John Bogna
If you’ve got five minutes to spare to learn why and how Texas stayed in the union, check out this video explaining Texas v. White, the Supreme Court case ruling Texas did not have the right to secede.
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As video narrator “Mr.Beat” explains, Texas decided to secede from the union in 1861, right before the American Civil War. However, as part of the earlier Compromise of 1850 when Texas first joined the union, the federal government had paid Texas $10 million in bonds to pay its pre-statehood debts.
The new Texas government fought on the side of the Confederacy, and eventually, the mounting costs of the war led Texas to sell back the bonds to two private buyers in order to hide their origin.
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Their plan fell through when the Confederacy surrendered and new Texas state government formed loyal to the Union. The new Texas government found out about the sale and took the bond holders to court.
In order to get their bond money back, the issue of whether Texas was even a state had to be settled first. The dispute was take up by the Supreme Court , which ruled Texas had the right to sue for its bonds back, which essentially nullified its earlier secession.
One judge remarked Texas entered into “an indissoluble relation” when it became an American state in the case opinion. The court also ruled the state government had to buy the bonds back instead of seizing them.
If not for this case, Texas might have been sovereign nation of cowboys and oil.
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