuila would mean women would have a right to abortion and everyone health care! 🤷‍♀️

As a lifelong Texan I say PLEASE GIVE US BACK TO MEXICO

A big improvement over Abbot.

That’s why this “Let them burn” is such a shitty perspective. If it were easy to move to a place that sucked less then we all would do it. Authoritarians make it harder for folks to leave because what good is power if you can make the objects of your obsessions miserable?

I saw a similar argument for the abortion control brought up a couple of weeks ago. "Why do they limit women leaving the state to get abortions, when they could limit women who've had abortions from returning to the state instead?"

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Is an acceptable take that this can be dismissed because it'll never happen (barring the dissolution of the US as a whole?) The reason: *national Republicans* will never let it. Dems control the Electoral College w/o Texas Their plan to make state-wide offices unwinnable for Dems is more plausible

Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral…www.texastribune.org The platform was voted on Saturday, with tallies expected next week. Other planks call abortion homicide and gender-transition care “child abuse.”

I assume nothing when it comes to Republicans, state or national.

I would think a lot depends on the 2024 election results. If MAGA loses power, then Abbott's secessionism could inspire copycats. MAGA governors across the country *already* endorsed Abbott's nose-thumbing of federal authority on the border, which was couched in secessionist language.

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