Edwin Waller: signer of Texas' original Declaration of Independence
As Civil War Daily Gazette has reported Texas delegates signed the ordinance of secession on February 1, 1861. Edwin Waller, the only signer of the Texan Declaration of Independence (1836) who was a delegate to the secession convention, was honored “by permission to sign the ordinance of secession next after
the President, and that he be invited to a seat by the side of the President of the Convention during this evening’s session.”
During the February 1 session John McQueen, the South Carolina Commissioner, addressed the Texas convention. He tendered the South Carolina ordinance of secession and invited Texas to send delegates to the meeting of seceded states in Montgomery, Alabama on February 4. He reviewed the Palmetto State’s reasons for secession, including the impact of the election of Lincoln:
whose platform was that of the Black Republican
party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this
continent and the elevation of our own slaves to an equality with
ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the fact
that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged
in the most earnest terms to secede at once
He then went on to praise (and maybe frighten) Texas:
”We are not unmindful of your illustrious history when fresh
from the fields of victory and glory in which you established your
own independence you presented a spectacle unexampled in the his-
tory of the world. With a territory sufficiently extensive for
empires, with a soil rich in the production of everything necessary
for the happiness of man, and with a climate as lovely as can be found
on any spot of the habitable globe, without money and without price,
you united your destiny with a sisterhood, whose duty it was to
foster and protect you, and yet from our common enemy you received
in return but neglect and insult, and even arson and poison, that your
hearthstones might be violated and your wives and little ones tor-
tured and murdered.
The information and excerpts can be is from Journal of the Secession convention of Texas, 1861 (1912) found at Internet Archive
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The February 4, 1861 issue of The New-York Times reported on events from Lincoln’s home of Springfield, Illinois under the dates of February 1 and February 2.
A bronze medal with the head of HENRY CLAY has been sent by DANIEL ULLMAN to Mr. LINCOLN, with a letter stating the gift was intended for the first President that represented the views of the great Whig leader.
The discussion of the proposition to send Commissioners to the Washington Convention, was brought to a head to-day in the Legislature by the passage of the following resolutions. They are understood to be prepared under Mr. LINCOLN’s supervision …
The Peace Convention in Washington on February 4 was sponsored by Virginia. On February 2 Illinois governor, Richard Yates appointed the Illinois representatives to the convention.
The information and excerpts are from The New York Times Archive
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1) Whether or not Lincoln started out as a “Black Republican”,during the Civil War Daniel Ullman urged Lincoln to use black soldiers and formed the Corps D’Afrique in Louisiana in 1863.
2) It seems like different people are seeing or hoping to see different things in Lincoln
3) The wonder of technology. Thanks to railroads Texas and Illinois can apparently get the representatives to the February 4 conventions in a couple days.
Big Lincoln fan: Daniel Ullman
Illinois Governor Richard Yates
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