A Fatal Handshake:
New Mexico and the Quest for Statehood
Jon Hunner
1847 Map Showing New Mexico as part of Mexico,
As the Land of Enchantment celebrates its centenary of statehood this year, it is a good time to look at why it took so long in its stumble to statehood. New Mexico called for statehood as soon as it entered the Union as a territory after the Mexican American War. From 1850 until 1912, the territory tried time and time again to join the family of states, but to no avail.
One of the main reasons was the dominant temper of the times, which cast New Mexicans as foreign, Catholic, and not white enough to gain equal representation in Congress. Other reasons also derailed statehood efforts. Sectional disputes like the Colfax County War and the crime and lawlessness associated with Billy the Kid during Mexico’s Wild West period were among the numerous racial, religious, political and economic issues that delayed the territory’s statehood. There was even a little known faux pas by its delegate on the House floor that diverted New Mexico’s statehood aspirations.
One of the main reasons was the dominant temper of the times, which cast New Mexicans as foreign, Catholic, and not white enough to gain equal representation in Congress. Other reasons also derailed statehood efforts. Sectional disputes like the Colfax County War and the crime and lawlessness associated with Billy the Kid during Mexico’s Wild West period were among the numerous racial, religious, political and economic issues that delayed the territory’s statehood. There was even a little known faux pas by its delegate on the House floor that diverted New Mexico’s statehood aspirations.
 Stephen Elkins, c. 1860-1800, Wikipedia Commons
The closest that New Mexico came to becoming a state in the nineteenth-century was sabotaged by an ill-timed handshake in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the 43rd Congress beginning in 1874, an enabling act introduced by Stephen Elkins, New Mexico’s non-voting delegate to the House, wended its way through the committees’ and floor votes. The bill passed the House by a margin of 160 for and 54 against. The Senate passed it by 32 to 11, but added several amendments. As evidenced by these votes, Congress supported statehood for New Mexico. The Senate bill went back to the House for reconciliation with only a few days left until the end of the session in 1876. At the time, Representative Julius Caesar Burrows of Michigan gave a speech, protesting the loss of civil rights by freed slaves in the South. Burrows called for Southerners, among other things, to “Strip the hideous masks from your outlawed Ku-Klux; disband your White Leagues, visit swift and condign punishment upon your unarrested and untried felons, and enforce State and Federal laws with a firm hand.” Elkins, who had been conversing with friends outside of the chamber, came in just as Burroughs finished his speech and not hearing any of it, gave Burroughs a hearty congratulatory handshake. Southern representatives witnessed this and then worked against accepting New Mexico as a state. They did not want Elkins, an obvious supporter of the north, to hold power in the House. With Congress unable to reconcile the different House and Senate versions of the bill, it died, and New Mexico did not gain statehood that year. It would be almost forty years later when on Jan. 6, 1912 the territory finally gained statehood. If not for Elkins’ fatal handshake, New Mexico might have become a state in 1875. Jon Hunner is the head of the Department of History at New Mexico State University. An expert in the Cold War, his most recent book is J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Cold War, and the Atomic Age. |
|