Shrinkage

Everybody recognizes the shape of the State of Texas.

I’m told that you can show that silhouette to illiterate folks as far away as  China or Africa and they can tell you what it represents.  Don’t know if that’s actually true, but it sounds damned impressive.

It is especially impressive if, like me, you attended public schools in Texas and took the required Texas history classes.  If you did, you are aware of how much the shape of Texas has changed over the years.

In 1836, the Republic of Texas looked pretty much like the map above.  Of course the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico didn’t exist yet.  Later maps  from 1841 or so showed Texas claiming much of what is now the western US.

The treaty ending the Texas war of independence had required all Mexican troops to move south of the Rio Grande.  Texas, and later the United States, took that as establishing Texas’ southern border.  Mexico, on the other hand, still claimed a large part of Texas north and east to the Nueces River.  The issue wasn’t resolved until 1848 when the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo  ended the Mexican-American war and established a permanent boundary.

When Texas joined the Union in 1845, and in the compromise of 1850, the new state gave up most of its panhandle and about half of what is now New Mexico.  Partly in return for the US assuming the debts of the former Republic.  Since Texas entered the union as a slave state,  the northern border of the panhandle was set along a line at 36 degrees, 30 minutes north, because that continued the line of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The US originally set the Texas-Louisiana border as the west bank of the Sabine River, but it was eventually set at the center of the waterway.  That’s a small gain after a big loss;  back when Jefferson bought Louisiana from France, the Spanish capitol of Texas was east of the Sabine and Spain claimed the land all the way to the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.

Most of the Texas-Oklahoma border is the Red River.  That sounds pretty simple, but it’s been the subject of some bitter battles is court and almost led to gunfire on a couple of occasions.  Oklahoma claimed the land under the river to the southern bank, and Texas claimed the area to mid-stream.  Up near the panhandle, there are actually three forks of the Red River, and each state wanted to use  the one that gave them the most land.

Actually, nobody really cared that much until oil was discovered near Burkburnett and the property under the river became part of one of the richest oilfields in history.  The original survey was made back in 1858, and in 1919, Texas Rangers drove an Oklahoma oil well testing crew from the disputed banks of the Red River. The crew said they were in Oklahoma, the Rangers said they were in Texas, and the governors agreed to disagree.

When the matter went to the Supreme Court in 1923, the US government got involved and the upshot was that Oklahoma got the land (and mineral rights) to the center of the river, the Texas border was defined as the cut bank (permanent elevation) along the south side of the river, and the US grabbed the rest.

The entire matter wasn't settled until 2000.  In 1999, the legislatures of Texas and Oklahoma signed identical bills defining the border then Governor George Bush signed the bill and the governor of Oklahoma did too. Also agreeing to the Compact were tribal leaders of the neighboring Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Tribes, the Chickasaw Nation, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

That should have settled the matter, but Article 1, section 10 of the US Constitution requires Congress to approve any agreement between states, which they did in 2000.

Oil has played a big part in determining not only Texas’ border with Oklahoma.  It played a huge part in Texas’ claim to offshore rights in the Gulf of Mexico. 

After the battle of San Jacinto, Sam Houston sketched out a map on which the new Republic of  Texas claimed title to the Gulf out to three leagues, that’s 9 nautical or 10.35 statutory miles.  That claim held, and was supported by several treaties and agreements, until President Harry Truman announced that the Federal Government owned all the offshore lands and mineral rights.  The problem with that was there were no federal laws providing for a mechanism to grant and administer offshore leases so exploration came to a screeching halt.  Of course all states that stood to gain from offshore exploration screamed bloody murder and it was heatedly argued in  congress, but nothing was decided. 

Dwight Eisenhower ran on a platform (I’m so tempted to call it an Offshore Drilling Platform, but this is a serious piece.) that promised to return offshore rights to the various states, and Texas eventually got rights to offshore lands to the nine nautical mile limit. 

The UN-sponsored Law of the Sea Treaty, which went into effect in 1994, defines territorial waters of countries as 12 nautical miles  and gives them an  exclusive economic zone out to 200 nautical miles. In 1999, US agencies were empowered by presidential proclamation to enforce American law up to 24 miles offshore, doubling the previous limit.

Of course, 9 is a lot less than 200, or even 24, and even the difference between 9 and 12 means the loss of millions in state revenue, but it could have been a lot worse.  Texas and Florida are the only states who have rights out to nine miles; by law, the rest can only claim three.