USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 2 > Part 37
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
483
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
lature, to the present hour, the world, and especially the International railroad Company, has been notified in every way and by every means through which popular feeling and determination could find expression, that the people of Texas would resist the payment of this subsidy. The administration under which the charter was enacted, refused to issue bonds under it, on the first application for them. Contemporaneous with the passage of this charter, public meetings were held in various counties in the State, and the indignation of the people and their determination never to pay the subsidy, set forth in resolutions which were published throughout the country. The press teemed with denunciations of the fraud and denials of the power of the legislature to impose this debt on the people. The tax-payers' convention of 1871,1 a great body of representative men, denounced it. A large body of eminent, representative men, from every portion of the State, in 1870, in a memorial to Congress, praying that body to guarantee to Texas a republican form of government, denounced that charter. The House of Representatives of the thirteenth legislature, through a select committee, solemnly held the charter void, because in excess of constitutional power."
The fact, in justice to the dead, should be distinctly stated and remembered. The Hon. A. Bledsoe, an honored citizen of Dallas County, elected at the same time and on the same ticket with Governor Davis as Comptroller of the State, when called upon by the railroad authorities, sternly refused to sign the bonds, holding that it would be an outrage on the rights of the people, and in violation of the constitution. This led to the mandamus suit, the object of which was to compel him to sign and issue the bonds, to which Governor Coke refers in the extract quoted. The Supreme Court re-
1 Over which ex-Governor Pease presided and of which ex-Governors Hamilton and Ireland were members.
484
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
fused the mandamus, after a most learned and conclusive argument in behalf of Comptroller Bledsoe and the State by the Hon. George Clark, then attorney-general. The court then consisted of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Ballin- ger, Moore, Reeves and Devine.
The railroad company refused every proposition for a compromise, and demanded the pound of flesh. Public sen- timent was greatly in favor of a railroad over the route pro- posed, and, in a spirit of compromise, the legislature passed an act to meet the difficulties, but it was so defective and retained so much of the spirit of the charter itself, that Governor Coke, in an able, exhaustive and unanswerable message, promptly vetoed it. This brought a change of policy on the part of the railroad. Its partisans came to realize that the position of the State and its authorities, was such as to pro- tect the people of the State from the unprecedented wrong attempted ; thereupon the legislature passed and the Governor approved, a compromise act which the company accepted. Yet, it was far more liberal to the company than would have been possible, but for the great desire to avoid any possible ground for further interference of the Federal government with the domestic and internal affairs of Texas. It granted to the railroad company twenty sections of land, in lieu of State bonds, for every mile of road then or thereafter built. Not only this, but it relieved them of taxes on the lands so granted, for a period of twenty-five years. And yet more ! Contrary to the settled policy of the State from the beginning, ranking next in public esteem to the homestead legislation, it relieved them of the obligation to sectionize the public lands, they taking every alternate section, and the State setting apart the other alternate sections as a part of the public free school fund ; and allowed them to select their lands in solid bodies - a concession only justified by its advocates to escape greater evils.
STATE CAPITOL
485
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1875-6.
Realizing the impracticability of correcting many of the evils complained of under the constitution of 1869-70, the same legislature, in a second session in March, 1875, passed an act providing for the election of delegates to a convention to form a new constitution. The election was held August 2d, 1875, and resulted in the election of a full set of delegates, among whom were a large number of the ablest and most experienced men of Texas. They convened at Austin on the 6th of September and elected Edward B. Picket, of Liberty, president and Leigh Chalmers, of Austin, secretary. On the 25th of November the convention adjourned, having completed its work - and provided for the submission of the consti- tution to the people for ratification or rejection at an election to be held on the 18th of February, 1876, and for the election at the same time of a full set of State, district and county officers. At that election, there were 136,606 votes cast for the constitution,- against it 56,652 - majority, 79,954. For re-election Governor Coke received 150,681 votes to 47,719 cast for Wm. Chambers. Lieut .- Governor Hubbard was re- elected by 150,418 to 48,638 for Frederick W. Miner.
The new legislature assembled on the 18th of April, 1876. Thomas R. Bonner was elected speaker of the House of Rep- tatives. Messrs. Coke and Hubbard were re-inaugurated on the 25th. Gov. Coke was elected to the United States senate on the 5th of May, but continued to exercise the duties of the office until December 1st, 1876, when he was succeeded by Lieut .- Governor Hubbard, who yet had a full term of two years to serve. A special clause of the constitution extended this term so as to cover the preceding seven months, in order to preserve uniformity in the periods of subsequent elections.
In Governor Coke's administration, in which he met the results of the previous period of reconstruction, he strength-
486
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
ened the arm of the civil law by the certain and speedy administration of justice by civil officers. In very few in- stances was it found necessary to appeal to military force for sustaining the law. A small company was kept in readiness, subject to the Governor's call, and bands of lawless men were gradually broken up.
There was no money in the treasury and no public credit. The State debt was $4,500,000, and retrenchments in public expenditures were necessary.
The cost of public printing was reduced from $125,000 to $25,000.1 The appropriations for the blind and deaf mute institutions were materially reduced. These economical methods with the relief to the treasury of the International Railroad debt, improved the credit of the State. Bonds that had been slow of sale at forty cents on the dollar grew in value, ultimately commanding five per cent premium. Gov- ernor Coke opposed the issuance of State bonds for public improvements. Taxes were reduced from two dollars and thirty cents on the one hundred dollars to fifty cents and the public debt was at the same time reduced $400,000. The set- tlers on the frontier, having been robbed and many among them murdered by the Indians, had withdrawn to closer settlements. The rangers now pursued the Indians and punished them, giving such confidence of security that the borders were speedily extended fifty miles or more.
At the election referred to, Oran M. Roberts was re-elected chief justice of the Supreme Court and George F. Moore and Robert S. Gould, associates, for the newly created Court of Appeals. John P. White of Seguin, Clinton M. Winkler of Corsicana, and Mathew D. Ector of Marshall were chosen justices.
Under the new constitution, the regular sessions of the
1 Statements from the governors of ten States, any of them of greater population than Texas, were submitted to the legislature, showing that $25,000 was the average sum expended by them.
487
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
legislature were limited to sixty days, and adjourned and called sessions to thirty days - periods evidently too short for so large a body to wisely perform the duties devolving upon them.
(The legislature, most clearly, meeting but once in two years in regular session, should be allowed three months in which to transact the business confided to it. )
It may be admissible for the author of this work to state that as a member of the constitutional convention, he was one of the minority who advocated allowing the first session under the new constitution, - charged with revising all the laws of Texas for the first time, from 1836 to that time, a momentous period of forty years, - to sit four months and, after that, allowing all biennial regular sessions to hold for three months and adjourned or called sessions sixty days.
.
CHAPTER XLVI. HUBBARD'S ADMINISTRATION.
At the great centennial in Philadelphia, on the 4th of July, 1876, Mr. Hubbard, then Lieutenant-Governor of Texas, delivered an address in behalf of his State, so replete with his- torical lore, and patriotic devotion, as to give him a national rep- utation as a great American orator. He became Governor, as stated, on the 1st of December, 1876, Senator Wells Thomp- son of Colorado, succeeding him as president of the senate. The sixteenth legislature assembled, January, 1879, and on the 14th of that month, Governor Hubbard submitted his last regular message to that body, it being the close of his admin- istration. It is a full and elaborate presentation of the events connected with the previous two years, showing the condition of the finances, the eleemosynary institutions and facts bearing on all State educational institutions, the advance of internal improvements, the proceedings taken to detect fraudulent land titles, the erection of the penitentiary at Rusk, in Cherokee County, the increased prosperity of the frontier Counties under the protection of the State troops, and the increase in values from a little over $10,000,000 in 1874 to $22,000,000 in 1878, assessments being at the same rate for the two years, while fourteen other counties in northwest Texas were organized during the same period, and other coun- ties were then ready to organize. He said: " It is a fact that, for more than twelve years prior to the creation of the fron- tier battalion, and its service in the west, no new county had been organized. On the contrary the adjutant-general re- ported that three counties - Young, Coleman and Stephens -
(488)
489
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
had been depopulated and had lost their county organizations, and hundreds of citizens had been compelled by the Indians to abandon their homes in the other frontier counties. If the same progress marks the history of that section under like causes in the future, many years will not elapse before the savage will be a stranger within our lines, and the State, along her border, will be securely protected by a living wall of her own hardy and patriotic people."
These prophetic utterances of Governor Hubbard were rapidly realized. The completion of the Texas and Pacific Railroad in 1882; the completion of the Southern Pacific from San Antonio to El Paso a year or two later, and, still later, the completion of the Fort Worth and Denver road, pass- ing diagonally through the whole Pan Handle country, were each followed by such an influx of population, the establish- ment of towns and the organization of counties, as to mark an era in the development of American frontiers, and the march yet continues in a ratio, marvelous to those throughout the Union who, from the opening of the Santa Fe trade in 1823, labored under the absurd and now exploded idea under which geographers portrayed that country as the Great American Desert.
Governor Hubbard submitted to the legislature the report of the codifiers, previously appointed by Governor Coke, to codify the laws of the State. These gentlemen were: Charles S. West of Austin, George Clark of Waco, John W. Ferris of Waxahatchie, Ben H. Bassett of Brenham, and Samuel A. Wilson of Cherokee. The result of their labors was the adoption, in 1879, of the large volume now known as The Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, embracing the Criminal Code, and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Briefly condensed, Governor Hubbard showed the bonded debt of Texas to be $5,086,109.05.
Referring to the lunatic asylum Governor Hubbard felici- tated the State on the fact that the per cent of patients
L
490
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
restored to reason was forty - a larger per cent than in any similar institution in the United States, while the per cent of deaths was less than in any such institution in the Union. Only four patients were reported unimproved, the whole number being three hundred and seventy. Since his retirement from the Governor's office in 1879, Gov. Hubbard has served his country, under the administra- tion of President Cleveland, -1885 to 1889 - acceptably, as American minister to Japan. As Governor he was suc- ceeded by Governor Roberts, and George F. Moor became chief justice of the Supreme Court.
ROBERTS' FIRST ADMINISTRATION (JANUARY, 1879, TO JANUARY, 1881.)
On the accession of Gov. Roberts to office, with Joseph D. Sayers as Lieutenant-Governor, our State debt had reached $5,500,000.00. Under Governors Coke and Hubbard several reforms affecting the revenue and finances had been inaugu- rated, but required yet longer time to yield the anticipated results. The tax laws had been inefficient, and collections had been, not only deficient, but attended with serious losses. Gov. Roberts took up the work where his predecessors had left off, and urged measures of retrenchment and reform, until the expenses of the State, including interest on the public debt, should be brought within the revenues and the debt put in process of the earliest possible extinction, without additional taxation on the property of the country, much the larger pro- portion of which was non-productive. Among other things, he favored, temporarily, a less appropriation for the support of free schools, until this consummation should be reached. The result was, an appropriation of one-sixth instead of one- fourth of the general revenue (the latter being the constitu- tional limit), for the years 1879-80. This recommendation called forth bitter denunciations by the opponents of the Gov-
491
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
ernor, and it was sought in 1880 to defeat his renomination and election very largely on that ground. Yet he was over- whelmingly vindicted, not only by his almost unanimous renomination, but by his re-election by a majority of 67,998 over the combined vote of ex-Governor E. J. Davis and W. H. Hamman, Roberts' plurality over Davis being 101,719.
By reforms in the law, twenty-two thousand more children than ever before, were in 1880, taught for a longer time, and by a better average grade of teachers, for $197,000 less money than before. The improved conditions, thus inaug- urated, have continued for the succeeding twelve years, and in the cost of this improvement is included the founding and first year's expenses of two State normal schools; one (the Sam Houston, at Huntsville ), for white males and females ; the other (at Prairie View), for colored males and females ; both now, twelve years later, in a prosperous condition, already having accomplished great good, large numbers of our present teachers being graduates of those institutions.
During Gov. Roberts' first term, from 1879 to 1881, the public debt was reduced over $400,000, and by converting ten per cent State bonds, issued chiefly under Governor Davis, into five per cent bonds, saved $50,000 to the State. More school lands were sold for the benefit of the school fund, than for several years before; all four per cent State warrants, previously issued to meet emergencies, were redeemed, and that interest stopped. At the close of his first term, there were in the treasury $300,000, to meet current expenses, and $50,000 to diminish the public debt. An act was also passed setting apart 5,000,000 acres of public lands to be sold for money with which to pay the entire public debt, so as to relieve the people of onerous taxation, involving an enormous interest, originating when the people were practically denied a voice in the government.
492
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
ROBERTS' SECOND TERM, 1881 to 1883.
With Governor Roberts, in January, 1881, Leonidas J. Storey was inaugurated as Lieut .- Governor.
Under a law enacted in the session of 1881, it was pro- vided that three hundred and twenty-five leagues of land, should be selected from the public domain to be held in trust by the State, and, as new counties should be organized, four leagues should be granted to each, for the support of free public schools, in fulfillment of the original policy of 1839. This course was adopted as a precautionary one, in case of the exhaustion of the public domain, in order that every county thereafter created might receive its proportion of land. The law required the work to be done under contract. by a bonded surveyor, under the supervision of a commis- sioner to be appointed by the Governor. Governor Roberts appointed John Henry Brown, of Dallas, as commissioner ; and, beginning in March, 1882, the work was completed during that year. The work was done with great care, and the corners were marked with such permanent mounds of earth or stone, as to avoid all ground for future conflict. A large number of counties since that time, embracing all organized between 1882 and 1892, have received their respective four leagues, or 17,712 acres of land, the proceeds of the sales of which shall constitute an auxiliary permanent county school fund, in addition to the State funds; the interest only can be used for the current support of the schools. This was a wise step on the part of the State, and is destined to exert a most beneficial influence in all future time, on that large section of counties embraced in the pan-handle and west Texas, besides a few isolated counties created elsewhere. Governor Roberts' second administration was a continuation of the wise and economical policy of the first, based on his maxim, so fully indorsed by the people, of PAY AS YOU GO. Soon after his-
yours truly
HISTORY OF TEXAS. 493
retirement from the executive office, he was elected by the regents of the State University, chancellor of that institution, a position for which the bar and the people of Texas con- sidered him eminently qualified by a judicial experience cover- ing forty years, and a residence in the State of fifty-one years. He yet fills that position.
IRELAND'S TWO ADMINISTRATIONS, 1883 TO 1887.
John Ireland was born in Hart County, Kentucky, January 1, 1827. In 1853 he settled as a lawyer at Seguin, Texas. In 1861 he was a member of the secession convention. He served as a private, captain, major and lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate army. In 1866 he was a member of the consti- tutional convention, and became district judge the same year, but was removed by the military a year later. In 1873 he was a member of the thirteenth legislature. In 1874 he was senator in the fourteenth legislature. In 1875 he was appointed a member of the Supreme Court, but resigned in 1876.
In 1882 he was elected Governor by a majority of 48,308, Marion Martin, of Corsicana, being elected Lieutenant- Governor. In 1884 he was re-elected by a majority over two opponents of 98,227, and a plurality over his chief opponent of 123,784 ; Barnett Gibbs, of Dallas, being chosen Lieuten- ant-Governor. In both instances his nomination was unani- mously made. It will be seen that he assumed the executive functions fortified by a varied experience, and with a char- acter for talent and integrity in keeping with that of his three predecessors.1 At this period a large part of Texas was pass- ing through a transition state from a pastoral to an agricul- tural country, with greatly increased commerce and travel. New counties were being rapidly organized, and large bodies
1 He selected as adjutant-general Wm. H. King of Hopkins County, an able and long-tried soldier.
.
ยท
494
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
of land, formerly open to free pasturage, were being put in cultivation or under wire fencing for pastoral purposes, pre- venting the opening of highways and closing up others that already existed. Great discontent was the result, demanding a vigorous exercise of executive power, in the protection of the rights of conflicting parties, and the suppression of vio- lence, among those who were disposed to act on the doctrine that " might makes right." Wire fences were clandestinely cut and a fence-war was threatened. The Governor's wise and vigorous course prevented evils of great magnitude, the prospect of which alarmed the most conservative element of the country. By sending Adjutant-General Wm. H. King to investigate and report all the facts to him, and then convening the legislature, which passed such remedial legislation as seemed to be demanded - making fence cutting a felony, and providing for the opening of roads through inclosed pastures - followed by a few months of firm, but conservative execution of the laws, the agitation ceased, and the disorders were over- come. By this action Governor Ireland greatly gained in the public esteem, which accounts for his greatly increased vote in his re-election for the second term. There were also other questions of grave importance connected with the railroad service and questions relating to land matters, and the dis- position of the school sections and the public domain; all of which were judiciously managed, and the field left open for new and important issues.
A second penitentiary was established at Rusk; aid was granted the Confederate Home in Austin; the various State institutions were liberally aided, and the educational institu- tions of the State, including the public school system, were still further encouraged.
The penitentiaries were thrown on his hands and were man- aged with consummate success. He built the grand granite capitol and to him Texas owes the debt for a granite instead of an Indiana limestone building. He purchased and put in
---
L. S. ROSS
495
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
successful operation a sugar farm for working convicts. He purchased that historic spot, the Alamo, for the State. He had the million dollar debt due Texas by the United States for frontier protection, audited and put in a fair way for collection. He so reformed the laws as to require tax col- lectors to pay the revenues collected to the treasurer instead of to the comptroller, and since that time there has been no lack of funds in the State treasury with which to run the government on a strictly cash basis.
In his retirement, since 1887, Gov. Ireland has received many evidences that his two administrations were satisfactory to the people.
ROSS' TWO ADMINISTRATIONS.
In November, 1886, Lawrence Sullivan Ross, of Waco, was elected Governor (1887 to 1889), by a very large majority, Thomas Benton Wheeler being elected Lieutenant-Governor. Both were re-elected two years later for a second term.
Gen. Ross entered upon his duties with a degree of personal popularity unsurpassed by that of any citizen of Texas. It. had been well earned. Almost a native. son of Texas, he had won distinction as a youth in the Indian wars, and entered the Confederate service as a major, and remained in it until the surrender in 1865, having filled the positions of colonel and brigadier-general. As commander of Ross' Brigade he won a distinction honorable to himself, to those under his command and to his State. After Reconstruction his repu- tation was sustained by service in the legislature and in the constitutional convention of 1875.
His administrations proved to be wise and efficient. Peace, prosperity and general confidence received an additional im- petus. A second State lunatic asylum was established in Ter- rell. A State reformity for boys was founded at Gatesville. A third insane asylum was provided for in San Antonio, and.
496
HISTORY OF TEXAS.
is now in successful operation. A State Institution as a home for orphans was founded at Corsicana. The State normal schools, for both white and colored, were encouraged. The magnificent State capitol, considered one of the finest in the United States (provided for during Governor Roberts' admin- istration, at a cost of 3,000,000 acres of frontier land and prosecuted through Governor Ireland's term, ) was completed and. accepted under Governor Ross' adminstration. The general prosperity evidenced by the building of railroads, the increase in population, the growth of towns and cities, the general increase of wealth and the settlement and organization of new counties in the west and northwest, greatly surpassed that of any previous similar period, flattering as it had been under every administration from Coke in 1874 up to that time.
Governor Ross retired from office in January, 1891, and was soon afterwards called to the presidency of the Agricul- tural and Mechanical College at Bryan, a position for which, as a thoroughly educated and practical farmer, he is in every respect qualified.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.