Texas Outlaws?

A friend and reader writes in to ask what is going in Texas, where Governor Abbott is trying to control the border with Mexico.  Isn't this unconstitutional, he asks, since the Federal government is responsible for maintaining the border?  The writer goes on to explain:

"Just as clear to most people (obviously not all) is that the Federal government has abrogated its responsibility to protect the States in this regard.  This seems to me a showdown that is bigger than most people realize.  If Abbott does not flinch, his actions will become one of the more significant acts by a State since the Civil War.  If Biden shoots a Texas guard soldier, it would seem that hell would break loose.  If Biden threatens to cut off all federal monies flowing into Texas and other States that join Texas (the only playable card he has it would appear), that might work, but then Abbott would become a nothing and I would be surprised at this point that Abbott would cave."

I don't follow Texas politics any more and do not know how to evaluate Abbott's seriousness.  I was always suspicious of a man appointed by George W. Bush, but Abbott seems independent.  He famously sued the Obama administration 44 times and has consistently championed the right of Texans to decide their position on abortion, religion in schools, and control of their border.

The letter-writer raises an important question, and he makes  good points, but I would take issue with the basic claim. The Southern border is, if we look at it properly,  a double border.  Insofar as it is the border of Texas, the governor has the right to defend it, just as states used to prescribe different rules for voting in national elections and even had different methods.  Even the Interstate Commerce clause does not prevent a state from forbidding what other states and the federal government regard as legal--not only drugs , first-cousin marriages, etc., but also importation of restricted fruits and vegetables.

Of course, today all branches of the Federal government, along with state and local governments,  routinely and systematically violate the Constitution.  One good example is the decision of the Texas Supreme Court forbidding Texas to hold an election on secession.  When Texas joined the Union, their  constitution included a provision for secession. Sam Houston of course opposed the secession of 1861 both on practical and nationalist grounds, but if one is going to obey the law, then Texas—which was an independent republic before joining the Union—has certain rights.  Of course, so does SC which seceded from the Crown before the Declaration of Independence.

It’s a queer time we live in.  Leftist governors and mayors routinely defy the federal government by establishing sanctuary or nuclear free zones, and now Abbott is giving them a more serious challenge from the other direction.  Back in the late 1980s I became interested in a campaign for what was described as "municipal foreign policy," whose advocates published a journal with that title.  It seemed to me bizarre that just as the federal government was consistently violating the Constitution by inventing rights they imposed upon the several states, so states and municipalities though they were free to make their own foreign policy.

The MFP movement faded, but it helped to generate the arguments used by Chicago, New York, and San Francisco to protect criminal aliens who prey upon their populations.   As urban areas become ungovernable, the big question on the take would seem to be this:  Who is going to undertake the task of restoring order?  The best and most peaceful solution is for the Feds to acquiesce in the initiatives taken by Abbott and De Santis and others--while also giving into leftist governors like Newsom. I see no future for the mayors that can be elected in  big cities such as Nw York and Chicago.  This leaves only vigilance committees, lynch mobs, and vengeance-seeking kinfolk.  Not a happy thought.