FW: Texas legislature adds "under God" to Texas flag pledge

[Ed Darrell]

Most historians I've talked to in the last couple of years about this clause note that in any case, it was made invalid by Texas' leaving the Union in 1861; readmission to the Union after 1865 did not include that divisibility clause.
   
  Alaskans are pleased to tell Texans that if Texans bellyache much more about being only the second largest state in the union in land area, Alaska will petition for splitting, making Texas the third largest.  Not much chance of that, either.
   
  Ed Darrell
  Dallas

Paul Finkelman <pfink at albanylaw.edu> wrote:
  alternatively, Texas admission can be seen as allowing for future slave
states (up to 4 more states of Texas) to match future free states. At
the time of Texas annexation, there were only two more territories open
to slavery: Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and Florida. But,
the rest of the Louisiana Territory would eventually yield Iowa, Minn.
S. Dakota, N. Dakota, Montana, Kansas, and Nebraksa. In addition
Wisconsin, from the Old Northwest Territory, was still not yet a state. 
Thus, rather than being against the spirit of the Missouri Compromise,
allowing 5 states to come out of Texas would have allowed for orderly
admission of slave and free states.

Be interesting imagine what the 5 states right now would look like? At
least one or two would have hispanic majorities. And a third might have
a black/hispanic majority. 

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York 12208-3494

518-445-3386 
pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>> laycockd at umich.edu 05/21/07 4:15 PM >>>


Off topic but short: The Texas Pledge may say "one and
indivisible," but the Texas admission act says Texas can be divided
into five states. At times, Texas politicians have claimed that is a
unilateral right -- that Texas can divide itself and order up 8 more
desks in the Senate. That doesn't make much sense, and would have
wildly undermined the Missouri compromise practice of matching new
slave states with new free states. But if it means only that
Congress and Texas jointly could divide the state, it adds nothing to
what's already in the Constitution. Maybe it just signaled that
division was in contemplation.

Quoting "Scarberry, Mark" :

> Forwarded to the list with Richard Winger's permission...
>
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
> Pepperdine University School of Law
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-election-law_gl at majordomo.lls.edu
> [mailto:owner-election-law_gl at majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of
Richard
> Winger
> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 7:39 AM
> To: election-law at majordomo.lls.edu
> Subject: Texas legislature adds "under God" to Texas flag pledge
>
> While looking for news about the Texas legislature's pending bill
on
> voter I.D., I ran across a news item that both houses of the Texas
> legislature passed a bill adding "under God" to the Texas pledge of
> allegiance. I hadn't realized that Texas schoolchildren take 2
pledges
> each morning. The Texas pledge will probably say, "Honor the Texas
> flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one
and
> indivisible."
> _______________________________________________
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>

Douglas Laycock
Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
734-647-9713

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