It passed an act providing for a convention to consider a permanent form of government for New Mexico, and the delegates for this purpose met on October 10, 1848.

Meanwhile, Texas, which claimed all the territory east of the Rio Grande, sent Spruce M. Baird, as judge to organize that district into a county to be called Santa Fe.

Almost at the same time, however, it became well known that the President Zachary Taylor and his cabinet at Washington desired the people of California and New Mexico to organize state governments without delay, in order to settle the question of slavery within their borders, and thus allay the great national excitement on the subject.

In New Mexico's first constitutional convention, native New Mexicans notably composed over ninety per cent of the membership, even though this placed their rights to self-government in jeopardy.

The state legislature met on July 1, 1850, and elected as United States senators Francis A. Cunningham and Richard H. Weightman, but while Weightman was on his way to Washington to claim his seat in the senate the famous compromise measures of 1850 were passed by Congress, one feature of which was the act organizing New Mexico as a territory, with boundaries including the areas now embraced in New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Colorado.

[1][2] In general, the leader of the native New Mexicans favored statehood, while the American pioneer element wanted a Territorial organization.