Governor Houston managed to block all secession calls until December, when Attorney General George M. Flournoy, Associate Justice O. M. Roberts of the State Supreme Court, and lawyer William P. Rogers and John S. Ford took the lead in calling for a state-wide election of secession convention delegates to meet in Austin on January 28, 1861. A subsequent statement explaining this move cited a Texas Constitutional provision that the people “have at all times the unalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government” as a source of authority for the convention call.[6] It was also at this time that the voters of Texas were promised a popular referendum on the secession assembly’s work; and of the original seven Confederate states, Texas was the only one to hold such an election on the question of secession. Seventy-two prominent citizens, including Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark, signed this second call. As provisions for the forthcoming election of delegates were being made, Sam Houston called for a special session of the legislature to meet on January 21. The Governor desperately hoped to use the legislative body to neutralize the work of the convention. But this remote possibility was stifled when the House and the Senate promptly adopted an anti-Houston attitude and enthusiastically welcomed the assembling convention.[7] On Monday. January 28, 1861, the secession delegates organized under the presidency of Judge O. M. Roberts. As late comers kept arriving, the body eventually came to number one hundred seventy-six members. Elected from state legislative districts, the delegates were mainly lawyers, planters, and farmers.[8] In short order a heavy majority approved a resolution to withdraw Texas from the Union, and an Ordinance of Secession was passed by a vote of 166 to 7. This ordinance basically charged that the United States government had failed to meet its responsibilities under the “compact of Union.” Specifically, it was asserted that Federal authority had neglected to give “protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens.” The document also condemned the Northern states for attempting to make the central government into “a weapon with which to strike down the interests and prosperity of the people of Texas and her Sister Slaveholding States.” Therefore, concluded the Ordinance, the people of Texas chose to withdraw from the Union and to reclaim all sovereignty delegated to the Federal government when Texas joined the United States.[9]