Texas Almanac, 1994-1995 Page: 69
672 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Texans in the U. S. Congress 69
militia committee. Rusk was a leader in the
Gadsden Purchase, which provided territory for a
route to the Pacific through Texas. During his
last term, Rusk was honored with election as
president pro tem of the Senate.
After his wife died in 1856. Rusk went into a
deep depression. On July 29, 1857, he commit-
ted suicide.
J. Pinckney Henderson, the first governor of
the state of Texas and Rusk's law partner, was
named to succeed Rusk. Henderson was in poor
health battling consumption. Members of the leg-
islature were aware of his condition, but they
wanted to honor him with the position in the
Senate. Henderson served only one session and
died in Washington on June 4, 1858. Gov. Har-
din L. Runnels then appointed Matthias Ward, a
Democratic leader, to fill the remaining year of
the term. On the same day the legislature named
Henderson to the Senate, John Hemphill, long-
time jurist and chief justice of the Texas supreme
court, was named to replace Houston when his
term expired the following year.
Concerned about the rising hostility between
the North and South and by the rumors of seces-
sion that began in 1849, Houston had run for
governor as an independent in 1857. But Demo-
crat Runnels beat him. Two years later, Houston
ran again and won.
With Houston's departure, Texas' image in
the Senate went into a decline. Hemphill was an
adequate senator. But Ward was replaced by
Louis T. Wigfall of Marshall, who was less than
distinguished. While the legislature considered
appointment to the Senate when Henderson was
named in 1857, the lawmakers were looking for a
spokesman in 1859. Wigfall. a native of South
Carolina, was a Texas resident for only a short
time when elected to the legislature.
The state constitution prohibited a member of
the legislature taking another government posi-
tion while still serving the term to which he was
elected. But the lawmakers passed this off by
saying the prohibition did not apply to a position
in the U.S. Senate. Wigfall was well-versed in
states' rights and quite vocal. He was named to
the seat that the distinguished Rusk occupied
two years earlier.
Both Hemphill and Wigfall stayed in the U.S.
Senate even after Texas seceded from the Union.
Wigfall was little better than a spy, passing infor-
mation along to Confederate officials. Both sena-
tors also served in the Provisional Congress of
the Confederacy without resigning their places in
the U.S. Senate.
An attempt was made to expel Wigfall from
the Senate in March 1861, after he declared him-
self a foreigner and said he owed no allegiance to
the United States. But the Senate Judiciary
Committee failed to act on the action. Hemphilland Wigfall finally were expelled on July 11,
1861, along with eight other southern senators.
For the next nine years, Texas had no repre-
sentation in the U.S. Congress, for neither House
nor Senate members selected after the Civil War
were seated until 1870. Oran Roberts and David
G. Burnet, the interim president of the Republic
of Texas. were denied seats in the Senate in
1866.
Even after that, Texans had little chance to
rise to leadership positions in the Senate
because the Republicans controlled it for 26 of
the next 30 years. Reconstruction Republicans
Morgan C. Hamilton, brother of A. J. Hamilton,
the appointed governor for several years, and
James W. Flanagan took seats in 1870. When
Hamilton left office in 1877, no Republican rep-
resented Texas in the Senate until John G. Tower
took office in 1961.
Flanagan, a Henderson merchant, chaired
the Committee on Education and Labor, during
his five years in office.
Hamilton, however, was a radical Republi-
can, arguing even that laws passed by the legis-
lature after secession were invalid. After
reappointment by the legislature, Hamilton failed
to support Gov. E. J. Davis and participated in a
convention that opposed state taxes. Lawmakers
tried to replace Hamilton with Gen. J. J. Rey-
nolds, but the Senate rejected his appointment.
By the time Flanagan's term expired in 1875,
Democrats had regained control of the legisla-
ture. His successor, Samuel B. Maxey of Paris, a
West Point graduate and former Confederate gen-
eral, had to get a pardon from classmate Presi-
dent U.S. Grant to be eligible to hold office.
Maxey returned the favor by voting for a pension
for the president after he left office. He also
chaired the Post Office and Post Roads commit-
tee during one of the brief periods that Demo-
crats controlled the Senate in the final one-third
of the 19th century. Two years later former gov-
ernor Richard Coke joined Maxey in the Senate.
They worked to get protection from Mexican ban-
dits and cattle thieves for the South Texas bor-
der.
The last quarter of the 19th century was
another period of unrest in American politics.
Railroads that had been courted and welcomed
so cordially from the 1830s became controver-
sial. Attempts by the states to regulate them had
been generally unsuccessful. High rates, special
deals and payoffs frustrated and infuriated citi-
zens.
Tight-money policies instituted in the after-
math of the Civil War were grinding large num-
bers of farmers, workingmen and small
businessmen into despair. Reformers called for
more paper money to be circulated and for silver
to be remonetized. And concern was growing
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Kingston, Mike. Texas Almanac, 1994-1995, book, 1993; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth162513/m1/69/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.