Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) bugles a second edition of the Southern Manifesto
He should be summarily expelled from the House of Representatives for flouting his oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution
Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) has shouted at Texas to disobey the order of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dept. of Homeland Security v. Texas (January 22, 2024), preventing Texas state authorities from interfering with federal control of the nation’s borders. Representative Roy sounded like an echo of Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus in 1957 execrating a Supreme Court order that desegrated Little Rock Central High School featuring the Little Rock Nine.
Mr. Roy’s constitutional derangement has been off the charts. His scorn for constitutional order in favor of vigilante justices with AK-47s speaks for itself. Here is some of what Roy told Fox News:
"There is no exception to [States defending their citizens]," he said. "And if the Supreme Court wants to ignore that truth, which a slim majority did, Texas still had the duty, Texas leaders still have the duty, to defend their people."
Roy added, "It's like, if someone's breaking into your house, and the court says, 'Oh, sorry. You can't defend yourself.' What do you tell the court? You tell the court to go to hell, you defend yourself and then figure it out later."
The logic of Roy’s unreasoning is harrowing—indistinguishable from an absolute right of secession— as if Grant had surrendered to Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in 1864. The Constitution would be reduced to sound and fury signifying nothing.
Roy underscores his imbecility by citing Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), in which the Supreme Court declared Congress lacked power to prohibit slavery in territories and black people had no rights white people were required to respect. Dred Scott was not dishonored. President Lincoln’s first inaugural acknowledged that the decree was binding on the parties, but that did not foreclose seeking an overruling of the precedent or testing its soundness politically. Slavery was abolished not through vigilante justice but by following proper constitutional order in ratifying the 13th Amendment in 1865.
You are either for the Constitution or against it. There is no middle ground. Chip Roy has defected to the barbarians and profaned his oath of office. But he is not alone, which is why the ship of state is sinking faster than the Lusitania.