the United States. He was president of the Republic's Convention of 1845, which accepted the annexation terms. The first Texas state legislature elected him and Houston to the United States Senate in February 1846. Rusk received the larger number of votes and the longer term of office. Rusk and Houston forgot past differences as they worked to settle the southwest boundary question in favor of Texas' claim to the Rio Grande. Rusk supported the position of US President James K. Polk on the necessity of the Mexican War and the acquisition of California. In the debate over the Compromise of 1850, Rusk refused to endorse secession, proposed by some in the caucus of Southern congressmen. He vigorously defended Texas' claims to the land used to create the New Mexico Territory in 1850, arguing for financial compensation for Texas. As an early advocate of a transcontinental railroad through Texas, Senator Rusk made speeches in the Senate and throughout Texas in support of a southern route. The Gadsden Purchase received his support. Rusk was in favor of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. President James Buchanan offered him the position of United States Postmaster General in 1857, but he turned it down. (Buchanan gave the post to Aaron V. Brown.) While Rusk attended to duties in Washington, DC, his wife died of tuberculosis on April 23, 1856. Five of their seven children were still living at the time. During a special session in March 1857, he was elected president pro tempore of the United States Senate. Suicide Missing his wife and ill from a tumor at the base of his neck, Rusk committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 29, 1857. He was 53 years old. Legacy The State of Texas placed a monument at the graves of Rusk and his wife, Mary, in Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches, Texas. Rusk County and the town of Rusk were named in his honor. Part of his homestead became the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University. There is a statue of Rusk in front of the Rusk County courthouse in Henderson, Texas. His handwriting was the basis for the font Texas Hero designed by Brian Willson. Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk is a distant cousin. See also Timeline of the Texas Revolution List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899) Notes References Biography on Thomas Jefferson and Mary Cleveland Rusk