Texas has been in the news a lot lately with the talk of seceding from the United States and forming its own independent country. Conservative governor of Texas Rick Perry has been reaffirming Texas’s right to sovereignty under the 10th amendment. So lets break it down, What does the 10th amendment say?

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.

Basically, the powers that have not been explicitly given to the Federal government is reserved to the individual states. For example, if the Federal government mandated that everybody in state X had to wear hats, this would violate the 10th amendment. There is not a provision in the constitution that gives the federal government authority to regulate people’s headgear; therefore the power to regulate people’s headgear is reserved for the state. State’s can choose to adopt or abide by rules the federal government comes up with, it is their choice. What happens most often is the federal government in a sense bribes states to adopt a national policy. Basically all states that adopt national stipulation x is given y amount of dollars to use at their discretion. This is not necessarily a bad thing; imagine if every state had their own phone number configuration or different standard envelope sizes. Some things just make sense that there should be a standard across the nation. I will try not to digress too much.

The federal government has forced itself into America’s personal and commercial lives. Taxes are are being imposed on all kinds of crazy stuff and at crazy rates, I mean seriously their are taxes on using street lights, and owning a pet. The federal government has started firing public company executives and regulating pay.

The only legitimate reason that the 10th amendment has on allowing a state to secede is that if the Federal government is not obeying the constitution, then it no longer has authority of individual states. In a sense the state government no longer recognizes the Federal government. I could be wrong though…not likely. Perry might have some issues making this happen however, a recent rasmussen poll has 75% of the texas population voting no on seceding, very patriotic of them.