The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 87, July 1983 - April, 1984 Page: 154
468 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
While Ramsdell quite rightly pointed to the frontier and to local
frontier concerns as a cause of secession, Texas in 186o, as he himself
realized, was not simply a frontier state. Large portions of the eastern
half of the state had a mature agrarian economy based upon slavery
and cotton. If local considerations were important, then slavery and
the flow of cotton and other commodities out of the state might have
been equally important in determining attitudes toward secession.
Furthermore, within the frontier local considerations varied sharply
from one county to the next.7
Although some Texans dreamed of a southern nation before 1861,
they were few in number. Nor did the states' rights philosophy totally
dominate state politics. Certainly Texans had a cultural heritage that
tied them to the South. For that matter they also possessed a heritage
that set them apart from the rest of the South. It was also true that the
validity of secession as a legal and constitutional remedy for abuses
to the rights of southerners went unchallenged except by the most
militant of unionists. Nonetheless, their southern culture and their be-
lief in the legality of secession did not prevent the majority of Texans
from clinging tenaciously to the Union throughout the 185os. Texans
were still Americans, and for the most part American nationalists,
prior to 1860. This was clearly illustrated in the state elections of 1859
when only moderates and unionists won high political office. Even in a
man like John H. Reagan, later to be postmaster general of the Con-
federacy, American nationalism was evident. During his campaign for
reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives, Reagan issued a cir-
cular in which he said in part, "These constant croakers of evil, these
preachers of revolution, now think they have the Democracy of Texas
in leading strings, and have set too, covertly at first, and now more
boldly, to prescribe me, because I will not sympathize with their sec-
tional, revolutionary, and wicked doctrines." Evidently the voters of
Texas History Center, University of Texas, Austin; cited hereafter as BTHC). Also see
John Salmon Ford, "Memoirs of John Salmon Ford," V, 943-966, John S. Ford Papers,
ibid.; Ernest William Winkler (ed.), Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, z86i
(Austin, 1912), 9-90; Sandbo, "Beginnings of the Secession Movement"; Anna Irene
Sandbo, "The First Session of the Secession Convention of Texas," SHQ, XVIII (Oct.,
1914), 162-194; Oran M. Roberts, "The Political, Legislative, and Judicial History of Texas
for Its Fifty Years of Statehood, 1845-1895," Dudley G. Wooten (ed.), A Comprehensive
History of Texas, 1685 to 1897 (2 vols; Dallas, 1898), II, 84-89.
7Randolph B. Campbell, "Planters and Plain Folk: Harrison County, Texas, as a Test
Case, 1850-1860," Journal of Southern History (JSH), XL (Aug, 1974), 369-398; Walter L.
Buenger, "Unionism on the Texas Frontier, 1859-1861," Arizona and the West, XXII
(Autumn, 1980), 237-254.154
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 87, July 1983 - April, 1984, periodical, 1983/1984; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117150/m1/190/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.