January 1863 Kansas Republican Senator James Lane introduced Senate Bill 45 intended to set apart a portion of Texas for the all black Territory of the Rio Grande. It was designed to segregate the blacks from the whites and would have taken about half of the state of Texas bordering Mexico. He made his last appeal to Congress on Feb 16, 1864 but it was postponed and disappeared into the congressional archives after the war.

It was favored by most Northerners because it would have kept the blacks from going North. They would have been forced to stay in their own territory.