Kevin Gannon: 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.

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")

The new Sam Haynes book would also be a pretty good place to start for a general audience.

Have heard good things, but haven't yet read it myself. Need to move it up in the stack.

I have a feeling most pro secession Texans wouldn't be so pro if they understood what it would cost them just to replace all the resources they get from the Union. Not to mention the diplomatic costs. It would make brexit look like an inconsequential political spat.

Apart from moral reasons a 'let Texas go' attitude does not deserve respect, actually letting Texas go would result in significant disintegration to the US beyond TX, and would make several different types of war inevitable.

In ancient times (‘79?) Phil Donahue had some supremacist group on TV wanted to build their pure white ethnostate. He took them apart methodically as they had no plan or real grasp of reality beyond “THIS WILL BE PERFECT, JUST ALL WHITE PEOPLE!” These TX grifters: know their whole bit is just hooey

This is also coming from someone who only taught US Civics at a high school level but also my reading of specific court cases, especially Texas v White 1869 that there is no constitutional right to succeed. In fact there are no actual apparatus in the Constitution to initiate succession.

True.

What a great & informative thread for non-Texans. It's worth thinking about how many times China broke up & reformed over the last 4,000 years. A 250-year-old nation is just a baby. The long view reassures me, because it means "the American Dream" didn't fail: it's just still a *work in progress.*

I am reading Graeber’s final book, and he had a theory that re-frames the American project as being a whole lot older and greater in scope than I had seen it described previously, and yeah, 250 years isn’t very long

I love this entire thread. I haul all of this out every time someone starts going on about the Alamo etc. mythology b.s. &pushback on it. Way too many people believe a lot of 🗑 in 40s to 70s Westerns. I also throw in all of the squatting a lot of Americans did once they decided to ignore MX laws.

Interesting. History I did not know.

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.

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