A Bold Move For Texas...!

Sam Houston did not want this to happen!

If you read up on it, Sam was a dedicated Unionist! He believed that Texas was making the wrong choice, but right or wrong...it happened!

Feb 1, 1861:

Texas secedes from the Union

On this day in 1861, Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure.

The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. A staunch Unionist, Houston's election in 1859 as governor seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other Southern states.

However, events swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in October 1859 had raised the specter of a major slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency in November 1860, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January 1861, and sat in silence on February 1 as the convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an "ignoble defeat" for the South. Houston refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and was replaced in March 1861 by his lieutenant governor.

Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states--South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four more states--Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-- waited until the formal start of the Civil War, with the April 1861 firing on Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri--never mustered the necessary majority for secession.

Yes sir...ol' Sam was a stubborn man right up to the very end! One thing about folks like Sam Houston, they always tried to do what they thought was right and they stood by their decisions...no matter what! For that, you have to give him credit!

Fresh coffee in the kitchen this morning. It's still raining outside and that's a good thing!