Texas Admission Statute

[stoke001]

I have changed the title of this thread, in order to raise some
questions:

1.  Are the "ARticles of Annexation" a statute or a real treaty (and
does anyone think it make a difference in terms of authority to
trump what otherwise would be the Constitution's text?!?!?).

2.  Is it possible that this enactment is just a (non-binding) pledge
that Congress will consent, in the future, to the carving up of
Texas, if that is what the Legislature of Texas, and the legislatures
of the new states (call em "Baby Lone Stars"), also desire:  Art. IV
section 3 provides:  "New States may be admitted by the Congress
into this Union; but no new State 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."

3.  Can Congress at time T1 "consent" in advance to a division yet
to occur.  Does "consent" have to be contemporaneous?  If not,
maybe the "Texas Treaty" doesn't give Texas any right that any
other state wouldn't also have, under the Constitution?

Michael Stokes Paulsen
University of Minnesota Law School



 that Date sent:        Wed, 25 Oct 2000 16:43:12 -0500
Send reply to:          Discussion list for con law professors <CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu>
From:                   Sanford Levinson <SLevinson at MAIL.LAW.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject:                Re: Texas treaty
To:                     CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu

> The Articles of Annexation, 5 U.S. Stat. 797,  include the following:
>
> 2.  An be it further resolved, Tht the foregoing consent of congress
> is given upon the following conditions, and with the following
> guarantees, to wit: ....  Third.  New States, of convenient size, not
> exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and
> having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said
> State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled
> to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.
>
> I am unaware either that the present states of New Mexico, Colorado,
> Oklahoma, and Arkansas were included in the original boundaries of
> Texas and/or that Texas ever gave its "consent" to the hiving off of
> these four states.  That I am unaware is not evidence that it didn't
> happen; I'm certainly not expert in these issues.  Let's assume,
> though, for the moment that at least one of these states was in the
> initial territory of "said State of Texas."  Would anyone seriously
> argue that the presumed failure of Texas to "consent" to the hiving
> off would invalidate the status of, say, Oklahoma as a state?
>
> sandy
>