The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July 1910 - April, 1911 Page: 328

328 Texas Historical Association Quarterly
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS
MAJOR JOHN TYLER'S "MEMORIAL" AGAIN.-Since publishing
in the October QUARTERLY the memorial of Major John Tyler,
Jr., to the Texas authorities in 1863,1 I have found that he sub-
sequently published in De Bow's Review,--July, 1864, pp. 1-33,
a rare number-an article entitled "Our Present Confederate
Status, Foreign and Domestic" in which he refers to the exposi-
tion made by himself "fourteen months before"-evidently in the
Richmond Whig, not in De Bow as I was led to think--of the
diplomatic situation in Europe, and in which he renews the argu-
ment made to the Texas authorities concerning the possibilities of
French intervention on the basis of the Louisiana treaty of 1803.
He quotes here a considerable part of his memorial, evidently in
the belief that the scheme is still feasible. This article makes it
almost certain that this plan to secure intervention was Major
Tyler's own, for there is a very evident and direct connection be-
tween the article in the Richmond Whig, the memorial to the
Texas officials in 1863, and the article in De Bow in 1864. More-
over, in the last one Tyler discusses the idea as if he alone were
responsible for it.
This theory is further strengthened by the character of another
proposition advanced in his contribution to De Bow. The lively
imagination of the Major had seized upon the magnificent possi-
bilities of a bran-new scheme to save the Confederacy. Drawing
a vivid picture of the jealousy entertained by the middle and
northwestern states for New England, he gravely proposes an alli-
ance or "reconstruction" between these states and those in the Con-
federacy to the end that they should shut the intriguing New Eng-
landers out in the cold, frustrate the imperial designs of the lead-
ers of the Republican party, and bring about the trial and con-
viction of Lincoln, Seward, et al. for treason to the Constitution.
One is amazed that so acute an observer as Major Tyler mani-
festly was could so far miss the real significance of what he saw.
CHARLES W. RAMSDELL.

'Supra, pp. 129-145.