The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 76, July 1972 - April, 1973 Page: 6
539 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
to Calhoun's position on southern rights and promised common cause
with the South in defense of slavery."
The legislature then took belated action to provide representation
for Texas at the Nashville Convention. A joint resolution introduced
in the house requested a study of the propriety of sending delegates
to the meeting. The house committee on federal relations considered
the resolution and reported on February 7 that Texas as the key to
the southern question in 1850 should be represented at Nashville. The
situation of the South, said the report, demanded either submission
or a bold and definite stance. It concluded with a resolution empow-
ing the governor to appoint eight delegates, four from each congres-
sional district, to the convention. The following day Senator A. M.
Truit from Nacogdoches introduced a resolution to precisely the
same effect in the upper house. Senator David Y. Portis of Austin
County introduced a new idea by moving to have the voters of each
congressional district elect two additional delegates each at the same
time they voted on the permanent capital site in March. After much
wrangling over the question of appointment or election of delegates,
the senate on February g adopted a substitute proposed by future
governor Elisha M. Pease calling for the election of four delegates
from each congressional district. Immediately the lower house con-
curred in providing for a delegation to the convention for the purpose
of "consultation and mutual action on the subject of slavery and
Southern Rights." The joint resolution asked Texas voters to choose
their representatives to Nashville on the same day, the first Monday
in March, that they were to choose a permanent site for their capital.
On February 11, the last day of the session, William H. Stewart,
representing Gonzales, Guadalupe, and Comal counties in the house,
offered a joint resolution to instruct Texas's delegates to the conven-
tion not to consider any plans that might disrupt the Union. He failed
by a margin of 27 to 8 to get the rules suspended to move his reso-
lution to a second reading, and it died with the legislative session."
1"Ibid., January 31, February 21, 1850; Clarence A. Bridges, "Texas and the Crisis of
1850" (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 1925), 6o. The Guy M. Bryan Papers,
Archives, University of Texas Library, Austin, unfortunately shed no light on Bryan's
role in this matter.
1e Texas Legislature, Journals of the House of Representatives of the Third Legislature
of the State of Texas (Austin, 185o), February 7, 9, 11, 1850, pp. 761, 798, 815; Texas
Legislature, Journals of the Senate of the Third Legislature of the State of Texas (Aus-
tin, 1850), February 8-9, 1850, pp. 673-674, 679, 686; Austin Texas State Gazette, Feb-
ruary 16, 1850; Jennings, "Nashville Convention," 187. The quote is from the Texas
State Gazette.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 76, July 1972 - April, 1973, periodical, 1973; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101202/m1/24/: accessed May 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.