Sweet tea. Whataburger. Cowboys. Cowboy boots. Cows. Buc-ee’s. These are just some of the things that make Texas unique. But what if Texas, with all of its southern charm, became its own country? It’s been independent before, from 1836 to 1846, but could it happen again? 

Legally, there is an extremely limited basis for the secession of a state from the union. Texas’ constitution says that the state is bound to the constitution of the United States, which does not expressly forbid exit from The Union. But, and this is a big but, the historical legal precedents to secession mean that any attempted secession would be illegal. This historical precedent dates back to the Civil War, where the Union’s victory set into place a precedent of federal power over states and determined that the federal government could quell any possibility of rebellion or attempted exit by the states. Legal precedent can be seen in Texas vs White, where the supreme court ruled that states “could not legally unilaterally secede” from the union. 

So secession is most definitely illegal, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating about the possibility of an independent Texan state. Several organizations such as the Republic of Texas and Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) have advocated for secession since the 1990s. The Republic of Texas group claims that Texas is not legally under the control of the United States government as it was not properly annexed and that the state is simply under unlawful occupation to this day. The TNM states its goals as “the complete, total and unencumbered political, cultural and economic independence of Texas”, and have advocated unsuccessfully at both the state capital and the state republican convention for resolutions of secession to be introduced. 

Despite these groups and others like them, Texas has never seriously considered seceding from the union in modern times. But why does “Texit” keep coming up in the media? The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. Some of the sentiment around secession stems from a feeling of being “trampled on” by the federal government, or simply not liking the limits and tariffs that are instituted by the national government. Some secessionist mentality comes from the fact that Texas was once a fully independent nation, and certain groups use that past to create a vision of texas as a sovereign state in the future.

All in all, secession doesn’t seem to be a feasible option or possibility for Texas in the foreseeable future. But with the ever-growing political division in our country, it isn’t all that insane to envision a drastic move like secession in response to a federal law that the Texas legislature fundamentally disagrees with. For now, we seem to be stuck in the good old United States, but who knows? The land of cowboys and superior grammar (“y’all” is just so convenient) might again become its own country one of these days!