Texas Constitution of 1876

The Constitution of 1876 is the sixth constitution under which Texas has been governed since independence in 1836, and it remains the fundamental law of the state.¹ It was framed by the Constitutional Convention of 1875 and adopted by the voters on February 15, 1876, by 136,606 votes to 56,652.¹ It replaced the Constitution of 1869, written during Reconstruction in Texas, and has since been amended several hundred times.¹²

Drafting and ratification

Early in 1874 a joint legislative committee proposed an entire new constitution as an amendment to the Constitution of 1869, but the legislature rejected the proposal.¹ On the advice of Governor Richard Coke, the next legislature put the question of a convention to the voters, who approved it on August 2, 1875, and elected three delegates from each of the thirty senatorial districts.¹

The convention met in Austin on September 6, 1875, under the presidency of Edward B. Pickett, and adjourned on November 24.³ Seventy five delegates were Democrats and fifteen were Republicans, six of them Black; about forty belonged to the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange, and none had been a delegate in 1868 and 1869.¹³ The majority declined to employ a stenographer or to publish the proceedings.³ The convention approved the finished document by fifty three votes to eleven and submitted it to the voters.³ The difficulty of following an individual delegate through the surviving record is the subject of Tracing a Delegate Through Three Records. A composite photograph of the delegates is in the collections of the Texas State Library and Archives.⁴

Structure and principal provisions

The document opens with a bill of rights guaranteeing, among other things, habeas corpus, jury trial, bail, freedom of speech and press, and the right to keep and bear arms, and forbidding imprisonment for debt.¹

The legislative article provided for a Senate of thirty one members serving four year terms and a House of no more than 150 members serving two year terms. The legislature met every two years, was limited to $5 a day for the first sixty days of a session and $2 a day thereafter, could incur no debt above $200,000, and had to hold its sessions in Austin.¹

The executive article named seven officers, among them the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, comptroller of public accounts, treasurer and commissioner of the land office. All but the secretary of state were elected for two year terms. The governor’s salary was reduced from $5,000 to $4,000, and his veto, including an item veto on appropriations, could be overridden by two thirds of both houses.¹

The judicial article created a supreme court of three judges with civil appellate jurisdiction only, a court of appeals for criminal cases and certain civil cases, twenty six district courts, and county, commissioners and justice of the peace courts. Every judge was to be elected.¹

Education, land and railroads

The education article directed the legislature to maintain a system of public free schools, supported by a poll tax of $1 and no more than one fourth of general revenue, and set aside school lands as a perpetual fund. It abolished the office of state superintendent in favor of a board made up of the governor, comptroller and secretary of state, and provided for segregated schools.¹ It also provided for the University of Texas, with Texas A&M as a branch, and set aside one million acres for a Permanent University Fund.¹ The school provisions are compared with those of 1869 in Schools Under Two Constitutions.

The constitution declared railroads common carriers, forbade their consolidation, and authorized the legislature to regulate freight and passenger rates. It permitted grants of sixteen sections of public land for each mile of track built, while barring grants of money or bonds.¹ Earlier grants are covered in Railroad Land Grants Before 1876. The Railroad Commission of Texas was created in 1891 under a constitutional and legislative mandate to set reasonable rail tariffs.⁵ The document also prohibited state chartered banks and protected homesteads of 160 acres for heads of families from forced sale.¹

Amendment

Amendments must be proposed by two thirds of the members of each house and approved by a majority of those voting. The constitution makes no provision for calling another convention.¹ Of ninety nine amendments submitted by September 1928, forty three were adopted; by 1980 voters had approved 235.¹ As of 2025 the legislature had proposed 731 amendments, of which 547 were approved, 181 were defeated and 3 never reached the ballot; two of the approved amendments had not been certified because of court challenges.²

Voters rejected a proposal for a convention in 1919 and an extensive revision prepared by the legislature in 1975.¹ A constitutional convention that met in 1974 ended without producing a new document.⁴ The Handbook of Texas describes the text as running to more than 63,000 words and notes that most amendments have concerned the legislature, the judiciary, public education and state finance.¹ The current text is organized under seventeen articles, from the Bill of Rights to the Mode of Amending the Constitution.⁶

Sources

The Handbook of Texas entries on the constitution, by Joe E. Ericson and Ernest Wallace, and on the convention, by Ralph W. Steen, are the principal accounts in that reference work.¹³ The Legislative Reference Library maintains a searchable record of amendments by article and session.²⁶ The State Library’s online exhibit places the document in the sequence of Texas constitutions from 1836.⁴ Related articles appear in the reference index.

References

1. Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, Constitution of 1876 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

2. Legislative Reference Library of Texas, Constitutional amendments ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, Constitutional Convention of 1875 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Texas State Library and Archives Commission, The Texas Constitution of 1876 ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Railroad Commission of Texas, About Us ↩

6. Legislative Reference Library of Texas, Constitutional Amendments Search ↩ ↩²