The constitutional case
The Texas Constitution already says yes.
Article 1, Section 2 is the foundational text. It was written by Texans, ratified by Texans, and it governs Texans. It says the people of Texas have the inalienable right to govern themselves, and it doesn't add an asterisk.
The text that matters
The Texas Constitution, Article 1 (the Texas Bill of Rights), Section 2 reads in full:
"All political power is inherent in the people. All free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient."
Read that sentence slowly. There are four claims in it. Each one matters.
Claim 1: All political power is inherent in the people. Not in the government. Not in the Legislature. Not in the courts. Not in the federal Constitution. In the people. The Texas Bill of Rights begins by locating sovereignty in the Texan population itself.
Claim 2: All free governments are founded on the authority of the people and instituted for their benefit. Governments are instruments. They exist to serve the people. They are not independent ends in themselves.
Claim 3: The faith of the people of Texas is pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government. This is the one limitation. Texas remains a republic. The people may alter the form of their republican government; they may not replace it with a monarchy or a dictatorship.
Claim 4 (the critical one): Subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.
Pull that apart. "At all times." Not "at certain times." Not "with permission." Not "subject to federal approval." At all times. "Inalienable right." Not "privilege." Not "convention." Inalienable, meaning, by definition, it cannot be taken away. "Alter, reform, or abolish their government." The three verbs cover the spectrum: minor change, major change, complete replacement. "In such manner as they may think expedient." The mechanism is chosen by the people, not dictated to them by outside authority.
What this means for Texas independence
The Texas Constitution explicitly affirms that the people of Texas have the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their government, at all times, by whatever manner they think expedient. This is the constitutional bedrock for Texas independence.
"Their government" here means the government that governs Texans. That includes the Texas state government, and it includes the federal government insofar as it governs Texans. A vote of the people of Texas, through the Texas Independence Referendum Act, to remove Texas from the federal jurisdiction and establish an independent Republic is exactly the kind of alteration, reform, or (in the strongest reading) abolition of "their government" that Article 1, Section 2 explicitly authorizes.
The U.S. federal government's response to this argument has historically been: "the U.S. Constitution overrides the Texas Constitution under the Supremacy Clause." But that argument runs into two problems.
First, the Supremacy Clause applies to valid federal law, meaning federal law that is within the federal government's constitutional authority. Nothing in the federal Constitution grants the federal government authority over a state's decision to remain in or leave the Union. The federal Constitution doesn't include that power because the framers did not believe the federal government had that power. The 10th Amendment reserves to the states (or to the people) any power not specifically granted to the federal government.
Second, the question of whether a sovereign people may govern themselves is logically prior to the Supremacy Clause. The Supremacy Clause is a rule of priority between two valid sources of authority. It is not a rule that erases the sovereignty of the people, who are themselves the source of both the state and federal governments' authority. You cannot use a subordinate clause of a federal contract to extinguish the sovereignty of the parties who entered into the contract.
The 1869 Texas Constitution context
Texas v. White was decided in 1869, when Texas was under Reconstruction occupation and the U.S. federal government had imposed substantial constraints on Texan self-government. The Texas Constitution Article 1 Section 2 that we now have was ratified, in essentially its current form, in the Texas Constitution of 1876, the post-Reconstruction state constitution. The 1876 Constitution was a deliberate restatement of Texan sovereignty after the Reconstruction period.
The framers of the 1876 Constitution knew about Texas v. White. They were aware of the 1869 ruling. They wrote Article 1, Section 2 anyway. They put it at the top of the Bill of Rights. They put it in the most foundational position in the Texas legal hierarchy. They were not making a mistake. They were making a statement: regardless of what the 1869 federal court said, the people of Texas affirm their inalienable right to govern themselves.
This is not theoretical. It is the live, governing text of Texas constitutional law. It has been the live, governing text for 150 years. It has not been superseded, repealed, or amended.
Fig. 1 · The bedrock
that Article 1, Section 2 has been the live, governing text of Texas constitutional law, ratified after Reconstruction in 1876 and never superseded, repealed, or amended.
The Texas Independence Referendum Act in this frame
The Texas Independence Referendum Act (TIRA) is the legislative mechanism that would put Article 1, Section 2 into operation. TIRA does one thing: it puts the question of Texas independence on the ballot as a binding referendum. The people of Texas then exercise their inalienable Article 1, Section 2 right to alter or abolish their government.
The constitutional question is therefore not "can Texans vote on independence?" Texans clearly can. Article 1, Section 2 says so explicitly. The constitutional question is "what is the procedural mechanism to put the vote on the ballot?" The answer is TIRA. The political question is "how do we get TIRA passed?" The answer is organized Texans: 635,469 on record, 257 officials and candidates signed onto the Texas First Pledge, and a movement organizing county by county across the state.
What the Texas Supreme Court has said
The Texas Supreme Court has not ruled on Texas independence specifically. It has ruled, repeatedly, on Article 1, Section 2 as the source of Texan popular sovereignty. The doctrine is well-established in Texas constitutional jurisprudence: the people of Texas are the source of political authority, and the Texas Constitution's structure of government is subject to alteration by the people.
The Texas Supreme Court would presumably be asked to rule on TIRA if it were enacted, and the court's likely holding, based on the doctrine, would be that TIRA is a valid exercise of the Legislature's authority to propose a binding referendum on a fundamental political question. That is exactly the holding any Texas court following Article 1, Section 2 should reach.
The takeaway
The legal case for Texas independence is not weak. It is grounded in the foundational text of the Texas Bill of Rights, written by Texans, ratified by Texans, and continuously affirmed for 150 years. The 1869 federal Supreme Court ruling that is sometimes cited against it rests on a metaphor and a Preamble that the Supreme Court itself subsequently held to grant no constitutional authority.
The Texas Constitution settles the question of whether Texans may vote on independence. The remaining work is political: getting TIRA through the Legislature, winning the referendum, negotiating the treaty.
That work needs Texians. That's why we're recruiting.
Texas First. Texas Forever.