Question: Who was the most prominent proponent of the idea that Texas should be split up into as many as five states?
Answer: John Nance Garner, the Speaker of the U.S. House from 1929 to 1933 and FDR’s vice president during his first two terms. When Texas was admitted to the Union as a state, the congressional resolution for annexation authorized the state to form as many as four additional states “which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.”
After Congress authorized the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, Garner lamented that his home state’s interests were being dismissed. “Texas would make 220 States the size of Rhode Island, 54 the size of Connecticut, six the size of New York,” he said.
