CHAPTER I.
WHEN the crisis was pending in 1860, Texas was in an unfavorable condition, politically, to promptly join her sister Southern States in the movement for secession from the United States. This was not from the lack of Southern sentiment generally pervading the mass of the people of the State, but from political differences that had resulted from the course of events previous to that time.
The great struggle in the United States for the annexation of Texas to the Union exhibited parties in the Northern States, formed or forming, antagonistic to the institutions of the South, and to their extension to other territory to become a part of the United States.
The fact that the Democratic party, in control of the government, admitted Texas into the Union, caused the great body of the people of Texas afterward to align themselves with that party. This action was so nearly unanimous that in six general elections for State executive officers, during the twelve years, it was not necessary to hold conventions to make nominations by the Democratic party in Texas. There were political events before the end of that time which tended to make inroads upon the unanimity, and caused the Democratic party to make nominations for governor and other executive officers in 1857, when H. R. Runnels was nominated for
