The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 78, July 1974 - April, 1975 Page: 11
562 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Birth of the Texas Republican Party
worse disaster for the Radicals was the election of a Conservative legislature
composed almost entirely of former secessionists.55
With mounting trepidation the Radicals viewed the spiraling of events:
political defeat, persecution, and patronage to the rebels. Increasingly, they
came to envision their future as dismal indeed. One legislator who had op-
posed secession in I86I, L. B. Camp, believed the new lawmakers "inca-
pable of meating [sic] out justice by reason of their unparaleled [sic] preju-
dis [sic]." Various reports soon appeared: that Union men were leaving the
state, that others were selling out in preparation for an exodus, that still
others stated they could remain in their locales only with the protection of
federal troops. Some Texas Radicals sincerely believed that a resurgence of
civil war was a distinct possibility, with President Johnson leading a seces-
sionist-copperhead faction. Other Radicals complained of patronage and
federal contracts awarded secessionists who only a few months earlier had
been in rebellion against the Union. Particularly irrational and grating to
Austin Radicals was the State Department's selection of the State Gazette,
edited by Jefferson Davis's former private secretary, as one of the Texas
newspapers authorized to publish documents of the United States.34
The Radicals pondered numerous solutions for their dilemma, all of
which seemingly required congressional action. Indeed, from the outset,
Texas Radical leaders had believed it within congressional prerogative to
determine Reconstruction policy, and Governor Hamilton had written
President Johnson that he hoped "Congress when it meets will give such
early indications of what is expected of the people of the south." General
E. J. Davis, recently defeated for the state senate and denied a regular army
appointment by President Johnson because his politics "stood in the way
with that gentleman," advocated an immediate movement for division of
Texas along a line up the Brazos River to a point just west of Austin and
due north to the Red River. He was convinced that creation of a loyal state
in southwestern Texas would afford refuge to the overwhelming majority of
58Pease to Carrie Pease, June 30, I866, Graham-Pease Collection; Ramsdell, Recon-
struction in Texas, I12-114; American Annual Cyclopaedia... 1866, p. 742. The Ameri-
can Annual Cyclopaedia gives Throckmorton 48,63I and Pease I2,051; the figures used
above are those given by Ramsdell and are in agreement with the election returns listed
in Election Returns For Governor and Lieut. Governor. June 25, 1866, Governor's Rec-
ords, Executive Record Book 281, pp. 224-227.
"4Camp to Pease, July 8, 1866; John Dix to Pease, July 16, I866; Sam Earle to Pease,
December 25, 1866, E. J. Davis to Pease, July i4, i866; Duval to Pease, August 9, 1866;
William Alexander to Pease, September 6, 1866; John L. Haynes to Pease, November 27.
1866, Graham-Pease Collection; Shook, "Federal Occupation of Texas, 1865-1870," pp.
193, 195, 198-199; M. C. Hamilton to Hamilton, January 8, 1867, Andrew Jackson
Hamilton Papers.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 78, July 1974 - April, 1975, periodical, 1974/1975; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117149/m1/29/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.