Texas Expects Every Man To Do His Duty: A Reckoning With the Legislature and the 1835 Letter for the Fence-Sitters

Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk with the clock running. Recorded on the night the Texas House faced its second-reading deadline, the broadcast unfolded against what he predicted would be a “massive die off” of legislation by midnight. He blamed leadership for slow-walking priorities through weeks of vacationing, which handed Democrats the room to run out the clock through chubbing. Bills that mattered to Texas sovereignty were about to go down in flames while their authors prepared to tell voters they simply ran out of time.

His sharpest words were for the electeds. After watching the Senate Finance hearing on the Transactional Gold Bill, Miller concluded that too many representatives understand neither how money and precious metals work nor the constitutions they swore to uphold. He mocked the inevitable claim of the “most conservative session ever” and named a real frustration underneath the jokes: a degree of negativity and hand-wringing on social media that he flatly called untexian.

The heart of the episode was a reading. From a 1967 Texas Almanac compendium, Miller read the October 30, 1835 address of the Committee of Safety of the Municipality of Liberty, written 28 days after the Battle of Gonzales. The letter pleads with principled fence-sitters to reconsider once the federal constitution had been destroyed, argues that an oath to a constitution torn to fragments no longer binds, and closes with the line that gave the broadcast its title. Miller drew the parallel hard. You can wear the hat and fly the flag, he said, but without the principles that made Texas, you are only cosplaying.

Questions answered in this episode

• What immigration policy would Texas have after independence? As a state, Miller argued, Texas policy is dictated by Washington bureaucrats, and only as a self-governing nation could Texas set a sane policy paired with a strong border.
• If Texas leaves, would it be the current borders or the larger borders of the old Republic? He explained it is a reassertion of independence, not a split, and that the rest of that territory was sold and paid for, so Texas keeps the borders it has now.
• Will California get its independence vote before Texas? He walked through the Calexit petition, at 210,000-plus of the roughly 546,000 signatures needed, and contrasted that ballot-initiative path with the Texas reality that a vote can come only through the Legislature.
• Where is the fight actually won? Not in Austin, he insisted, but in your hometown, workplace, and church, pointing to the local censure resolutions that finally dislodged Speaker Joe Straus.
• How would Texas convert US dollars into a Texas currency? He pointed to the Transactional Gold Bill as the early machinery of a Texas currency and explained conversion would run through currency-exchange markets, the same as any other sovereign money.

Miller closed by flagging big announcements as the session ends June 2, urging viewers to register support and download the TNM app, since the movement reaches its people there when the major platforms throttle its notifications. He signed off as always with Sam Houston: Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations.