|
Convention meets to discuss sectional crisis
On this day in 1850, delegates from the southern states collected in Nashville, Tennessee, to discuss the sectional crisis resulting from the Mexican War. In 1849 a bipartisan convention met at Jackson, Mississippi, and called for a southern convention to meet at Nashville in June 1850 "to devise and adopt some mode of resistance to northern aggression." Both Texas senators, Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk, opposed the convention. Nevertheless, the Texas legislature passed a joint resolution recommending that the people choose representatives to the convention on the same day they selected a permanent state capital. J. Pinckney Henderson was the sole Texas delegate to attend the convention. Like most Texans, he was primarily concerned about the boundary dispute with New Mexico. A total of 175 delegates from nine southern states met at the McKendree Methodist Church on June 3-12, 1850, passed a series of resolutions, and called for a second convention if Congress failed to meet their demands. The passage of the Compromise of 1850, by resolving the boundary issue with New Mexico to the satisfaction of most Texans, kept Texas away from the second Nashville conference in November 1850. However, the two conferences helped pave the way for the Confederacy, which would ultimately draw Texas from the Union.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- NASHVILLE CONVENTION
- COMPROMISE OF 1850
- MEXICAN WAR
- SECESSION
- HENDERSON, JAMES PINCKNEY
- RUSK, THOMAS JEFFERSON
- HOUSTON, SAMUEL
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Bilingual instruction mandated in Texas schools (1973)
- Horse Marines splash into action (1836)
|
