Readmission To Union Does Not End Post-War Nightmare

The military occupation of Texas ended on April 13, 1870 when Gen. J.J. Reynolds passed the reins of power to the civilian chief execution, whose election he had engineered. Two weeks earlier on March 30, President Grant signed the act that restored Lone Star statehood.  Texans were, for better or worse, back in the Union after four years in the Confederacy and five as a conquered territory.

The military occupation of Texas ended on April 13, 1870 when Gen. J.J. Reynolds passed the reins of power to the civilian chief execution, whose election he had engineered.

Two weeks earlier on March 30, President Grant signed the act that restored Lone Star statehood.  Texans were, for better or worse, back in the Union after four years in the Confederacy and five as a conquered territory.

As soon as he heard the news, Gov. Edmund J. Davis dropped the word “provisional” from his title and ordered the legislature into session on the last Tuesday of the month.  

At his inauguration on April 28, the 42-year-old former judge and northern army officer swore he had never fought a duel nor taken up arms against the United States.  “Let us cultivate a belief that our neighbor who differs in opinion with us may so differ honestly,” the governor stated in a speech that repeated the conciliatory theme of his recent campaign and tempted Texans into hoping hate and strife were finally behind them.

But Davis had not changed his stripes.  He was the same inflexible zealot, who had branded ex-Confederates as “unfit to govern” and argued for their permanent disenfranchisement.  Now that most adult males again had the vote and Grant was pulling the troops out of Texas, it was up to the unrepentant Radical to punish the Rebs.

The day after the swearing-in ceremony, Gov. Davis unveiled his agenda for the assembled lawmakers.  To take the place of the federal occupation force, he proposed a state militia made up of all able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45.  He also asked for a free hand in imposing martial law wherever and whenever conditions warranted.  The third and ultimately most controversial item on his get-tough wish list was a new law enforcement agency called the state police.

Radical representatives quickly drafted the legislation to give the governor everything he wanted and more.  As commander-in-chief of two armed bodies – the state guard and reserve militia – Davis would be empowered to send as many citizen soldiers as he saw fit into any community or county.  He could on his own authority declare martial law, suspend habeas corpus, try civilians in military courts and compel the inhabitants of an occupied county to pay the expenses of their uninvited “guests.”

Speaker Ira H. Evans closed the House debate on the militia bill with a stirring appeal for passage “in the name of the thousands of widows and orphans, who have been made such by the Ku Klux (Klan) of Texas.”  His colleagues responded with a lopsided endorsement of the measure.

The sailing was not nearly so smooth in the Senate, where three moderate Republicans joined forces with 11 Democrats to water down the draconian act.  Their substitute, which put the militia under local control and omitted martial law altogether, fell just one vote short of adoption.

Before the Radicals could call the question for their stern alternative, 13 opponents broke the quorum and barricaded themselves in a separate room.  The fast-acting majority placed the bolters under arrest for “conspiracy” and released only enough to reconstitute a cooperative quorum, which approved the militia bill by a vote of 15 to 5.

Keeping their critics incarcerated for the next three weeks, the Radicals created the infamous state police – a 258-man force that answered only to the governor.  The fine print in the law also enabled him to remove any law enforcement official not to his liking.  In an unprecedented expansion of gubernatorial power, Davis was given the final say-so over voter registration and the authority to appoint mayors and aldermen.

The Radicals had the gall, some said good sense, to delay their inevitable day of reckoning.  The congressional and state elections scheduled for 1870 and 1871 were postponed until 1872.

Gov. Davis and his lackeys in the legislature went too far even for some leading Radicals.  For his outspoken objection to tampering with the election calendar, Speaker Evans was stripped of his post.  When Morgan Hamilton dared to disagree, Davis had his U.S. Senate election declared invalid and Gen. Reynolds chosen his successor, but Hamilton held onto the seat.  The governor had better luck installing a new state treasurer, waiting until the incumbent left town before ordering the state police to padlock his office.

Davis’ fondness for martial law and the unconscionable crimes of his hired guns pushed Texas to the brink of anarchy.  Homicidal maniacs like John Wesley Hardin and Clay Allison were hailed as public-spirited heroes for killing state policemen, while the governor was reviled as evil incarnate.

After Texans voted in a Democratic legislature and congressional delegation in November 1872, Edmund J. Davis spent the last 14 months of his term as a very lonely lame duck.  Stubbornly refusing to accept his own landslide defeat the following fall, he pleaded for federal troops to keep him in office.  President Grant wisely rejected the rash request, and the curtain finally fell on Reconstruction in Texas.       

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