New Mexico's Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912

V. Internal Strife

FIVE were the saddest and most disruptiveyears of America's history. Naturally the myriadproblems brought on by slavery,sectional strife, a bloody Civil War, and the controversial years of Reconstruction left little time for the nation to attend to the needs of the Territory of New Mexico, despite its ever-present desire for admissionasa state. No serious effort was made by New Mexicans to achieve statehood in the 1850*5. In the i86o's, perhaps hoping to be recognized for their loyalty to the Union, New Mexicans again took their case to Congress. But long before this, the territory had shown its inability to present a picture of stability and unity of purpose to the country. The Southwest, with its Rio Grande and pifion trees and lore of the conquistadores, had become, with the advent of Anglos in larger numbers, a land of vast cultural, religious, racial, political, and economic differences among its people. Factions, feuds, bitterness, and a chronic inability to unite effectively resulted from these differences. The Compromise of 1850 left as a legacy for New Mexico popularsovereignty on the matter of slavery. This freedom to choose sides in the event of becoming a state made the territory a pawn in the struggle between North and South. Both abolitionists and slaveholding Southerners in the divided nation hopefully sought to insure New Mexico's commitment to their cause, to be paid for by support of the territory's statehood movement. Political leaders in New Mexico found themselves having to ally at times with one side or the other, and sometimes, because of their 62 Internal Strife HE 1850’s AND l86o’s T views on slavery,they were labeled supporters of the North or South even though they often preferred not to be. Weightman, who became the territory's official delegate to Congress, told, in a long speech which he had published, about the activities of the abolitionists in New Mexico. According to Weightman, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society had sent W. G. Kephart, a Presbyterian minister, to the territory as an agent.1 This aggressively antislavery missionary arrived even before New Mexico had been made a territory by the Compromise of 1850.An article appearingon February 26,1852, in Washington 's National Era, a widely circulated antislavery newspaper, told of Governor Calhoun licensing traders to purchase Indian children as slaves for people in New Mexico.2 This indictment of New Mexican officials as heartless slave traders was felt by Weightman to have originated with Kephart's exertions on behalf of his cause. "Padre" Kephart, asWeightman liked to call him, engaged in the most partisan of politics. He regarded the predominant Catholic Church as a prime adversary,accusing it of open political interference. Because Kephart remained in the territory and worked closely with the old militarydominated Houghton faction, the territorial party increasingly became known asthe antislavery party. Kephart became the editor of the Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, with such co-editors as Houghton and T. S. J. Johnson, Colonel Munroe's "chief clerk of the quartermaster." The newspaperpossessed the only printing press in the territory3 and was owned by Johnson, Collins, and Hugh Smith, all leaders in the Houghton faction.4 Houghton , himself, had an established reputation asafierceantislaverypartisan.5 No wonder Weightman believed that all the Houghton people were sidingwith the North andantislavery. A pamphlet published by the antislavery society, and brought by Kephart to the territory, urged New Mexicans to spurn slavery and organizea territorial government without the "detestable institution." "BE FIRM AND RESOLUTE IN DECLARING FOR INDEPENDENCE, unless exempted from the curseof slavery,and the whole North will rallyin your behalf."6 Weightman's position on slavery, important because he was the territory 's first recognized representative in Washington, was publicly one of determined neutrality, in line with his plans to keep New Mexico, if possible , aloof from the sectional struggle. The popular feeling in New Mexico is, I believe, fixedly set against that country being made an arena in which to decide political questions in which people have no practical interest, and all attempts which have heretofore been made, or which hereafter may be made, to induce the people of that country to take sides on a question in which they are not at all interested, have been, and will, I trust, forever be, utterly abortive. 63 INTERNAL STRIFE Weightman was one of those Americans who, like Stephen A. Douglas, did not...