WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1861
268
son. During the seventies and eighties he was an active member of the Grange and the Farmers' Alliance movements. See Biog1·aphical Souvenir of Texas, 607-608.
To LEROY POPE WALKER 1 Department of State, Austin, March 13, 1861.
To the Honorable L. Pope Walker, Secretary of War. Sir: Your letter of March 2d. has been received by His Ex- cellency Governor Houston, and I am instructed to reply thus: The people of Texas by their vote on the 23rd Ult., having severed their connection with the United States, Texas on the 2d day of March, the present month, assumed once more the position of a Sovereign and independent State. No act of the people since that period, and certainly none anterior to it, has warranted the construction that Texas is other than independent. Your letter of March 2d. however, informs His Excellency that the President of the Confederate States "Assumes control of all Military Operations in this State." The inference, therefore, is that Texas is regarded as one of the Confederate States and as such is subject to the Provisional Government established for the Same. While Texas has by the vote of a majority of the people de- termined to resume once again the Nationality with which she parted on becoming annexed to the Federal Union, her position before the world, and especially in relation to the Confederate States, seems to be misunderstood. This may arise from the fact that the Convention which assembled in Austin on the 28th day of January last, and has since re-assembled, elected Seven Dele- gates to the Convention of Seceding States now being held at Montgomery, who on the 2d of March, as His Excellency has been unofficially informed, took their seats in the Congress of the Confederate States, by virtue of which act Texas was declared one of the Confederate States. Leaving out of the question the fact that on the 2d. of March, the said Delegates had no informa- tion as to the withdrawal of Texas from the Federal Union, there is no evidence that they had received any warrant from the peo- ple of Texas for the act. The Convention which elected them as delegates represented but a minority of the people of Texas. The Legislature delegated to it the power to submit the question of Secession to a vote of the people. Neither by the terms of the call, under which the delegates were elected, the vote they received,
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