The proposed State of Jefferson would have been a new state formed by one of two plans for the division of the State of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
.
Background
The bill that
annexed the
Republic of Texas to the United States in 1845 allowed up to four new States, in addition to the State of Texas, to be formed out of the territory of the former Republic of Texas.
This was due to the fact that Texas was the largest state in the Union at the time and in belief that the population would be shared equally between the planned states. With a few division plans drawn up before the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, Reconstruction brought
carpetbaggers
In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the l ...
that sought the additional government positions that the division of Texas would provide. So the readmittance Constitutional Convention led to five plans being introduced and additional plans of division lines. In the end, the Convention adopted no plan.
[Claude Elliott, "DIVISION OF TEXAS,]
Handbook of Texas Online
accessed July 06, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
1870
With no plan from the Texas Convention, a Congressional plan was drafted to create a
State of Lincoln from Texas. This plan never made it out of the committee. Instead, the Howard Bill was introduced calling for two territories and future states, Jefferson and Matagorda, to be formed from Texas. Texas east of the
San Antonio River
The San Antonio River is a major waterway that originates in central Texas in a cluster of springs in midtown San Antonio, about 4 miles north of downtown, and follows a roughly southeastern path through the state. It eventually feeds into the ...
was designated as Jefferson. The
rump
Rump may refer to:
* Rump (animal)
** Buttocks
* Rump steak, slightly different cuts of meat in Britain and America
* Rump kernel, software run in userspace that offers kernel functionality in NetBSD
Politics
*Rump cabinet
* Rump legislature
* Ru ...
Texas would then be admitted under Reconstruction plans. The new territories would join when they were considered able to function as states. A competing plan from the state in 1871 proposed a north, east, south, and west division. Neither legislature made final approval of either plan.
The "division of the state" issue continued over the years with an additional plan in 1906.
1915
With no reapportionment of representatives following the
thirteenth U.S. Census, discussion of the division question was renewed in 1914. The western part of Texas had grown in population, and thus should have gotten more representation, but this was dismissed by
the legislature. Hardly any state institutions were in the western part of the state. In the
Texas Senate
The Texas Senate ( es, Senado de Texas) is the upper house of the Texas State Legislature. There are 31 members of the Senate, representing single-member districts across the U.S. state of Texas, with populations of approximately 806,000 per co ...
, a proposed ''State of Jefferson'' was introduced, to be formed from the
twenty-fifth,
twenty-sixth,
twenty-eighth, and
twenty-ninth state senate districts. With only six senators supporting the bill, it failed.
Support grew for the State of Jefferson in 1921 with the governor's veto over an agricultural and mechanical college to be located in
West Texas
West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio.
No consensus exists on the boundary betwee ...
. While no bill was proposed, west Texas held a popular meeting over the matter, but support quickly declined.
See also
*
Texas divisionism
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson Southern
Proposed states and territories of the United States
History of Texas