So back in December of 1845, the paperwork for Texas to be accepted as a state has this stipulation written into it, as it was handed into Congress. It says that Texas reserves the right to split from one state, into five. No other state prior to this and no state since then....has ever included this wording.
As for the legality of this? Some suggest that it's null and void because Texas used the wording that they were on 'equal footing' of all other states at the time. Beyond that, it's been mostly laughed about legal talk.
The general problem here? Congress in 1845 had three options to this submission:
1. Refuse the application until they removed the five-state comment.
2. Accept the application but give Texas a limited amount of time (say 10 to 20 years) to split.
3. Do nothing and just accept it as it is.
Basically, since 1845, Congress has done nothing.
Slavery fitting into this one massive state entry? Well....yeah, that is the big chunk of the discussion and why entry of this massive area needed to be one state only.
Why any of this chatter matters? Well....since the application of DC to become a state has gone in....some folks in Texas suggest that it's finally time to split and create four additional states.
Maps of this five-state creation? There are literally hundreds of them.
Most end up showing Austin (a fairly blue city) with San Antonio (a 50-50 political situation) and Waco (mostly a red area). That might be the only Democratic state created out of this.
The remaining four would be fairly Republican, with a strong twist of Hispanic votes.
The question is....if put to a Texas public vote....would they even go this way, and my humble guess is no. There'd be a max of 30-percent of voters who might agree to this path ahead.
Legally, the idea will just hang out there....forever discussed but never going anywhere.
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