David G. Burnet: Interim President of Texas
Imagine dropping in on a constitutional convention of a new government, making a stump speech, and quickly being elected the new republic's Interim President. Such an unlikely appointment occurred with Judge David G. Burnet.
On March 1, 1836, the Texans in their war for independence adopted a provisional government at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Oddly, the top candidates for Interim President were absent from the Convention, and so were not chosen. Stephen F. Austin was in New Orleans garnering U.S. support for the revolution, and Sam Houston was leading the Texas army in the field.
Judge David G. Burnet paid his visit to the (constitutional) Convention in the hope of gathering support for William B. Travis, whose men were trapped by the Mexican army at the Alamo. Burnet left the Convention as the Interim President-Elect of the new Republic of Texas.
President Burnet hastily moved the provisional capital of Texas from Washington-on-the-Brazos to Harrisburg, near Galveston, in a frantic flight from the Mexican army that was dubbed the "runaway scrape." Sam Houston criticized his panic, and a long series of acrimonious confrontations began between the two men.
During the war, Burnet at least sent Houston the Twin Sisters, two cannons to fight the Mexican army.
After the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, Burnet took Santa Anna into custody at Galveston, and then removed him to Velasco, where the Treaties of Velasco were signed on May 14, 1836. Burnet agreed to give Santa Anna safe passage to Mexico, but before the ship could set sail, Texas volunteers arrived under the command of Thomas Green, who demanded that Burnet resign immediately. The ship's captain refused to set sail under the threat, and Burnet instead imprisoned Santa Anna at Quintana.
Burnet's rocky Presidency suffered from lack of taxation, and hence funding, to pay for the government. His unpopularity over Santa Anna and other decisions made his term (March 17 to October 22, 1836) rather ineffective. He refused to run in the first election for President of the Republic, which Sam Houston won.
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Burnet was elected Vice President under the second President, Mirabeau B. Lamar. In 1841, when Lamar took a medical leave of absence, Burnet served as acting President once again. This time he called for war against Mexico and expansion of Texas south of the Rio Grande. The legislature, especially supporters of Sam Houston, rejected his appeal.
He was defeated in the presidential election of 1841 by his archenemy, Sam Houston. © 2013 by Stellar Stories, LLC.
Sam Houston
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Burnet
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbu46
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/houston.htm
Posted in History Post Date 10/27/2019