Year: 1875




fection of the Judiciary system of Texas.
Very certainly this committee has toiled as
siduously and surely, within the brief period
of its existence, it could hardly have agreed
upon policy 70 which even the committee
itself assents with any degree of unanimity.
Upon one single point the whole Conven-
tion Is an unit, that one-third of the coun-
ties of Texas are not in a fit condition,
while universal suffrage is the absurd pol
icy of the State, to create for themselves
local courts. In Northern and Central and
Western Texas where the people, and not
the rabble, are supreme, the masses have
declared that they preferred a judiciary cleo
tive by the people; but since the govern
ment of Texas is now and must forever re-
main a white mans government and there
is no danger of wrong if the judiciary
be creative by its chief magistrate and
legislature, it is commonly asserted that
if NO other recourse be presented, the judi
ges shall be eligible by the Legislature, the
Governor nominating. But another scheme
has been defined which may accomplish the
purposes of conservatism, and at the same
time be universally approved. The judges
will be elected by the State at large or by
districts so defined that there will be no
danger that the ermine will be worn by one
un worthy of its stainless honors. The dis
cussion of this necessity, and the pitiable
condition to which counties and towns IN
southern districts may be reduced, if the
Constitution do not guard them against in
tolerable local taxation imposed by those
who pay no taxes, will lead the Convention
to make the payment of poll tax a condi-
ton precedent to the exercise of the right
of suffrage. 1t will further be provided
that no Indebtedness shall be incurred by
county or town unless the proposition to
create the debt be first approved, at an cleo
the question, by the taxpayers and free
holders, who must pay the debt. The De-
mocracy of the Bolton district and other
like conventions have approved this pur-
pose entertained, we believe, by the great
majority of, the Convention. Practically,
by this provision of organic law, conjoined
with the imposition of poll tax of two or
even five dollars, the very aims proposed to
be attained by restricting suffrage in corpo-
ations to freeholders is attained. Rings
ruling and running towns and counties of
Texas at this hour, constituted of county
and town officers cooperating to retain
power in each others hands and making a
joint stock arrangement by which the reve-
nues of both the county and town are made
to serve as corruption fund and as basis
of all sorts of speculations-all these beau
ciful schemes, now operative in many por-
tions of Northern and Southern Texas, will
be suddenly cut off, and that without rem
edy. The people of Texas will not be dis
appointed in these or kindred results. Two
thirds of the members of the Convention
have already shown that they are not dema-
gogues. They came 10 make the best and
most enduring government possible
for Texas, and would make the
people of towns and counties abso-
lutely free to do as they please; but, as
society is now organized, and as the Fed
eral Constitution subsists, it becomes abso-
luteIy necessary, in more than a third Of
the counties of Texas and in half Of the
towns, to prevent robbery and wrong and
the desolation of the fairest districts of the
empire by restricting suffrage, TO the ex-
tent that it affects land and money alone,
to those who have land and money. There
is and can be-" said a hard-tisted black
smith yesterday, mo justice in one mans
voting my money out of my pocket into his
own and he hes no right TO vote away my
money unless, at the same time and by the
same act, he votes away his own" No
one can object Ia. a scheme Of legisIa-
ton thus wisely approved. With i.s
perfection and the publication of the
fact everywhere, there will lie fewer
persons to object to the proposition,
already agreed upon in committee, to abol-
ish the Immigration Bureau. The best
population of the Southern and Western
States, when they lind that they will be
forever protected, in towns and counties,
against the ravages Of the rabble, will seek
homes in Texas The curse Of society and
government at this hour in wide districts of
Tennessee nd Of Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia aud South Carolia came Of the fact
that constitutional conventions, when they
sat in those States, were moral towards, and
constituted Of demagogues instead of
statesmen. They dared not, as will be done
here in Texas. declare for absolute local
freedom, and to make this desirable, for the
restriction Of suffrage in corporate elections.