Yes. Are you aware that Texas is slightly different from a CD player or an estate?
A title of nobility is also slightly different from a CD player or an estate, yet the rule against perpetuities derives from a 1682 case before the House of Lords involving titles.
Do you have any examples to support this assertion? Thanks in advance.
The support lies in the breach--e.g., The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was explicitly declared to be of infinite duration, while the Treaty of Tripoli made reference to a "firm and perpetual peace" with Tripoli. If such treaties retained their durable nature even with such language excised, the question is begged of what purpose the language serves. As such language operates to clarify the durability of the treaty, the apparent need for such clarification necessarily implies that, absent language establishing durability, a treaty is not inherently durable.
Speaking more to the potential of Texas to recant and rescind the Treaty of Annexation, we must look to history of the United States and various discourses on the Constitution.
First, we have Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness[
The Declaration, while not black letter law, still asserts a fundamental right of the people to alter or abolish government.
Then we have the Preamble to the Constitution
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The "people" form the union known as the United States of America, and do so explicitly in order to guarantee their liberty and the liberty of their future generations. Again, the Preamble is not of itself black-letter law, but the Preamble again asserts the primacy of the people over the government.
Lysander Spooner's essay
No Treason, written in 1869, describes the Constitution as a contract, and applies the language of contracts to its construction and interpretation, in particular to the Preamble:
It is plain, in the first place, that this language, AS AN AGREEMENT,purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract between the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a contract, only upon those then existing. In the second place, the language neither expresses nor implies that they had any right or power, to bind their "posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity" will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in effect, that their hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might prove useful to their posterity, as well as to themselves, by promoting their union, safety, tranquility, liberty, etc.
Finally, the Treaty of Annexation itself is of the form of a bilateral contract, with duties owing to and from both parties (as are most treaties).
Revocability of contract provisions as a principle of common law dates back to the early 1600's.
Thus there is a clear thrust in common law towards a certain impermanence of contractual terms, that absent clarification to the contrary and the vesting of interests, agreements are not durable in nature.
Only when the discussion turns to rights of secession are doctrines such as the rule against perpetuities and the revocability of contract provisions discarded, and arbitrarily so.
Is there anything at all, from any legal authority, that would support your assertions here?
Texas v White is the legal authority.
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.
Just as the government cannot sustain a law that contravenes the Constitution (
Marbury v. Madison, "an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void."), neither can it consent to the exercise of a non-existent right. If, therefore, the states are empowered to consent to secession, the right of secession
must exist, and the remainder of the discussion is merely to establish what boundaries, if any exist upon that right. While Texas v White argues the union of states to be to some degree indissoluble, it also moderates that degree by reference to "consent of the States."
Nevertheless, do you have anything to support your assertions? You realize that you're making quite a few significant leaps of logic in there, and I'm not likely to believe it unless you can support them. I've never heard of anyone who ever claimed that the RAP applied to statehood, as it's in direct conflict with the entirety of our national experience.
Please enumerate the "leaps of logic." That is your assertion, and by your own reasoning the burden is upon you to establish that such leaps exist in my reasoning. Please also take note that I have cited specific passages and Amendments to the Constitution--they are the support for my argument. If you challenge that support, again, by your reasoning, the burden is upon you to substantiate the challenge.
