7/4/1845: Convention considers annexation

[Craig Tx]

On this day in 1845, the convention to consider the joint resolution of the United States Congress proposing the annexation of the Republic of Texas to the United States assembled in Austin.

Thomas Jefferson Rusk was elected president of the convention, and James H. Raymond was secretary. By a vote of fifty-five to one, the delegates approved the offer of annexation. Richard Bache of Galveston was the lone dissenter. Subsequently, the convention prepared the Constitution of 1845 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. The convention adjourned on August 28, 1845.