page_title: Edmund J. Davis
section_title: Post war
hierarchical_section_title: Edmund J. Davis / Post war
caption_attribution_description: English: I took photo with Canon camera of the bottom of the Edmund J. Davis monument at the TX State Cemetery at Austin.
context_page_description: Edmund Jackson Davis was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. He was a Southern Unionist and a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He also served for one term from 1870 to 1874 as the 14th Governor of Texas.
context_section_description: Following the end of the war, Davis became a member of the 1866 Texas Constitutional Convention. He supported the rights of freed slaves and urged the division of Texas into several Republican-controlled states.
  In 1869, he was narrowly elected governor against Andrew Jackson Hamilton, a Unionist Democrat. Documented cases of serious fraud, presented to Congress and the President, were ignored. As a Radical Republican during Reconstruction, his term in office was controversial.
  On July 22, 1870, the Texas State Police came into being by Radical bills, which passed the House easily but stalled in the Senate until the thirteen opposition party senators were arrested and detained by Davis police; during this time the entire package of Radical legislation was rushed through. The State Police were to have extraordinary powers, including an unconstitutional privilege of taking offenders from one county to another for trial and of operating undercover as secret agents.  It worked against racially based crimes, and included black police officers, which caused protest from former slaveowners (and future segregationists). Davis created the "State Guard of Texas" and the "Reserve Militia", which were forerunners of the Texas National Guard.
  The Printing Bill provided an official public printer and a state journal and provided that regional newspapers be designated to print the various required official notices. This in effect instantly created an "official" state press, subject to government control and influence.
  Davis's government was marked by controversy, corruption, disenfranchisement of Texans, and Carpetbagger rule.  One of his protégés was Norris Wright Cuney of Galveston, who continued the struggle for equality until his own death in 1896 and is honored as one of the important figures in Texas and American black history. He also gained the respect and friendship of Spanish-speaking residents on the Rio Grande frontier. Not only was Davis highly unpopular among the vast majority of Texans, but in order to impose Carpetbagger rule the entire democratic political process was perverted. During the election of 1871, Davis canvasses threw out thousands of votes, including the entire returns of Limestone, Brazos, Bowie, and Marion counties, on specious grounds.
  In 1873, Davis was defeated for reelection by Democrat Richard Coke (42,633 votes to 85,549 votes) in an election marked by irregularities. Davis contested the results and refused to leave his office on the ground floor of the Capitol. Democratic lawmakers and Governor-elect Coke reportedly had to climb ladders to the Capitol's second story, where the legislature convened. When President Grant refused to send troops to the defeated governor's rescue, Davis reluctantly left the capital in January 1874. He locked the door to the governor's office and took the key, forcing Coke's supporters to break in with an axe.  John Henninger Reagan helped to oust him after he tried to stay in office beyond the end of his term. 
   Davis was the last Republican governor of Texas until Republican Bill Clements defeated the Democrat John Luke Hill in 1978 and assumed the governorship the following January, 105 years after Davis vacated the office.
  Following his defeat, Davis was nominated to be collector of customs at Galveston but declined the appointment because he disliked U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes. He ran for governor again in 1880 but was soundly defeated. His name was placed in nomination for Vice President of the United States at the 1880 Republican National Convention, which met in Chicago and chose James A. Garfield as the standard-bearer. Had Davis succeeded, he might have wound up in the White House, as did Chester A. Arthur, the man who received the vice presidential nomination that year. Davis lost an election for the United States House of Representatives in 1882.
  After Democrats regained power in the state legislature, they passed laws making voter registration more difficult, such as requiring payment of poll taxes, which worked to disfranchise blacks, Mexican Americ
caption: Base of the large Davis grave monument at Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:05:10 12:37:16", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8192", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:10 12:37:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:10 12:37:16", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "9049/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4320", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3240", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4320", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3240", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3344", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "160000/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1620000/91", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}