674 



TEXAS. 



SEC. 2. The Legislature shall have power to ap- 

 propriate part of the ordinary revenue of the State, 

 for the purpose of promoting and protecting immi- 

 gration. Such appropriations shall be devoted to de- 

 fraying the expenses of this Bureau, to the support of 

 agencies in foreign seaports, or seaports of the United 

 States, and to the payment, in part, or in toto, of the 

 passage of immigaants from Europe to this State, and 

 their transportation within this State. 



Powerful inducements to settlers are also the 

 ordinances set down in Article X., reserving 

 the lands of the State with whatever minerals 

 found beneath their surface, for gratuitous dis- 

 tribution among them, as follows : 



SECTION 6. The Legislature shall not hereafter 

 grant lands to any person or persons, nor shall any 

 certificates for land be sold at the Land-Office, ex- 

 cept to actual settlers upon the same, and in lots not 

 exceeding 160 acres. 



SEC. 8. To every head of a family, who has not 

 a homestead, there shall be donated 160 acres of 

 land, out of the public domain, upon the condition 

 that he will select, locate, and occupy the same for 

 three years, and pay the office fees on the same. To 

 all single men, twenty-one years of age, there shall 

 be donated 80 acres of land, out of the public domain, 

 upon the same terms and conditions as are imposed 

 upon the head of a family. 



But more, perhaps, than other inducements, 

 the section which secures to the citizen the 

 possession and use of his property, by exempt- 

 ing it to a liberal amount from attachment and 

 sale for all common debts, will both attract 

 people from abroad, and fix them there. 



The convention appended two acts to the 

 constitution : the one distributing the counties 

 of the States into four Congressional districts, 

 the other assigning the first Monday and next 

 following days of July, 1869, as the time in 

 which the people should be called out to vote 

 for the ratification or rejection of the new con- 

 stitution, as well as for the election of Sen- 

 ators and Representatives in the Legislature, 

 of all State, district, and county officers, and 

 of members of the United States Congress ; 

 and the second Monday of September, 1869, 

 in which " the members of the Legislature 

 elected under this act should assemble at the 

 capitol in the city of Austin. 

 . Soon after the Constitutional Convention 

 had been adjourned, its president, Edmund 

 J. Davis, with the other five commissioners, 

 representing the State-division and white-dis- 

 franchisement party, proceeded to Washing- 

 ton, where they endeavored to persuade Con- 

 gress and the Administration that the new 

 constitution should be set aside, and they them- 

 selves, with their adherents in Texas, empow- 

 ered to mould another, embodying the realiza- 

 tion of those views. In this they failed, how- 

 ever. A. J. Hamilton, with other Republi- 

 cans, followed them and showed the character 

 and provisions of the constitution to be just 

 and expedient ; so that the conflict which had 

 been carried on for so long a time between these 

 two Republican sections at the convention-hall 

 in Texas was in a manner fought over again in 

 Washington with no less ardor, and the same re- 

 sult. But, though the radicals failed to accom- 



plish the chief purpose of their mission, they 

 did so far succeed as to render the conservative 

 Republicans suspected of having entered into a 

 coalition with the Democrats and secession- 

 ists of Texas, and get themselves the credit of 

 representing the only Republican party exist- 

 ing in that State. They succeeded also in ob- 

 taining the postponement of the general elec- 

 tion for the ratification or rejection of the new 

 constitution, which had been fixed for the first 

 Monday in July. It was postponed by the 

 President on the 30th day of November, as ap- 

 pears from the following proclamation : 



In pursuance of the provisions of the act of Con- 

 gress approved April 10, 1869, I hereby designate 

 Tuesday, the 30th day of November, 1869, as the 

 time for submitting the constitution adopted by the 

 convention which met in Austin, Texas, on the 15th 

 day of June, 1868, to the voters of said State, regis- 

 tered at the date of such submission, viz. : 



I direct the vote to be taken upon the said consti- 

 tution in the following manner, viz. : Each voter fa- 

 voring the ratification of the constitution as adopted 

 by the convention of the 15th of June, 1868, shall ex- 

 press his judgment by voting " For the Constitution." 

 Each voter favoring the rejection of the constitution 

 shall express his judgment by voting "Against the 

 Constitution." 



In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand 

 and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 



Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day 

 of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 

 hundred and sixty-nine, and of the independence of 

 the United States the ninety-fourth. 



U. S. GEANT. 



By the President : 



HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State. 



Meantime, the Radicals, having failed in the 

 attempt to prevent the new constitution from 

 being framed and adopted by the convention 

 in Texas, and in the further attempt of causing 

 it to be repudiated in Washington, resolved 

 publicly to announce their acceptance of it and 

 run candidates for State officers to be elected 

 under its provisions, with Edmund J. Davis for 

 Governor. The Conservatives, to whose exer- 

 tions that instrument in its present form owes 

 its existence, naturally offered their candidates 

 for State officers to be chosen at the same 

 election, with A. J. Hamilton for Governor ; 

 whereupon the two Republican sections en- 

 gaged in a hot contest, which found its ex- 

 pression in meetings, conventions, and speeches, 

 throughout the State. 



By order of the Army Headquarters at 

 Washington, issued on April 10, 1869, Brevet 

 Major-General J. J. Reynolds had been ap- 

 pointed to the command of the Fifth Military 

 District again, and returned to Texas. In a 

 letter to the President of the United States, 

 dated September 4, 1869, the general repre- 

 sents the relative positions and doings of 

 those two Republican sections from the begin- 

 ning, as follows : 



HEADQUARTERS FIFTH MILITART DISTRICT, I 

 STATE OF TEXAS, September 4, 1869. J 

 To tTie President of the United States : 



MY DEAR GENERAL : After your summer recrea- 

 tion, I have determined to add to your fall labors a 

 few words on the political situation in Texas. 



