The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 176
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
He says he is not the candidate of a party, and if elected he intends
to be Governor of the whole people-that he has been and ever will
be a Jackson Democrat. His object will be to advance and promote
the interests of the State, and people, as of old.22
But the people did not yet fear that the Union would actually
be dissolved. Partly because of the lack of an organized Unionist
party, Houston's generally dependable support failed him and
Runnels was elected by a vote of 38,552 to 23,628.
The year 1858 was politically quiet in Texas,23 but 1859 found
the independent and determined Houston again in the field
against Runnels, who was renominated by the regular Demo-
cratic convention. Houston called for allegiance to the Union,
and Runnels publicly denied that there was cause for alarm."'
The Union issue, along with Houston's personal popularity and
Runnels' poor record of frontier defense, were the factors re-
sponsible for Houston's election.25
Houston was hardly elected when news of the John Brown raid
of October, 1859, arrived in Texas. With that event, Unionism
lost many supporters throughout the South, for abolitionism had
been joined to Unionism through the deeds of a few insurrec-
tionists in Virginia.
With the state Democratic party in the hands of the state rights
faction, the Unionists of Texas turned to the newly organized
Constitutional Union Party. A convention was called at Tyler to
appoint delegates to the national convention at Baltimore. The
Tyler meeting was far from successful, and the Democratic papers
ridiculed the small turnout. The following appeared in the Texas
Republican:
THE UPHEAVING.-The Tyler Reporter contains a humorous
description of the Constitutional Union Convention which assembled
at Tyler on the night of the 27th [April 27, 186o]. The Courthouse
2"Huntsville Recorder, May 12, 1857, clipped in the Palestine Trinity Advocate,
May 20o, 1857; Winkler, Platforms of Political Parties in Texas, 74.
88Some excitement, not relevant to the present study, was caused by the action
of the Democratic state convention in making nominations for the judicial posts,
a departure from normal procedure.
"C. A. Culberson, "General Sam Houston and Secession," Scribner's Magazine,
XXXIX, 585.
"2Houston made but one speech in the entire 1859 campaign. See Friend, Sam
Houston, the Great Designer, 324.x76
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/216/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.