Download Chapter Five Overview Statehood, Secession, and Civil War, 1848

Chapter Five Overview
Statehood, Secession, and Civil War, 1848–1865
At the core of Texas’ success in attracting immigrates was retention of its public lands
under the terms of annexation. In 1854, homesteaders were offered 160-acre parcels of
land for as little as fifty cents an acre. Earlier, the ad interim government and the first
congress had established entitlements for veterans and heads of families. Since few could
pay for the land, a three-year residency and improvements on the land were requirements
that led to official titles to the land. Throughout the 1850s, Texas was predominantly
agrarian. Cotton production increased, as did the numbers of slaves required by planters;
sugar and wool increasingly became cash commodities. North and north-central Texas
farmers “grew wheat, oats, and other foodstuffs, an agricultural pattern resembling that of
the Upper South.” Small farmers (mostly European) cultivated vegetables, grains, and
fruits in the southern part of the state.
Ranching retained its economic importance. Among the newcomers who built
cattle-ranching empires along the Coastal Prairie and southern portions of the Piney
Woods were H. L. Kinney, Richard King, and Mifflin Kenedy. Ranching, initially
established in southern Texas counties by Texas Mexicans, soon spread into the centralwestern frontier of the state.
Prejudice and discrimination prevailed against persons of Mexican descent who
were largely excluded from economic opportunities in mid-century Texas. Ethnic
tensions and resentment sparked violence, as in Brownsville in 1859 in an encounter
between the town’s Anglo marshal and Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, a local ranchero
whose family had owned land along the border for generations.
The 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s saw a massive migration of southerners into Texas.
This migration swelled inequality since the majority of southern slaveholders entering
Texas brought their slaves with them. Slaveholders held 56 percent of the state’s wealth;
and fertile river bottoms along the Brazos, Colorado, Sabine, and Trinity Rivers
contained the largest concentrations of slaves on the eve of the Civil War. Very few free
blacks resided in Texas during the Republic era; and they did not see any improvement in
their economic, political, or social status during the early days of statehood. Even though
the Constitution of 1845 considered Texas slaves “personal property” and the institution a
“perpetual condition,” blacks continued to maintain their sense of humanity by placing
significant importance on kinship, family, and spirituality.
American Indians remained in the fringes the mainstream society, denied the wide
expanse of territory that they had once roamed. Although reservation life appealed to
some, the white man’s encroachments continued to imperil the way of life others long
had known and wished to retain. Clashes increased as the reservation experiment proved
unsuccessful. The tensions mounted to the point that the federal government closed down
the Texas reservations in 1859 on the eve of the Civil War.
The frontier remained basically masculine and discriminatory. Women remained
subordinate to men; and their political, legal, social, and economic activities were
severely restricted. The more equitable Hispanic legal tradition persisted, becoming part
of the Republic’s legal code; but women were still denied the right to vote, sit on juries,
or to speak in public forums. The legislature began the slow process of carrying out the
constitutional directive to establish a statewide system of free public schools by
mandating a “perpetual” school fund. Newspapers helped perpetuate literacy, keeping the
public abreast of political controversies and current events. The U.S. Census of 1860
counted eighty-nine Texas-based newspapers and periodicals. The literature that
prevailed in Texas in the 1840s and 1850s was mostly that of mundane themes: travel
logs, histories and journals of personal adventure. Included were Henderson K.
Yoakum’s History of Texas (1855), Melinda Rankin’s Texas in 1850, Juan N. Seguín’s
Personal Memoirs of John N. Seguín, From the Year 1834 to the Retreat of General Woll
from the City of San Antonio, 1842 and Ferdinand Roemer’s Texas (1849).
Religious activity continued to increase as Protestant denominations established a
presence in Texas. Sunday schools and other educational institutions were established.
“Old Baylor” was opened by Baptists in Independence in 1845 and was later relocated to
Waco. Austin College, established in 1849 by Presbyterians, was originally opened in
Huntsville but relocated to Sherman in 1878. St. Mary’s University, a Catholic institution
of higher learning, was established in 1852 in San Antonio.
Texas Politics at Midcentury
Sectionalism and disintegration ultimately prevailed and the benefits Texans had hoped
to gain from annexation were soon threatened. Texas was a slaveholding state.
Prohibiting the slave trade or abolishing slavery threatened to undermine the state’s
economy. However, in Texas, location, geographic peculiarities, and demographic
diversity acted to blunt the severity of the sectional issues then sizzling throughout the
rest of the nation.
Texas did, however, experience some of the political changes that impacted the
rest of the nation. The Democratic party remained dominant, but in the mid-1850s it
began to depart from its Jacksonian principles, restructuring itself in reaction to the
emergence of the Whig party in East Texas, North Texas, and other urban and
commercial areas. Whig support came from those who favored economic expansion,
internal improvements, banking, and loyalty to the Union. Although short lived due to the
slavery issue, the Whig influence did prompt Texas Democrats to mobilize in support of
preventing the breakup of the Union.
A second threat to the Democratic party was the appearance of the American
party; its members were called “Know-Nothings,” and the party drew its strength from
nativists, anti-Catholics, Democrat party haters, and Unionists. The Know-Nothings saw
Mexicans and Germans as inferior, the Catholic religion as un-American, and Democrats
as untrustworthy. The slavery issue once again immobilized its influence.
Finally, as the new national Republican party grew in strength, the Democrats lost
cohesiveness. In response to the growing threat and the increased influence of the Lower
South culture in Texas, many Democrats turned to the ultra-Southern wing of the
Democratic party, away from Jacksonian nationalism and toward secession from the
Union. Texas reflected the tumultuous times: Juan Cortina’s attack on Brownsville and
continuing Comanche attacks on northern and western settlements were occurring
simultaneously to John Brown’s attempted slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
Unionist Democrats, former Whigs, and Know-Nothings fused to form the Constitutional
Union party emphasizing the preservation of the Constitution and the Union. Abraham
Lincoln became the Republican party’s standard bearer, and the Union edged toward
disintegration; although Governor Sam Houston fought to avert secession by proposing
that the state restore the Republic of Texas as a way to avoid proclaiming for the
Confederacy. When Texas ratified secession with a state wide referendum, Houston
rejected Lincoln’s offer to dispatch federal troops to keep Texas in the Union. When he
refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy, the secessionist convention replaced him
with the lieutenant governor. Houston died two years after Texas entered the Confederate
States of America.
Texas and the Civil War
On the surface, Texas — as the western-most wing of the Confederacy — did not seem to
play a significant role in the Civil War. However, the war provided many a politician
with a start. Among the most notable were Governors Richard Coke and Lawrence
Sullivan “Sul” Ross. Thirty-seven Texans went on to lead important Confederate
brigades as officers. Although Albert Sidney Johnston was not born in Texas, his military
genius was acknowledged to be comparable to that of General Robert E. Lee. Johnston,
however, never really proved his genius; he fell in battle (Shiloh) early in the war.
An estimated 68,500 Texans fought either on the Texas or Confederate front. A
much lesser number donned the Union uniform. About 2,500 Tejanos served in the
Confederate ranks, including Laredo-born Colonel Santos Benavides, the highest-ranking
Mexican American to serve the Confederacy.
Chapter Five Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of studying this chapter, you will be able to:
 think about the implications for Texas throughout the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s as
southerners migrated insignificant numbers,
 understand the political process encompassing the slavery issue that brought vast
economic and social changes to the South,
 discuss the role that Texas played in the Civil War.
Chapter Five Key Words and Terms
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Texas Preemption Act
H. L. Kinney
Richard King
Mifflin Kenedy
Juan Nepomuceno Cortina
Major Robert Simpson Neighbors
John S. “Rip” Ford
Melinda Rankin
Elise Waerenskjold
Telegraph and Texas Register
New Braunfels Zeitung
El Bejareño ( San Antonio)
Henderson K. Yoakum
Juan N. Seguín
Ferdinand Roemer
“peculiar institution”
Whigs
Know-Nothings
Constitutional Union party
Secession
Brigadier General David E. Twiggs
Lt. Richard W. Dowling
Albert Sidney Johnston
Francis R. Lubbock
Pendleton Murrah
Santos Benavides
Chapter Five Links
• The National Archives: Teaching with Documents — Teaching With Documents: The
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, lesson plans, worksheets (cartoon analysis,
poster/photo analysis, map and artifact analysis)
• Mexican Texans in the Civil War — excellent overview in The Handbook of Texas
• Texas in the Civil War — excellent overview in search The Handbook of Texas.
• Texas State Library and Archives Commission,
• Declaration of Causes: February 2, 1861 — A declaration of the causes which impel
the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union.
• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938
Library of Congress American Memory site provides access to slave narratives
collected by the Federal Writers’ Project including those from Texas.
•
A Southern Girl in ‘61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator’s
Daughter Louise Wigfall was the daughter of Louis T. Wigfall of Marshall, Texas.
Her 1905 memoirs tell of her childhood in Marshall, Texas, and of events through the
end of the Civil War.