I for one applaud Governor Perry. He is reaffirming a long, spunky tradition of independence in Texas, and it's only natural for him to want to stay in touch with his heritage.
Let's remind ourselves of what his historically resonant call for secession calls to mind, by looking up the statement promulgated by the Texas legislature the last time the state seceded.
The document begins with a capsule summary of the historical roots of Texan society, and the limited conditions under which it has accepted membership in the United States:
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association.
Of course, just as now, the trust and comity upon which their membership in the Union had been predicated did not last long (emphasis added):
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
Outrages such as this finally became intolerable, just as outrages in the present day may yet become, and impelled the plucky, rugged state to secession. Please join me in reading the stirring statement of principles by which the Texas legislature defined the core values of Texas society that led them to do so (emphasis in the original):
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
There is no better way to put it than that. All white men are created equal, indeed. And the subjugation of the African race is, of course, in the best interests of the African as well as the white -- this is incomparable wisdom in a decree by a state legislature.
So Governor Perry, as he well knows and as his supporters all know, is drawing on an exceptionally rich heritage in making his statements on this matter. Would that all of our leaders were in touch with the culture of their states.
Now, every Texan I have ever known seemed eager to turn his or her back on this deep well of heritage, for reasons I could never fathom. But why should Governor Perry? And why should his supporters? After all, as they surrounded him at the Tea Party and chanted "Secede! Secede! Secede!" they surely knew their history, surely knew the undertones of what they were saying, and just as surely basked in them.