| Texas v. White | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued February 5, 1869 Decided April 12, 1869 | |
| Full case name | Texas v. White, et al. |
| Citations | 74 U.S. 700 (more) |
| Holding | |
| Texas (and the rest of the Confederacy) never left the Union during the Civil War, because a state cannot unilaterally secede. US Treasury bond sales by Confederate Texas during the war, originally owned by pre-war Texas, were invalid, and the bonds were therefore still owned by the post-war state. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Chase, joined by Nelson |
| Concurrence | Clifford, Davis, Field |
| Concur/dissent | Swayne, joined by Miller |
| Dissent | Grier |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. art. IV | |
Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700 (1869), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869.[1] The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit in the United States Supreme Court, which, under the United States Constitution, has original jurisdiction on certain cases in which a state is a party.
In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that, legally speaking, Texas was and remained a state of the United States ever since it first joined the Union in 1845, despite it later purporting to join the Confederate States of America and despite it being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null".[2] The purported bond sale during the civil war was thus void and the reconstructed Texas remained the legal owner.
- ^ Murray p. 149. Murray writes, "It was one of the more important cases of the Reconstruction period, and it has a continuing long-term effect as a result of its definition of both the legal status of a state and the legal aspects of how all states are related to each other within the Union."
- ^ Murray pp. 155–59.