The TEKS go out of their way to avoid the slavery issue, barely mentioning it as equal in importance to tariffs, which were largely irrelevant to secession.
If you read the actual Texas secession statement, slavery is clearly the central issue. (See http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html). Texas seceded because Northerners wouldn't let slaves in the territories, or planned to let the people of the territories themselves decide slavery through popular/"squatter" sovereignty. Texas seceded because northern STATES were nullifying the FEDERAL fugitive slave law. Texas seceded because the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT wasn't doing enough for them to suppress what they called the "savages," meaning the Comanche, Apache, and others, whose land the Texans had occupied through force and fraud.
The treatment in the standards of American economic development is equally irresponsible to the evidence. It completely leaves out any mention of the Whig Party, even though most of the key leaders in the nation's economic development were adherents to that party's program of tariffs, banking, and state-funded internal improvements. It uses the anacronistic term "free enterprise," an expression that didn't even become common in the language until 1840s, some 70 years into American history.
Finally, it should tell you something about the politicization of the standards (and the conservative majority's authoritarian tendencies) that they have literally scratched out the word "democracy" everywhere in the document.
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The TEKS go out of their way to avoid the slavery issue, barely mentioning it as equal in importance to tariffs, which were largely irrelevant to secession. If you read the actual Texas secession statement, slavery is clearly the central issue. (See http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html). Texas seceded because Northerners wouldn't let slaves in the territories, or planned to let the people of the territories themselves decide slavery through popular/"squatter" sovereignty. Texas seceded because northern STATES were nullifying the FEDERAL fugitive slave law. Texas seceded because the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT wasn't doing enough for them to suppress what they called the "savages," meaning the Comanche, Apache, and others, whose land the Texans had occupied through force and fraud. The treatment in the standards of American economic development is equally irresponsible to the evidence. It completely leaves out any mention of the Whig Party, even though most of the key leaders in the nation's economic development were adherents to that party's program of tariffs, banking, and state-funded internal improvements. It uses the anacronistic term "free enterprise," an expression that didn't even become common in the language until 1840s, some 70 years into American history. Finally, it should tell you something about the politicization of the standards (and the conservative majority's authoritarian tendencies) that they have literally scratched out the word "democracy" everywhere in the document.