CONVENTION OF 1845. The Convention of 1845 was called by Anson Jones^qv to meet in Austin to consider the joint resolution of the United States Congress proposing the annexation^qv of the Republic of Texas^qv to the United States. The convention assembled on July 4, 1845. Thomas Jefferson Rusk^qv was elected president of the convention, and James H. Raymond^qv was secretary. By a vote of fifty-five to one, the delegates approved the offer of annexation. Richard Bache^qv of Galveston was the lone dissenter. Subsequently, the convention prepared the Constitution of 1845^qv for the new state. Rusk appointed several committees to examine legislative, executive, judicial, and general provisions of the constitution, as well as a committee of five to prepare convention rules. Of the fifty-seven delegates elected to the convention, eighteen were originally from Tennessee, eight from Virginia, seven from Georgia, six from Kentucky, and five from North Carolina. Considered the most able body of its kind ever to meet in Texas, the convention included men of broad political experience such as Thomas J. Rusk, James Pinckney Henderson, Isaac Van Zandt, Hardin R. Runnels, Abner S. Lipscomb, Nicholas H. Darnell, R. E. B. Baylor, and José Antonio Navarro.^qqv The convention adjourned on August 28, 1845.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Journals of the Convention (Austin: Miner and Cruger, 1845; rpt., Austin: Shoal Creek, 1974). Annie Middleton, "The Texas Convention of 1845," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 25 (July 1921).

Ralph W. Steen