Does a state have the right to secede?

[elvis]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/politics/18texas.html


Texas governor threatens to secede. I think this was sabor rattling, but do they have the right to?


I thought this was decided in 1865.

 

[PoliticalChic]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/politics/18texas.html


Texas governor threatens to secede. I think this was sabor rattling, but do they have the right to?


I thought this was decided in 1865.

This was covered in the book "Polk, Walter Borneman:

On December 3, 1844, President Tyler submitted his last annual message, where- instead of battling the Senate Whigs for the two-thirds vote required to ratify a treaty of annexation, Tyler asked Congress to invite Texas into the union by passing a joint resolution, which only required a simple majority. Heretofore admission was by treaty.
Whig Congressman Milton Brown of Tennessee, offered a House bill that would allow admission as a state, and it passed.
Thomas Hart Bento of Missouri, on Feb. 5, 1845, offered a Senate resolution that “a state, to be formed out of the present Republic of Texas” should be admitted as soon as a new treaty was negotiated. But a treaty meant two-thirds concurrence by the Senate, and this had resulted in a stalemate due to opposition of abolitionists.
But on February 13th,when president-elect Polk, whose election was predicated on admission of Texas, arrived he represented a pro-Texas tide. The Whigs saw the handwriting on the wall.
Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, who coveted a Cabinet post as Sec’y of the Treasury, introduced a Senate amendment to the House version of the joint resolution, giving the president, Polk, the choice between offering Texas annexation on the terms of the House resolution of reopening treaty negotiations under the Benton plan. The Senate approved it 27 to 25. The following day it passed easily in the House.
Thus on March 1, 1845 the bill landed on John Tyler’s desk and he signed the “choice” bill. Tyler and his Sec’y of State Calhoun decided to leave the choice to Polk (although the Cabinet had urged him to act for immediate annexation).
In Texas, on July 4th, the special session of the Texas legislature ratified both the acceptance of statehood and the state constitution. On December 29, 1845 President Polk signed the Congressional resolution admitting Texas to the union as the 28th state.

Furthermore, in its 1868 decision in Texas v. White, the United States Supreme Court ruled that secession of Texas from the United States was illegal. And in 1901 DeLima v. Bidwell also addressed the question.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

It was not decided in 1865 considering the Constitution was not amended to prohibit secession.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." - 10th Amendment

Secession is not prohibited, therefore, under the 10th amendment, the right to secession exists.