A number of folks have written me in response to the previous item to say that Texas has the legal right to split itself into five states any time it wishes and without the consent of Congress. I don't think so.
It's true that when Texas was annexed in 1845, the terms of annexation seem to have included such a right. But then you have to consider Article IV, Section 3 of a little document called the United States Constitution. That particular section says…
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states 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.
I don't see any reason why those Terms of Annexation overrule the Constitution on this point. I'd be curious as to how the U.S. Supreme Court, even at its Scaliziest, could rule otherwise. I'm also wondering if the Texans who agreed to join the U.S. in 1846 bothered to read the Constitution of the nation they were signing onto.