Of course, Biden and his merry band of tyrants could back down and leave Texas alone, but too many lines have already been crossed. Here is the map of states that are standing with Texas to stop the invasion. If the U.S. is eventually balkanized, this might be what it looks like in the end.
The 25 states are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Several started sending National Guard troops in small numbers in early 2023; now, twelve states have upped the ante with new pledges.
In my opinion, Gov. Greg Abbott’s declaration amounts to a Constitutional crisis when it starts with the words, “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.”
It doesn’t mean that there are breaches of the compact. It plainly states, “The federal government has broken the compact,” period.
Here, Abbott is applying the “compact of states” theory whereby individual states (and their citizens included) entered into a compact with the federal government. This theory is flatly disputed by the Biden administration, which holds that the entire body politic entered into such a compact, and not the states themselves.
This argument has raged for at least 200 years, including through the Civil War, and here we are going through it again. The 50 states are split down the middle, with 25 agreeing with Abbott and 25 agreeing with Biden et al.
According to the Center for the Study of Federalism,
First, national powers are strictly limited in that all powers remain in the states unless the federal Constitution explicitly declares otherwise. Second, states have the authority to nullify federal laws on constitutional grounds. Third, states retain the right to secede from the union. Indeed, this interpretation of the origins of the United States grants states primacy to interpret the U.S. Constitution.