A PETITION CALLING for Texas to secede from the United States has gathered 60,000 signatures, enough to elicit a formal response from the Obama administration.

Slamming the “blatant abuses” of the rights of US citizens, the petition says that Texas is capable of supporting itself as it is the world’s 15th largest economy. “Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget…it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union”.

To do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

Similar petitions for the states of Louisiana and Alabama have garnered 26,000 and 17,000 votes respectively. However, many of the signatures are from people living outside the states in question.

As Texas joined left the union voluntarily in 1861 by a four-to-one vote, some secession proponents argue that they were annexed illegally by the government in Washington DC in 1870.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has previously made comments that suggested he supported the lone-star state leaving the US.

In a 2009 speech, he said that when Texas first joined the Union in 1845, it was a republic and a stand alone state.

And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again

A popular vote saw Texas leave the Union in 1861, after which it joined with other southern states to join the Confederacy along with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. The US Civil War followed after confederate forces fired on US Fort Sumter.

Any on-line petition to the White House with more than 25,000 signatures gets a review and an official response from the sitting President.

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