WHO GAVE A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE THE AUTHORITY TO SPEAK FOR GENERATIONS OF TEXANS?
The people are supposed to control their government — not be controlled without limits by it.
WHO GAVE A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE THE AUTHORITY TO SPEAK FOR GENERATIONS OF TEXANS?
By John Washington III | 2028 United States Presidential Candidate
As a candidate for President of the United States, I am raising a question that goes to the very foundation of government in America: Where does government get its authority, and what does it really mean to be governed by the consent of the governed?
Let me take you back to the founding of Texas.
In March of 1836, in the middle of a revolution, fifty-nine delegates gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos. On March 2, they declared Texas independent from Mexico. Working under the threat of Santa Anna's advancing army, they adopted a constitution for the new Republic of Texas on March 16, 1836 — a document written in about two weeks, in wartime, by fifty-nine men.
That summer, on July 23, 1836, interim President David G. Burnet called an election. On September 5, 1836, the voters of the Republic of Texas went to the polls to decide whether to ratify that constitution. That same ballot also asked whether Texas should seek annexation to the United States, and it elected the Republic's first president, Sam Houston, its first vice president, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and its first Congress.
Here is what the record shows. One historical election compilation records 3,199 votes in favor of the constitution and 223 votes against it — a total of 3,422 recorded votes.
Historical population estimates put approximately 52,700 people living in Texas at that time. And remember, the Republic of Texas never conducted a census, so every number from that era is an estimate — but by any honest estimate, the conclusion is the same.
THAT IS ONLY ABOUT 6.5% OF THE ESTIMATED POPULATION!
A vote involving only a small percentage of the population is not proof that every person in Texas personally consented to be governed under that system.
And look at who was allowed to vote at all. Under the rules of that day, a voter had to be a male citizen, at least twenty-one years old, who had lived in Texas for six months. And the constitution itself declared who could be a citizen: free white persons. In its own words, "Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians" were not to be considered citizens of the republic.
That means women had no vote. Enslaved people had no vote — the same constitution protected slavery and even barred the Texas Congress from emancipating the enslaved. Free Black Texans had no vote. The Native peoples whose nations had lived on that land for generations had no vote. Even the votes of Mexican Texans were challenged in places like Nacogdoches that very September.
What about the people who could not vote? Whose voices were not represented? What about their children, their grandchildren, and every future generation that would be born under that system and told, "This was decided for you before you were ever born"?
THE PEOPLE ARE THE SOURCE OF GOVERNMENT POWER. GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE OWNER OF THE PEOPLE.
Now remember this: Texas in 1836 was an independent republic. It was not a state in the United States of America. It stood on its own, recognized by no one at first but itself, and that small vote in September 1836 is treated as the founding act of consent for everything that followed.
So I ask the question plainly: How much authority should a government claim from a historical election in which so many of the people living under it had no vote at all?
Do not confuse legal authority with individual consent. The legal system recognizes constitutional ratification and collective decision-making, and I am not pretending otherwise. But legal recognition does not mean that every individual person personally agreed, and it does not mean that government possesses unlimited authority over the people.
And Texas proves my point a second time. In 1845, Texas went through another founding. The United States Congress proposed annexation on March 1, 1845. A Texas convention accepted the offer on July 4, 1845, and wrote a constitution for the new State of Texas. On October 13, 1845, the people voted again — and according to the Republic's own Department of State returns, the state constitution carried by 7,527 votes to 536. Once again, a few thousand ballots. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the Union.
I challenge the idea that any historical vote — in 1836, in 1845, or in any other year — should be treated as a blank check for government power, signed by a small group of people and cashed against every generation that comes after them.
The Texas Constitution itself declares where power comes from. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of Texas, the constitution Texans ratified in 1876 and still live under today, states:
"All political power is inherent in the people, and 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 those words again. All political power is inherent in the people. Government is founded on the people's authority. Government is instituted for the people's benefit. And the people have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their government.
That is not my opinion. That is the Texas Constitution speaking for itself.
THE PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
Government must justify its authority. Government must respect the constitutional rights of the people. Government must answer to the people — because the people are the source of its power, and an authority that cannot be questioned is an authority that no longer belongs to the people.
That is the conversation I want America to have. Not a conversation about left against right, but a conversation about the people and their government: who serves whom.
The people are supposed to control their government — not be controlled without limits by it.
— John Washington III, 2028 Presidential Candidate
