I have really enjoyed the Live Wire (orange), and just tried the black grape flavor last night. Not as big a fan of the grape, but that is just because I prefer orange to grape.
If I am not mistaken we have the right to secede and become sovereign, divide in up tp five states, do nothing, or do a combination of both. So here is what we do. We divide into two states. West Texas and Texas. Texas includes Houston and the energy corridor up to Orange including a small two to three mile border with Louisiana. We cut through the financially savory Piney woods of East Texas and scoop up Nac and lufkin and follow 21 to 35 and pick up Austin and San Antonio and then kinda back down to include South Padre but not the Mexican border town of Harlingen. The capital would be Houston. Texas would then secede and reflag as The Reublic of Texas. West Texas can then do whatever it wants with the US.
Uh, maybe not. Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution already specifically provided for the formation of new states through the junction or division of existing states: New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. Another Texas-related legend holds that the Texans negotiated an annexation treaty which reserved to them the right to secede from the Union without the consent of the U.S. Congress, but the terms of Texas' annexation contain no such provision. edit: Oh sorry this is from Snopes... link
I've never thought that we kept the right to leave the US in that treaty, or at least a right any different than the rest of the country had, pre-Civil War, but we are still governed by the 1845 treaty we made with the US. At least in my opinion. The Supreme Court would have to make a determination about whether the 1845 treaty superceded Article III of the Constitution... which it would, the Constitution being written before the treaty. I don't think Snopes addresses this at all, or has it completely wrong. Because if Texas signed a treaty as a sovereign nation, which it certainly was and recognized by Britain and France, unlike California, to join the United States, and that treaty was invalidated by the Constitution before it was ever signed, then that treaty wasn't worth the paper it was written on. If you consider that we retained our territory, as a state, which was part of the treaty, unlike the states which joined in the "conventional' way, it implies the validity of that treaty. There wasn't an attempt, to my knowledge, by the US to "take" our state territory. We live in this vast state and very little of it, in reality, is "owned" by the Federal government. We retained it, as we retain our other rights under the 1845 treaty. That's my opinion, and I strongly believe it. There is nothing, that I'm aware of, that deals with this issue "post-Civil War." Texas could still do it.
Actually that's been tried a few times. There have been many proposals to divide CA into two, three and even four states.
remember these nuts? http://www.republic-of-texas.net/ they say is that true, about there being no base, park or building on texas soil owned by the federal government? or is this their view those things don't truely belong to the federal government? Ft. Hood isn't federal property? federal courthouses?
I believe they were purchased, or given to the Federal government by the state of Texas. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will let me know.
