Legal Status of Texas - Historical Legal Actions

Historical Legal Actions

• Texas v. White, United States Supreme Court, (1869)

In 1869, the Supreme Court ruled that secession of Texas from the United States was illegal. The court wrote, "The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States."

• DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901)

Annexation via a joint resolution of Congress is legal. The Supreme Court wrote, "A treaty made by that power is said to be the supreme law of the land, as efficacious as an act of Congress; and, if subsequent and inconsistent with an act of Congress, repeals it. This must be granted, and also that one of the ordinary incidents of a treaty is the cession of territory, and that the territory thus acquired is acquired as absolutely as if the annexation were made, as in the case of Texas and Hawaii, by an act of Congress."