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Unionist paper closes down
On this day in 1861, Unionist editor John W. Barrett published the
Marshall Harrison Flag for the last time. Barret moved to Texas
from Indiana in 1838. He bought the Star State Patriot in 1848
and in 1856 renamed it the Harrison Flag. The Flag
supported Sam Houston, the American (Know-Nothing) party, and the
Constitutional Union party of 1860. Robert W. Loughery, owner and editor
of the Marshall Texas Republican and an ardent secessionist,
classed Barrett and the Flag as oppositionist and submissionist
during the secession crisis. In editorial after editorial during
November and December 1860, Barrett opposed secession; he declared on
December 15, 1860, that breaking up the United States would be "the most
momentous political decision that has ever demanded the attention of
mankind." The same winter, ill and confined to his room, he suspended
publication of the Flag with the issue of January 12, 1861. Five
days later, Loughery called off their long political feud and wrote of
Barrett: "He has been sick nine months with little chance of improvement
. . . . He has a large family depending on him, with children to
educate. He needs every dollar coming to him. Those owing him should not
be insensible to his condition." Barrett died of tuberculosis on May 12,
1862.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- BARRETT, JOHN W.
- SECESSION
- AMERICAN PARTY
- CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY
- LOUGHERY, ROBERT W.
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Ambitious French colonization scheme fizzles (1841)
- Vigilantes hang horse thief in Denison (1874)
- Crusading El Paso newspaper folds (1886)
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