The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 327

                                
Analysis of Membership of Texas Secession Convention 327
Only three of the 177 delegates could be found listed in the
manuscript returns of Schedule No. 5, Products of Industry.
TABLE 3
SLAVEHOLDING
Number of Slaves Held                               Number of
by Delegates                                   Delegates
No  Slaves  .........................................  50
i  and  under  o ............ .................. .  67
io and under 20o................................. 25
20 and under 50o............    ................ 23
50o and under 70...................... .............  6
70  and  under  ioo  ...............................  3
ioo  and  over.... . ......... ..... ................  3
Total ............................... 177

W. C. Batty of Titus was the operator of
investment of $3,000; James Hooker of
with an investment of $6,ooo; and James

a tannery with a capital
Hunt had a flour mill
Shepard of Washington

ran a lumber mill with a $1o,ooo capital investment.13 Certainly
these figures do not indicate that the members of the secession
convention were heavily engaged in industry in 186o.
The    77-man body that assembled in January, 1861, to consider
the matter of secession has thus been shown to be a compara-
tively early middle-aged, small slaveholding, Southern-born group,
with lawyers and farmers predominating. Except for the large
percentage of lawyers and slaveholders present, the Texas con-
vention seems to have been a rather typical cross-section of Texas
society in 186o. Compared with conventions of the other South-
ern States, there were few      of the great planters present.14 For
example, of the 326 planters listed with fifty slaves or more in
i86o, only twelve were in the convention.15 Thus, the theory of
a great planter "conspiracy" for secession would certainly not
seem valid in regard to the Texas convention of 1861.
D. M. Prendergast to the 357 and 337 bales produced by W. T. Scott and John
Rugeley, respectively.
13United States Eighth Census, 186o (MSS., Returns of Schedule No. 5, Products
of Industry, Archives, Texas State Library).
14This may be contrasted with other conventions of the lower South such as
Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi, where large planters were present in
great numbers. See Wooster, Secession Conventions of the Lower South (Ph.D. dis-
sertation, University of Texas, 1954), 313.
15Totals for state based on Eighth Census of the United States, III, Agriculture.
There were in all 1,780 planters (holders of twenty slaves or more) in Texas; thirty-
five were at the convention.