SLAVERY, FEAR, AND DISUNION IN THE LONE STAR STATE TEXANS' ATTITUDES TOWARD SECESSION AND THE UNION, 1846-1861 APPROVED: Graduate Committee: rofessor Minor Professor Committee/Member r. A. Committee Member Chai the Department^History Dean of Vhe Graduate School Ledbetter, Billy D., Slavery, Fear, and Disunion in the Lone Star State: Texans' Attitudes toward Secession and the Union, 1846-1861. Doctor of Philosophy (History), August, 1972. 315 pp., 4 figures, appendix, bibliography, 388 titles. This work is a study of white Texans' attitudes toward their role in the federal Union and their right to secede from it during the antebellum period. The central question of the study is why did people so strongly Unionist in 1846 became so strongly secessionist by 1861. In tracing this significant shift in Texans' sentiment, the author especially emphasizes the racial attitudes of white Texans, their emotional defense of the institution of slavery, and their strong conviction that the Negroes, if emancipated, would destroy white society. Of special importance to this study is the relationship of Texans' racial attitudes to their attitudes toward the Union. Since few secondary sources are available for this period of Texas history, research was done almost entirely in primary sources. Of utmost importance to the work were Texas newspapers. While having some influence on public opinion, the papers generally tended to reflect, rather than formulate, Texans' attitudes. Personal papers, especially letters, were also valuable in this undertaking. Papers of numerous individuals of the period are available at the University of Texas Library, in the Texas State Library at Austin, and in the Rosenberg Library in Galveston. Official sources such as Gammel, Laws of Texas, and the Texas state House and Senate Journals were also extremely important. Secondary sources, such as articles from the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and other journals and monographs concerning various aspects of Civil War and Texas history, were used when available to supplement the primary materials. Essentially this study is organized chronologically, with the exception of the opening discussion of slavery and racial attitudes in general. To Texans, slavery was both a system of labor needed to develop the state's natural resources and a system of race control essential to racial harmony. When annexation occurred in 1846, Texans believed that their institution was secure, but soon the House passed the Wilmot Proviso, which Texans regarded as a direct attack on slavery. Although defending secession, Texans still believed their interests would be protected in the Union, as their willing acceptance of the 1850 compromise indicated. Then in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act stimulated the formation of the Republican party, dedicated to stopping slavery's growth. In response, Texans formed a strong state rights Democratic party, which in 1857 elected Hardin Runnels, an ultra state rightist, governor. But as a conservative reaction to his policies developed, Texans elected Unionist Sam Houston governor in 1859. This conservative mood of the state changed rapidly during the election of 1860, especially with the outbreak of slave insurrections in that year. When Lincoln was elected,several prominent citizens, circumventing Sam Houston, called a state convention, which promptly adopted an ordinance of secession. Texans' determination to preserve slavery as a system of labor and a means of race control caused them to become a part of the disastrous secession movement. As long as slavery was secure» they wanted to remain a part of the Union, but they were convinced that Lincoln and his party intended !>• to destroy the institution, upsetting the racial and social structure of the entire South. The result would, they believed, be race war and ultimately elevation of the Negro to a position of equality; most Texans preferred civil war to these developments. SLAVERY, FEAR, AND DISUNION IN THE LONE STAR STATE; TEXANS1 ATTITUDES TOWARD SECESSION AND THE UNION, 1846-1861 DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Billy D. Ledbetter, M. S, Denton, Texas August, 19 72 Copyright by Billy D. Ledbetter 1972 111 PREFACE On February 19, 1846, state-wide celebrations were the order of the day as the Republic of Texas enthusiastically tied its destiny to that of the United States. Fifteen years later, on March 2, 1861, Texans"^" were again celebrating, but this time the occasion was their cutting of the bonds that had held them to the Union. During the decade and a half between annexation and secession, the state prospered at a rate the people had never thought possible under the uncertain government of the Republic. The population--both slave and free --increased at an unprecedented rate, while Texans produced more goods, especially cotton, than ever before; and the Lone Star state seemed well on its way to becoming the "Empire State of the Union" that its leaders envisioned. In spite of the widespread prosperity, Texans1 sentiment toward the Union underwent drastic changes during this period; whereas 94 per cent of the votes cast in the annexation referendum favored statehood, in 1861, 76 per cent of the ballots cast favored dissolution of the Union. This study is an examination of Texans' attitudes toward the Union ^"Throughout this study the term Texan refers to the white Texan--the accepted ante-bellum meaning of the word. iv and the institution of slavery and an attempt to determine why a people so strongly Unionist in 1846 had become so strongly secessionist by 1861. Why did the people decide with such certainty to separate from a nation that had furthered their interests so successfully? Texans became disunionists only when they believed that the election of a Black Republican to the Presidency immediately threatened the existence of slavery. They respected the Union and until Lincoln's election felt that their interests were best served within it, but the perpetuation of slavery was far more important to Texans than any abstract principles of nationalism. Slavery was an essential part of Texas' social structure, a means of controlling the Negro race and establishing social order, as well as working the land'. Their belief that the Negro was naturally inferior, and that slavery was the only means of controlling his animalistic nature caused Texans to fear that emancipation would lead to racial warfare, with the Negroes committing all manner of depredations against the whites. Texans, heavily armed with their concepts of state rights, refused to tolerate the election of a Republi- can President because in their minds his party intended to destroy the social structure of the South, by destroying its v peculiar institution. Thus Texans' racial attitudes became the most significant factor in explaining secession sentiment in the state. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii Chapter I. WHITE OVER BLACK 1 II. UNION AND THE ROOTS OF DISUNION 36 III. CONTROVERSY AND COMPROMISE 64 IV. POLITICS AND PARTIES, 1854-1856 92 V. EXTREMISM AND REACTION, 1857-1859 121 VI. THE MOUNTING FEAR 150 VII. THE CRISIS 180 VIII. SECESSION ACHIEVED. 225 APPENDIX 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 vix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Population by County, 1860 7 2. Slave Distribution, 1860 8 3. Gubernatorial Elections, 1857, 1859. .... 145 4. Vote on Secession Referendum, 1861 275 VI 11 CHAPTER I WHITE OVER BLACK Long before Anglo-American migration to Texas began in the early 1820's, southerners had been developing an elaborate set of myths, ideas, and rules to justify and control the institution of Negro slavery. Unquestioned ideas of the inferiority of the Negro, of his suitability for slavery, and of the need for slavery to develop southern resources--these and many other notions were universally accepted. Migrants to Texas, being primarily from the southern states, brought these ideas to the new frontier and further developed them. Acquiring the necessary labor to develop the vast stretches of undeveloped cotton lands meant bringing a large number of blacks into the state, and Texans believed that the only means of controlling them and preventing racial strife was the institution of slavery. Considering any agitation against the institution as a threat to their civilization, Texans were convinced that free Negroes could not function in white society, and more important, that white society could not function with free Negroes in it. The agitation to end slavery was older than the Union when Texas became the twenty-eighth state in 1846, but in the decade and a half prior to annexation it gained momentum in the North. Only six months after Texas joined the Union, the Wilmot Proviso was introduced, and its passage by the House of Representatives indicated that a majority of the people in the North opposed further expansion of slavery into the territories. With the introduction of the Proviso issue, slavery was catapulted ahead of every other issue in national politics, a position it retained until the South seceded from the Union. The key to understanding the seces- sion movement in Texas lies in understanding the institution of slavery as it existed during the critical years 1846-1861 and in understanding Texans' attitudes toward slavery and the Negro race. Texans' racial attitudes, coupled with the dependence of their social and economic structure upon slavery, meant that they could not tolerate antislavery agitation. Immigrants to Texas established the institution of slavery because they believed that it was the best and fastest means of developing their resources, the same reasoning that other southerners had used in adopting it.1 However, in "'"Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), pp. 5-6, making this choice Texans were unique in that they adopted slavery at a time when most of the civilized world, including the northern states, was severely criticizing it.