This part is particularly interesting.
A notable victory for States Rights, under the Constitution of the United
States -- and the unique status of Texas.
Texas leading the way.
Many Confederates, disgusted at what they saw happening in the South after
the end of the War Between The States, went to Texas.
"Gone To Texas" -- which made a particularly notable film -- with some
notable plot changes.
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Friend****p
---------------------------------------------------------
Texas went Democratic in the 1948 election, and shortly after the election
President Truman directed the attorney general to file suit against Texas.
Motion for summary judgment (without hearing evidence) was made on behalf
of
the United States. Texas made a strong plea, sup****ted by eleven of the
world's authorities on international law, in sup****t of its title to the
property as an independent nation; its retention of the land under the
terms
of the international agreement by which it became a state; and its right
to
introduce evidence on both points.
By a vote of four to three, the Supreme
Court decided against Texas, thereby, for the first time in its history,
denying a state the right to introduce evidence in a contested lawsuit.
The
majority opinion by Justice William O. Douglas recognized Texas's
owner****p
as a republic, but held that transfer of national sovereignty to the
United
States and admission as a state on an equal footing with the other states
accomplished a transfer of this land to the United States. On motion for
rehearing, again sup****ted by leading authorities on the interpretation of
international agreements, Texas urged that transfer of national
sovereignty
does not carry with it the owner****p of lands specifically retained by
solemn agreement; that the "equal footing" provision was not submitted to
or
accepted by the Republic of Texas; and that there was no "equal footing"
as
far as lands and debts were concerned, because Texas was the only state
required to assume its own public debt and permitted to retain all of its
unsold lands.
The court corrected its erroneous citation on "equal footing"
but did not change the result of its decision. In 1952 Congress again
passed
a bill restoring to the states the title to all submerged lands within
their
respective boundaries, but for the second time, President Truman vetoed
the
bill.
In the presidential campaign of 1952 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower made
special recognition of the rights of Texas under the Annexation Agreement
as
well as the long-recognized rights of the other states under earlier
Supreme
Court decisions. He declared in favor of state owner****p legislation and
said he would sign the bill if it were enacted again by Congress. The
Republican platform agreed.
On the other hand, the Democratic nominee, Adlai
Stevenson, said he would veto such a bill if enacted again by Congress. In
Texas this became the foremost issue in the 1952 campaign. The state
Democratic Convention placed Stevenson's name on the ticket but then
passed
a resolution urging all members of the Texas Democratic party to vote for
Eisenhower, and Eisenhower carried the state in the November election.
In 1953 Congress made the restoration of submerged lands one of the first
orders of business. Price Daniel, then United States senator from Texas,
was
coauthor of the legislation in the Senate, where it survived what was then
the longest filibuster in Senate history (twenty-seven days) and finally
won
a substantial majority in both houses. President Eisenhower signed the
measure on May 22, 1953.
One of the pens used by the president in affixing
his signature was presented to the Texas Memorial Museum in a ceremony
conducted by the University of Texas. As an aftermath, one last battle was
pitched against Texas in 1957, when the Republican attorney general,
Herbert
Brownell, filed suit against the state, alleging that its legal boundary
and
therefore its tideland owner****p extended only three miles instead of
three
leagues (10.35 miles) into the Gulf.
This was resented in Texas, primarily
because President Eisenhower, the Congress, and Attorney General Brownell
himself had specifically recognized three leagues as the extent of the
Texas
boundary and owner****p during the hearings and pendency of the 1953
legislation. The Brownell action sought to take away two-thirds of the
Texas
property. President Eisenhower publicly disagreed with the position taken
by
the Department of Justice with respect to the Texas boundary.
Nevertheless,
Texas was forced to defend its boundary in the Supreme Court of the United
States. Texas prevailed in this lawsuit, which was decided on June 1,
1960,
and now holds thoroughly litigated and firmly established title to its
three-league Gulfward boundary and the 2,440,650 acres within such
boundary.
As of August 31, 1987, the General Land Office re****ted that the Texas
public school fund had received nearly $2 billion from leases, rentals,
and
royalties on this property, and that forty oil wells and 393 gas wells had
been discovered.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ernest R. Bartley, The Tidelands Oil Controversy: A Legal
and
Historical Analysis (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1953). Price
Daniel,
Sovereignty and Owner****p in the Marginal Sea and Their Relation to
Problems
of the Continental Shelf (Austin, 1950). "Symposium on the Texas Tidelands
Case," Baylor Law Review 3 (Winter 1951). The "Tidelands" Decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States (Austin: State of Texas, n.d.).
Price Daniel
<http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/mgt2.html>
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