The Texas Secessionist Convention reconvenes, and friction remains between Texas Governor Sam Houston, a Baptist committed to the Union, and the Texas legislature. Houston’s days in office are numbered.
By way of contrast, Joseph Brown – Georgia’s Baptist governor – continues enhancing his state’s military preparedness against the United States.
Meanwhile, the United States Congress adopts a proposed 13th Constitutional Amendment regarding slavery, reading as follows:
Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz.:
Article Thirteen.
No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
Intended as a symbolic gesture in the wake of the failed Washington Peace Conference proposals, to diffuse rising sectional hostilities, the amendment has no chance of being enacted by the states.
