The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 26
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
ties.3" Apparently the candidacy of Scott with his antislavery, anti-
compromise connections was unacceptable to many Texas Whigs who
had voted for Taylor in 1848. The Galveston News commented: "We
are informed that some whigs voted the democratic ticket, but it is
not known that any democrats went for Scott and Graham.""
The Galveston Journal expressed the opinion that the Whigs had
not worked hard enough and promised continued adherence "to the
Union, national and conservative principles of a primitive and well-
tried Whig faith."" But the days of the Whig party in Texas were
numbered. Sectional tensions soon destroyed the national party, and
although William Ochiltree ran second as a Whig in the guberna-
torial contest in 1853, his party gave place in Texas politics to the
Native American or Know-Nothing party within two years. The Know-
Nothings often represented themselves as a party of the Union and
drew support from former Whigs as they became a much stronger
threat to Democratic control of the state than had ever been posed by
the Whigs."
Thus the Whigs of Texas organized for the national elections of
1848 and 1852 and received what amounted to a respectable vote
under especially difficult circumstances. In general, they stood for the
Union and for compromise of sectional differences. The motto of the
Marshall Star State Patriot summarized their unionist views as fol-
lows: "Without Union our independence and liberty would never
have been achieved-without Union they never can be maintained."
Beyond this, they stood for traditional Whig policies involving gov-
ernment support for commercial and industrial development, especial-
ly federal internal improvements."'
What interests were attracted to these Whig policies in Texas?
Generalizations are difficult. There is no way, for example, to deter-
mine how many Texans voted Whig because of affiliations with that
3"Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 764-813; Winkler, Platforms of Parties in Texas, 29.
Population figures are from Rupert N. Richardson, Texas, The Lone Star State (Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J., 1958), 140.
40Galveston News, November 9, 1852; see also Washington Lone Star, November 13,
1852.
41Galveston Journal, December io, 1852.
4"Winkler, Platforms of Parties in Texas, 34-37; Ralph Wooster, "An Analysis of the
Texas Know-Nothings," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LXX (January, 1967), 414,
417, 420.
"SMarshall Star State Patriot, August 23, 1851. A convenient summary of Whig poli-
cies is found in Walter Prescott Webb and H. Bailey Carroll (eds.), Handbook of Texas
(2 vols.; Austin, 1952), II, 893.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970, periodical, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117147/m1/42/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.