Texas divisionism

[1] Opponents also argue that the statute has also been overridden and rendered moot by later legislation that was enacted by Congress, the Act which admitted Texas into the Union as a state.

In the Compromise of 1850 debates, Tennessee Senator John Bell proposed division into two southern states, with the assent of Texas, in February 1850.

Unlike many other Texas division proposals of the Reconstruction period, this one, named after Abraham Lincoln, was presented to Congress, but the state legislature did not take final action.

Instead, the Howard Bill was introduced calling for two territories and future states, Jefferson and Matagorda, to be formed from Texas.

Proponents believed that, as the western part of Texas had grown in population, it should thus have gotten more representation, but this was dismissed by the legislature.

[8] 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.

While no bill was proposed, west Texas held a popular meeting over the matter, but support quickly declined.

[11] In a 2019 Yale lecture series called "Power and Politics in Today's World", Professor Ian Shapiro argues that splitting both Texas and California into two states each is an effective way of solving the disproportionate influence of the two biggest states in the electoral college to facilitate a more proportional state-wide representation.