3: Texas Constitution

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After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

Explain why Texas went through so many constitutions in the nineteenth century.
Assess the reasons for so many amendments in the Texas Constitution, and the nature of the political forces that drove them.
Identify where the 1876 has changed and where it has stayed the same.

The area we call Texas has been governed under nine different constitutions, each a reflection of the political circumstances of the time. One of the first was adopted in 1827 when the Mexican provinces of Texas and Coahuila were, under the authority of the 1824 Mexican Constitution, combined to form the state of Coahuila y Tejas. The Mexican Constitution itself was drafted and ratified when it achieved independence from Spain which created its first constitution in 1812. New constitutions were adopted as Texas went through further changes. For example, when it became a republic in 1836, and again when it joined the Union in 1845. Texas’s involvement in the failed attempt to create a separate nation with other southern states led to a rapid turnover in constitutions—four in fifteen years—culminating in a document that forms the basis of the current constitution, adopted by a Constitutional Convention in 1875 and ratified by Texas voters in 1876 (Figure 3.1). As if that wasn’t enough, the 1876 Constitution has been constantly amended, leading to substantive changes in parts of it, but retaining others. Further changes are being debated as this chapter is being written, while the Texas Legislature meets in Austin for its Eighty-Seventh Regular Session.

截屏2021-09-30 下午8.53.48.png — Figure 3.1 The cover for the Texas Constitution of 1876, printed in 1876. SOURCE: Library of Congress, Texas. *Constitution of the State of Texas*. Houston, Houston Telegraph Steam Print, 1876. Pdf.

While this might at first seem highly confusing, you will find after a careful reading of this chapter that these changes make perfect sense. All it takes is an understanding of what constitutions do, and how they embody the goals and aspirations of the people who draft and ratify them (discussed in chapter 2). They are the fundamental rules that establish the governing process, and as power shifts from one group to another, those rules are changed to reflect those shifts. That at least is the story of the constitutions of Texas.