Transcript Civil War and Reconstruction

Secession and Civil War
Change and Continuity
in Texas during the
Civil War and
Reconstruction
Why some southern states seceded
1. Some northerners blamed a Slave Power
conspiracy
2. Some southerners blamed a Republican
conspiracy to destroy southern culture
3. Abolitionists denunciation of slavery as immoral
and southern defense of slavery as a positive good
4. The constitutional issue of states rights
5. Incompatibility of southern and northern
economic systems
6. Conflicts over religion, immigration, and cultural
conformity
Issues of special influence on Texas
1. Increasing profitability of slavery
2. Racial prejudice and fear
3. Increased connection to the Lower South
Texas Politics in the 1850s
Politically, the majority of Texans before the
Civil War considered themselves Democrats.
The Whigs briefly existed in Texas, attracting
professionals, merchants, and prosperous
planters.
In the mid-1850s, the Know-Nothing party
attracted many Texans with its criticism of
immigrants and Catholics.
See pages 134-135.
The Republican Party was
established in the mid1850s by northerners who
opposed the geographic
expansion of slavery.
The Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin
where the Republican Party was first
organized locally in 1854.
1860 campaign banner
Hardin R.
Runnels
Sam
Houston
Hardin R. Runnels defeated Sam Houston for the governorship in
1857 on a platform supporting the reopening of the African slave
trade. Runnels resided in Old Boston and was buried in a family
cemetery in Bowie County in 1873. In the election of 1859,
Houston put Runnels on the defensive by criticizing the latter’s
inadequate protection of the frontier, highlighting Runnels’ wishes
to see the slave trade renewed, and reminding voters of the
governor’s preference for secession. Sam Houston’s victory in the
1859 gubernatorial race was hailed as a tribute to Unionism.
Unfortunately, it was Houston’s last political position.
John C. Breckinridge
Candidate of the
Southern Democrats
John Bell
Stephen A. Douglas Candidate of the
Candidate of the
Unionist Party (A coalition
Northern Democrats of Unionist Democrats, exKnow-Nothings and former
Whigs)
Disintegration of the Democratic Party.
Texas Democrats faced an excruciating decision
over which Democrat to support. By the summer
of 1860, however, most Texans began to swing
over to Breckinridge, who most closely mirrored
the sentiments of pro-slavery Texans and seemed
most likely to win. (See p. 137)
Abraham Lincoln
Secession and Civil War
Politically, most Texans shared the prewar
Southern inclination toward the states’ rights
philosophy. They did not oppose federal action
uniformly, however, if it meant protection of
slavery in the territories or the protection of
frontier settlers against Indians. Yet the Texas
secession convention did base it actions on
states’ rights, with later affirmation from 75
percent of the state’s voters.
(Alwyn Barr, “Change and Continuity in Texas during the Civil
War and Reconstruction” in The Texas Heritage 4th ed., p.
105.)
Slavery, Secession and Civil War
The Texas economy in 1860 remained even more
agrarian than most states in a predominantly rural
region. Slaveholders and planters did not dominate
Texas society to the extent they did in some of the
older states in the Deep South. But as slaveholders
grew in numbers and in the leadership positions during
the 1850s, they became the ideal for a majority of their
fellow Texans. Slavery received the support of most
nonslaveholding Texans, as well as slaveholders,
because it provided not only a system of controlled
labor but also a means for social domination of a black
people, whom most whites in the nineteenth century
considered to be inferior.
(Alwyn Barr, “Change and Continuity in Texas during the Civil War
and Reconstruction” in The Texas Heritage 4th ed., p. 106.)
Issues of special influence on Texas
1. Increasing profitability of slavery
2. Racial prejudice and fear
3. Increased connection to the Lower
South
Sam Houston was forced from the
governor’s office when he refused
to take an oath of loyalty to the
Confederacy.
5TH TEXAS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY, CO. K
The two highest-ranking Texans in the Confederate
army were Albert Sidney Johnston and John Bell Hood.
Texas-Mexico Trade Routes
Texas was economically important to the Confederacy because
the Confederacy was able to conduct foreign trade through
Mexico by way of Texas. (See p. 142.)
Cotton bales on Matamoros wharf arrived across the Rio Grande from
Brownsville, Texas (background)
Texas, because of its border with Mexico, continued to produce
cotton in large quantities for sale across the Rio Grande to Mexican
and European buyers. The border trade also meant that Texans did
not suffer from shortages of manufactured goods to the same
extent as Confederates in states located east of the Mississippi.
Nevertheless, Texans faced the need to develop substitutes for
some unavailable items, fashioning cotton wicks for candles and
homemade straw hats.
(Alwyn Barr, “Change and Continuity in Texas during the Civil War and Reconstruction”
in The Texas Heritage 4th ed., p. 109.)
"There is no parallel in ancient or modern warfare to the victory of Dowling and his men at
Sabine Pass considering the great odds against which they had to contend" Jefferson Davis
The Battle of
Sabine Pass
September 8, 1663
In the fall of 1863, Confederate forces
under the command of Lt. Richard Dowling
turned back a much larger Union invasion
force at the battle of Sabine Pass. (See
pp. 140-141.)
In Gainesville (Cooke County), North Texas
Confederates—responding to reports of a plot by
members of the Peace Party to take over local
ordnance depots and to revolt at the same time that
Unionists forces invaded Texas from Kansas and
Galveston—executed some forty-two alleged
conspirators (most of the innocent) in October 1862
and proclaimed martial law in the county. (See p. 145)
The so-called “Battle of Nueces” was actually a massacre of German Unionists near Brackettville
Many German Texans continued to support the Union and organizations during
the war such as the Union Loyal League. Many Texans loyal to the Confederacy
targeted German Texans for any outward sign of disloyalty or subversion, even as
hundreds of German Texans from West Texas enlisted in the Confederate ranks.
Through the Union Loyal League, “German Unionists endeavored to
destabilize the Texas Confederacy and reinstate Union authority, by military
means if necessary. Expectedly, Austin officials considered the Union Loyal
League a danger to Southern security; in July of 1862 they ordered a company of
Confederate cavalry and Texas state troopers into the Hill Country to suppress
League activities. Many Germans found the Confederate effort to establish law
and order through arrest, detention, and violence so odious, however, that some
sixty-one of them opted for flight into Mexico on August 1. Convinced that those
fleeing the country were part of the seditious sentiment overrunning the German
[west] counties, Confederate troops gave pursuit, overtaking the Unionists on
August 10…. In what came to be known as the “Battle of Nueces”—a brief
skirmish resulting in fatalities on both sides—the Confederate forced the Germans
to surrender. Subsequently, and on their own initiative, a handful of Confederates
foully murdered some of the German survivors. (Calvert, De León & Cantrell,
143-144)
At the Battle of Nueces, Confederate forces killed
nineteen German Texans were killed and
wounded nine. The nine wounded settlers were
later caught and executed. The bodies of the
nineteen were left unburied and in 1865 after the
war had ended, residents from Comfort went and
collected the remains and returned them to
Comfort for a proper burial. Their remains are now
at the site of the Treue der Union ("Loyal to the
Union") Monument.
Inscribed on the east face of the monument are the words, Treue der Union ( "TROY-der-OON-yen,"
or "Loyal to the Union"). The west face of the obelisk lists those believed to have died at the Nueces
battle site (honors Gefallen am 10 August 1862), the south face those killed at the Rio Grande
(Gefallen am 18 Oct. 1862), and the north faces lists those allegedly hanged (Gefangen, genomen,
und ermordet --"Captured, taken prisoner, and murdered"). The monument lists thirty-five names, but
the exact number killed, and the manner of their deaths, obviously will never be known.
(http://www.hal-pc.org/~dcrane/txgenweb/nueces.htm)
http://www.rootsw
eb.com/~txcbduv/
Some 24,000 Texans perished during the four years of fighting. The war left a legacy of deep
personal hatreds. Many sought to continue to fight the Northern Army of Occupation through
terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Politics After the Civil War
Radical Republicans advocated extending full civil
rights to ex-slaves.
Conservative Republicans principally wanted to
pursue economic development.
Both the Radical and Conservative Republicans
agreed that African Americans should have legal
equality.
Texans sought to reestablish the Democratic rule
redolent of that before the war. Most urgent, for
them, was to find a way to keep a newly freed black
population (estimated by scholars to have numbered
about 250,000) in subordination.
Federal Army Enters Richmond, 1864, by Harper’s Weekly, New York
Chaos in 1865
1. Disbanded soldiers
confiscated Confederate
property
2. Criminals committed acts
of violence and theft
3. State and local
governments were
powerless
News of the Confederate surrender in April 1865 resulted in the
disintegration of the army and government in Texas.
Servicemen deserted in large numbers, and as the army
dissolved, chaos erupted. Disbanding soldiers sacked arsenals
and government buildings and confiscated Confederate public
property of every sort. Scoundrels capitalized on the general
disorder to rob and recklessly kill innocent civilians.
Unidentified persons pillaged the state treasury on the night of
June 11. Simultaneously, government at the state and local
level staggered. (pp. 148-149)
General Gordon Granger - June 19, 1865
1. Declared the acts of the Texas Confederate
government illegal
2. Paroled members of the Confederate army
3. Announced that all slaves were free
General Gordon
Granger
Texas was in a stronger position
than other southern states
1. Slaves had been moved into the state
2. Trade with Mexico had helped Texas
businesses
3. Little wartime devastation
Problems at the end of
the Civil War
1.
2.
3.
Financial distress
Property values
depreciated
Legacy of hatred
PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTUCTION
President Andrew Johnson,
A Unionist Democrat from Tennessee,
succeeded to the presidency on April
15, 1865, after the Assassination of
Abraham Lincoln.
President Andrew Johnson
offered relatively mild terms for
those states which seceded to
reenter the Union. He called on
them to declare secession null
and void, to cancel the debt
accumulated during the war,
and to approve the Thirteenth
Amendment, which ended
slavery. However, he did not
press further to guarantee the
rights of African Americans.
Most white Texans who took the
oath of loyalty to the United
States, as required, could
participate in the restoration of
home rule. This lenient policy
permitted the majority of
Texans to assume previous civil
rights. (p. 150.)
Andrew Johnson's Restoration Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.
Declare secession null and void
Cancel the Confederate debt
Approve the Thirteenth Amendment
Amnesty program
Andrew Jackson Hamilton
Hamilton and his supporters worried
that those tied to the Confederate past
would attempt to regain their former
prominence, and duly block efforts to
realize civil rights for black persons.
On June 17, 1865, President
Andrew Johnson appointed
Andrew Jackson Hamilton, a
former U.S. congressman
from Texas and a Unionist
who had fled to the North, as
provisional governor of
Texas. As a part of his
ongoing plan to implement
what historians call
Presidential Reconstruction,
Johnson instructed Hamilton
to call a convention and
undertake the necessary
steps to form a new civil
government in the state. (p.
150.)
Political Parties
•Republican Party
Position Regarding
Freedmen’s Civil Rights
Proposed basic civil rights for
the freedmen.
•Unionists
•Conservative Democrats
(formerly the Secessionist
Democrats)
•Conservative Unionists
Opposed granting any
freedoms to blacks beyond
emancipation; they favored
new legislation specifically
restricting the rights of African
Americans.
See pages 150-151.
James Webb Throckmorton
Convention Chairperson
Governor of Texas
On June 25, 1866, the voters
approved the Constitution of 1866,
which essentially consisted of an
amended Constitution of 1845…. (p.
152).
1866 Constitutional Convention
1. Declared secession illegal
2. Repudiated the war debt
3. Ratified the Thirteenth Amendment
Federal mandates forced the convention to
grant certain rights to blacks
1.
2.
3.
4.
Purchase and sell property
Sue and be sued
Enter into contracts
Testify in court in cases involving blacks
The 1866 Constitutional Convention denied
blacks
1.
2.
3.
4.
The right to vote
The right to hold public office
The right to serve on a jury
Public schools
The “Black Code” included a contract labor
law specifying that laborers wanting to work
for more than thirty days would have to enter
a binding agreement. Although the “black
code” did not mention race specifically, it
clearly intended to dictate the way the
freemen would earn their living. (p. 154.)
Black Code
Legislation
A contract labor law specified that the freedmen
were to choose an employer and then sign a binding
contract if their work exceeded one month. A child
apprenticeship law provided that parents could
indenture their offspring to employers until the age of
21.
The black code legislation prohibited blacks from
marrying whites, holding office, and voting. African
Americans suspected of being truant from their jobs
could be arrested and forced to work on public
projects without pay until they agreed to return to
their employer.
In dealing with whites, African Americans could not
make insulting noises, speak disrespectfully or out of
turn, dispute the word of whites, or disobey a
command. Further, they had to stand at attention
when Whites passed, step aside when white women
were on the sidewalk, address whites "properly" and
remove their hats in the presence of whites. Whites
insisted upon this behavior because they continued
to believe in white supremacy. (Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 154.)
Carpetbagger or Good
Freedman Bureau Officer
Carpetbagger
In 1865, the U.S. Congress established the Freedman’s Bureau to help
African Americans make the transition from slavery to freedom.
White Texans detested the outsiders from the North, looking upon
bureau men as “carpetbaggers” who wanted to render the South
powerless, as intruders bend on interfering with race relations, and as
opportunists working only for the money they derived from their office.
“Carpetbaggers” in Texas were not very numerous and played a very
minor role in Texas Reconstruction
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 155.)
Freedmen’s Bureau
• White Texans detested the outsiders from the
North.
• “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags”
• With only about 70 field agents and subordinates
at its full manpower level, the bureau lacked the
personnel to help ex-slaves successfully enter
society as free persons.
• Many Texans saw the bureau as an institution
thrust upon them by the Radical Republicans
• E. M. Gregory, the first head of the bureau in
Texas, asserted that the freedmen had full legal
rights and demonstrated a sympathetic attitude
toward their aspirations. This incurred so much
protest from Texans that the bureau transferred
Gregory to Maryland. (Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p.
155.)
Re-evaluating the Agents of the Freedman’s Bureau
How do you reform an enemy who does not want to be reformed?
How do you govern those who view you as a detestable outsider?
Agents of the Freedman’s Bureau faced formidable opposition in
carrying out their work. For example, they had to contend with thugs
such as Cullen Montgomery Baker in northeastern Texas (Bowie and
Cass counties). Baker claimed his enemies were all carpetbaggers,
Texas Unionists and freedmen. Baker killed several such persons
before being killed himself in 1869.
The southerner’s view that bureau agents were opportunistic
carpetbaggers is not substantiated by recent, balanced studies of the
Texas bureau. True, some agents were inept. However, many, such as
William G. Kirkman, who was stationed in Bowie County in 1867 (and
who was murdered by Cullen Montgomery Baker the next year), and
Charles E. Culver, enforced laws equally for blacks and whites,
refereed labor and apprenticeships contracts, mediated disagreements
between the races, and encouraged blacks to be self-sufficient and
independent. Overall, agents who served in Texas tended to be men of
high principles who worked towards carrying out the intentions of the
bureau despite the limitations imposed upon them.
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 160.)
The Freemen’s Bureau supported the education of former
bondspeople. In 1865, the bureau began operating sixteen
schools for freedmen in Texas. (p. 155)
The Freedman’s Bureau made
schooling a high priority, and by
1870 the state managed some
sixty-six schools, with an
enrollment of more than 3,000
black children; approximately
300 blacks students even
engaged in “higher” learning.
Black literacy had been reduced
in the process, and the
groundwork for black education
in the state had been
established.
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 160.)
During Reconstruction, the
church emerged as the focal
point of the black community.
The most popular religious
denomination among Texas
blacks was Baptists.
Numerous situations provoked acts of violence by
whites against blacks:
• Political events (historians find a correlation
between political setbacks for anti-Unionist
Texans and an increase in violence)
• Disagreements over labor relations
• Violation of social codes by blacks
• A sense of defeatism within the white
population
• Mindless hatred or sadism (“thin the niggers out
and drive them to their holes.”)
One historian has estimated that close to 1 percent of black men in
Texas between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine met a violent death
at the hands of whites in the three years following the end of the war.
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 154.)
At the national level, Radical Republicans believed
1. Southerners should take an oath of allegiance
before voting or hold office
2. The southern states were "conquered provinces"
3. Blacks should have equal civil rights
Under Andrew Johnson's Restoration Plan
1. Ex-Confederates controlled the southern
governments
2. Black codes limited the rights of freedmen
3. White terrorism
In 1867 Congress implemented Congressional Reconstruction when it passed the
Reconstruction Acts.
The Reconstruction Acts
A March 1867 cartoon, following the
passage of the Reconstruction Act,
shows President Johnson and his
southern allies angrily watching
African Americans vote.
A series of congressional acts in 1867 established Radical Reconstruction
1.
Divided the South into five military districts
2.
Abolished the Restoration governments
3.
Required new constitutions with equality for blacks
4.
Restricted the political participation of former confederate leaders
Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction
Between March and July 1867, the U.S. Congress
passed a series of new Reconstruction Acts that
divided the ex-Confederacy into five military
districts, suspended existing state governments, and
demanded that the ex-Confederate states write new
constitutions with all races participating in the
selection of delegates to the constitutional
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, pp. 156-157.)
convention.
The new constitutions
must grant suffrage to
black males and
permit them to hold
public office.
The Reconstruction Acts led
to the establishment of the
Republican Party in Houston
on July 4, 1867. Texas
Unionists now joined
Congressional Republicans in
repudiation of Conservative
Democrats.
General Philip
Sheridan
Elisha
M.
Pease
The Election of the Constitutional Convention, February 1868
• Many black voted (Mobilization efforts of George Ruby and the Union
League
• Many whites refused to participate. They had hoped to scuttle the
convention by not going to the polls, for the Reconstruction Acts
stipulated that at least one-half of the registered voters had to cast
ballots in favor of the convocation before it could convene.
• The result was the election of delegates (among them ten blacks)
sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
• Overall, the Republican party of the era was a frail organization of
blacks, native white Unionists, and a few northerners.
The Constitution of 1869:
1. granted suffrage and general civil rights to black Texans
2. extended enthusiastic support for the opportunity of all Texans
to receive a public education
3. sought to check local- and county-level interference with state
laws by increasing the power of the governor (who could appoint
people to executive and judicial posts)
4. attempted to keep the railroads from plundering the state’s most
valuable asset (its public lands) by prohibiting land grants for
internal improvements
A VIOLENT REACTION TO
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
The Democratic opposition launched a vigorous campaign to
undermine the power of black voters. Arsonists victimized
centers in which blacks assembled, including offices of the
Freedman’s Bureau and Bureau-run schools. An increased
number of whites joined the Ku Klux Klan, which made its
appearance in Texas about this time; vicious activity
became the hallmark of the Klan’s conspiracy against
African Americans. Black sections of towns witnessed
violence.
(Calvert, De León, Cantrell, p. 159.)
Targets of white terrorism
1. Blacks
2. Freedmen's Bureau
agents
3. U. S. Army
A cartoon threatening that the KKK would lynch carpetbaggers,
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, 1868.
Donald Campbell to Pease, August 25,
1868
Ab initio: the belief
that all official
acts passed under
secession to help
the Confederacy
were null and void.
REPUBLICAN DIVISIONS: After the establishment of the Republican
Party in Texas, the state’s Republicans divided into moderate and
Radical factions over the issue of civil rights for blacks.
The Election of 1869
By the time of the election of 1869, the Republicans had split and
consequently fielded two candidates. The Radical Republicans
chose Edmund J. Davis, who supported the principle of ab initio and
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Seeking to attract
disaffected Democrats, the Moderate Republicans ran A.J. Hamilton,
even though he did not believe in much of their program. (p. 161.)
Radical Republicans vs.
Moderate Republicans
The Radical Republicans
marshaled the black vote
through the efforts of the
Union League, in which Ruby’s
registration efforts had paid
dividends.
Moderate Republican
A.J. Hamilton
Radical Republican
Edmund J. Davis
Edmund J. Davis first got involved in
military affairs in 1859, when as a
district judge in South Texas, he
accompanied the ranger unit of Captain
William G. Tobin during the Cortina wars
in Brownsville. As the Civil War
approached, he supported Sam Houston
and opposed secession. After secession,
he refused to take a loyalty oath to the
Confederacy and was removed from his
judgeship.
President Lincoln commissioned
Davis a colonel in the Union army. Davis
recruited and led the First Texas Cavalry
(U.S.), and saw action in Galveston,
Matamoros, and the Rio Grande Valley.
Promoted to brigadier general in
November 1864, he commanded the
cavalry of General Joseph J. Reynolds in
the Division of Western Mississippi. On
June 2, 1865, he was among those who
represented the Union at the surrender
of Confederate forces in Texas.
Source: Texas State Library and Archives This photograph shows Edmund J.
Commission (www.tsl.state.tx.us/
Davis in uniform as a brigadier
governors/war/davis-p01.html)
general in the federal army.
The Election of 1869
Radicals supported
1.
Ab initio: the belief that all official acts
2.
Equality for blacks
3.
State financing of public schools
4.
The use of eastern railroad interests to
build railroads in Texas
5.
Disenfranchisement of ex-Confederates
6.
The division of the state
passed under secession to help the
Confederacy were null and void.
The Election of 1869
Democrats did not nominate a separate
candidate for a variety of reasons:
•
Some whites could not take the loyalty oath required by Congress
and thus were disfranchised.
•
Some Democrats feared that a Democratic victory at the state
level would only prolong Reconstruction should the Congress then
reject the state’s readmission into the Union.
•
Some Democrats decided to boycott the election and stayed
away from the polls.
The Radical Republican Governor Edmund Jackson Davis establishes a
policy to bring order to the state, and also establishes the state’s first
system of public education.
Edmund Jackson Davis
Governor Davis organized a state
police as well as a state militia,
both to be under the governor’s
oversight. He also signed a bill
financing a public school system
with such progressive features
as a state superintendent and
compulsory attendance. Higher
taxes were imposed on property
to finance these efforts…. (p.
164.)
Governor of Texas from
January 1870 to January 1874
Black Legislators during Reconstruction
Two black senators and twelve black
representatives sat in the Twelfth Legislature
(1870-1871): they constituted about 12 percent of
the body’s entire membership.
Overall, black legislators who served during the
era of Reconstruction in Texas amassed political
savvy and performed as well as did their black
counterparts throughout the South.
George T. Ruby:
• Born & educated in the North
Matt Gaines:
• Educator in Louisiana
Self-educated former slave
• Arrived in Texas in 1866
• Freedman’s Bureau teacher in Galveston
• Agent for the Freedman’s Bureau
• Organizer of the Union League
• President of the Union League (1868)
• Vice President of the Republican state
convention (1868)
Preacher of the Baptist church
after the Civil War
Courageous advocate for
African American causes in the
state legislature
State Senator
• State Senator from Galveston (1869-1874)
• Served on several influential committees
for the state legislature
Calvert, DeLeón, Cantrell, p. 163.
Republicans were weakened by
1. Internal divisions
2. White terrorism
Governor Davis Faces Strong Opposition
Governor Davis’s opponents managed to mold public opinion
into associating the Radical administration with corruption and
extravagant spending. Recent research suggests that the
greatest percentage of the state’s revenue went to law
enforcement, the common school system, and frontier defense
and that the Radicals were not in fact wasteful with the
taxpayers’ money. But Texans (among them the members of the
planter class, allies of the Democrats), opposed what they
considered arbitrary taxation, while others condemned what
they believed to be a central government’s usurpation of local
autonomy. As Democrats campaigned in the special
congressional election of 1871, they stressed the issues of high
taxes, corruption, fraud, and misgovernment.
In November of 1872, the Democrats won a majority in both
chambers of the State Legislature. When the new legislature
met in 1873, it abolished the state police and overthrew Davis’s
public school system. (p. 165)
Gubernatorial Election of 1873
In the gubernatorial election in December 1873, Davis again ran
on the Republican ticket, while Richard Coke, an exConfederate, campaigned as a Conservative Democrat. During
the campaign, Davis highlighted the programs he had initiated,
while Coke and his followers talked of “redemption,” of
restoring strong states’ rights and of overthrowing the coalition
of Republicans and freedmen. Coke took the election 100,415 to
52,141.
Richard Coke
Edmund Jackson Davis
(1829-1897)
THE REDEMPTION NEEDS A
NEW CONSTITUTION!
With the conservative
Democrats back in power, a
majority of the state’s
citizens wanted to erase all
vestiges of Reconstruction,
and they demanded the
replacement of the
Constitution of 1869. A
new document, they
figured, would overturn
Republican successes on
behalf of blacks and let the
state return to the limited
concept of government that
had prevailed before the
Civil War.
Governor Coke eventually
convened the constitutional
convention in 1875.
Composite photo of the 1875 Constitutional Convention, Archives and
Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives
Commission.
The constitution of 1876
decentralized government
power in the state and greatly
weakened public education.
The Constitution of 1876 included provisions
that prohibited the state from chartering banks,
empowered the state to regulate corporations
and railroad companies, established a state
debt ceiling of $200,000, put a strict limit on
the maximum ad valorem tax rate, and all but
abolished the public school system. Many
delegates to the constitutional convention
argued that parents should bear sole
responsibility for the education of their
children. The argument came in part from
those who rejected the idea that white
landowners should pay taxes for the education
of black children. The Constitution of 1876
eliminated the office of superintendent and
compulsory education. It also mandated
segregated schools.
Despite its flaws, the Constitution of 1876
reflected fairly well the political views of most
white southerners, displaying a general distrust
of activist government and a desire to limit its
powers.