Governor Richard Coke delivered his inaugural address during an armed standoff between his supporters and those of his predecessor, Edmund J. Davis, in the halls of the Old Capitol, as Davis refused to leave office despite having lost the 1873 election by a two-to-one margin. Given the tense atmosphere in which it was delivered, Coke’s speech was strikingly measured, forward-looking, and even conciliatory toward his political rivals.
Coke led a coalition later labeled by historians as the “Redeemer Democrats.” In the December 1873 election, they decisively defeated the “Radical Reconstruction” Republicans, who had taken control of state government during the post-Civil War military occupation.
Davis initially admitted defeat, but Republican lawyers brought a case to the Texas Supreme Court (Ex parte Rodriguez) that resulted in a ruling invalidating the election for technical reasons. Davis then opted to remain in office, while Coke and his coalition considered the court case to be contrived and ignored the ruling. The Democrats inaugurated Coke on the second floor of the Capitol while Davis remained barricaded in his offices upstairs on the third floor.
Coke began his speech by declaring a rebirth of freedom and the re-establishment of republican government in Texas “for the first time since she emerged from the ruin and disaster of the great civil war.” Implicitly, this was an assertion that the outgoing administration was undemocratic and authoritarian. Otherwise, however, Coke was generally magnanimous. His speech reflected a calm temperament, lacked inflammatory language, and offered a vision for the restoration of a federal, decentralized, and limited system of government—which the state soon adopted at the 1875 constitutional convention during Coke’s tenure as governor.
“The great civil war with its madness and passion is a thing of the past, while patriotism, broad and comprehensive as our common country, now possess the hearts of the people. Reason and cool, unclouded intelligence have resumed their sway. Henceforth acrimony and bitterness and appeals to prejudice and hate in political contests must give way to enlightened discussion of the element and the principles of government…”
Some historians have portrayed Coke and his backers as neo-Confederate reactionaries. Critics refer to the Redeemer Democrats overall as “white supremacists,” asserting that their rise to power in the mid-1870s was enabled by Klan terror and intimidation of Black voters and their White Republican allies. Coke himself had married the daughter of a planter and owned 15 slaves, according to the 1860 census. Like many men in the Texas Democratic Party at the time, he had fought in the Confederate Army, and he had served as delegate to the Secession Convention in Austin in 1861.
Despite this, Coke avoided racial discourse in his inaugural address and endorsed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which had ended slavery and granted citizenship to freed Blacks. Coke said that these amendments were “as binding as if promulgated in the original instrument [constitution].” Moreover, he repudiated slavery as “dead and buried” and pledged loyalty to the U.S. government, despite his earlier service to the Confederacy.
“Slavery and secession are dead and buried beyond the possibility of resurrection.”
Coke’s concluding remarks would have been considered treasonous within Confederate ranks just a decade earlier. He said, “We love Texas… but we do not forget that a part of our sovereignty is lodged elsewhere, and that as patriots we owe duties and obligations to another authority which in its sphere equally demands our loyalty and devotion. As Texans we stand by Texas, as American citizens we stand by the Union and are prepared to peril our lives in defense of our national government, its interests and its honor, as Texans have done before. Its interests are ours, its prosperity is ours, and to us belongs a part at least of its glory and its greatness.”
At the time, the national political debate was moving away from race and post-war political questions relating to the defeated South. A financial panic in 1873 had plunged the country into an economic recession, stirring calls for governmental and economic reforms. An agrarian movement called the Grange, which advocated for regulated railroad rates and grain warehouses—measures intended to help small farmers—was gaining influence in the Democratic Party. Even the Republican Party, which had championed Black civil rights, was becoming less focused on racial questions and less interested in the South.
When Richard Coke took office in January 1864, Blacks had gained their freedom and enjoyed limited political representation, but they suffered from Klan intimidation and many still lived in deep poverty. Coke’s ‘Redeemer’ coalition ultimately restricted Black freedoms, giving rise to the Jim Crow system of segregation. This was a gradual process that took decades, but it began during the 1873 legislative session with the dismantling of statewide protections, including the biracial State Police force, and continued during the Coke administration with the adoption of a system of “separate schools… for white and colored children.”1
Coke’s inaugural address lacked specific policy proposals, though generally he promised to enact pro-business legislation and run the government in a cost-efficient way that would enable tax cuts and the prompt payment of state debts. He called for the growth of a system of free public schools and infrastructure improvements (though his Democrat coalition ended up moving slowly on both of these priorities, and rolled back provisions of the 1869 constitution providing for centralized state control and funding of education and infrastructure).
Richard Coke served as governor for nearly three years (he resigned during his second two-year term to take a seat in the U.S. Senate). His political rival, Republican Governor Edmund J. Davis, quietly left the Texas Capitol on January 19, 1874, four days after Coke’s inauguration, finally relinquishing power and ending the tumultuous Reconstruction Era.
Democrats would rule Texas for the next 100 years. Coke’s inaugural address sheds light on the political philosophy that defined the “Redeemer Democrat” coalition at the beginning of this era. Ideologically, the speech represents an evolution from the fiery secessionism of the 1850s-1860s, embracing anew American nationalism and federalism. Yet it adheres to the same Jacksonian principles that had defined Texas politics during the Republic and early Statehood.
The Inaugural Address of Governor Richard Coke
January 15, 1874
Fellow-citizens of Texas: After passing through many vicissitudes and trials, and being chastened in the ordeal of adversity, you at length have reached the haven where the rights and powers of self-government are yours, and the duties and responsibilities of that condition are devolved upon you. Today, for the first time since she emerged from the ruin and disaster of the great civil war, Texas sees the inauguration in her Capitol of a government chosen by the free and untrammeled suffrage of her people, having their confidence and looking to them for support and accountability.
Let the heart of the patriot throb with joy, for the old landmarks of constitutional, representative government, so long lost, are this day restored, and the ancient liberties of the people of Texas re-established. The virtue and intelligence of the country, no longer ostracised, now wield their legitimate influence, and the government of Texas henceforth is to be administered in the interest and for the benefit of the people, and to reflect their will.
I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, upon this grand consummation, upon your restoration to that which is the birthright of the people of every State in this great Republic—the right of local self-government, a right reserved by each of the several States when they formed the Union and created the Federal government, that right which reserves to the States respectively the power to regulate and control their internal and domestic affairs, and so to shape their policy and direct the operations of their government as to give scope and development to the inclinations and genius of their people.
The wise founders of our government foresaw that over so vast an expanse of territory, so diversified in climate, soil, production, and population, perpetual jarring and discord would ensue, arising out of the different and, in many cases, conflicting interests and views of the various States, if the notions of proper public policy of any one or more of the States should be enforced on another State, contrary of its own opinions of what was best for its interests.
Hence the fundamental idea, which underlies the Federal constitution, is a recognition of the perfect right of each State in its own way to work out its own destiny, and seek the prosperity and happiness of its people, subject only to the requirement that its government shall be republican in form, leaving to the general government the care and control of all matters pertaining to the common interest and general welfare of all the States.
This wise distribution of power leaves in the State governments respectively, which are immediately under the influence and control of the people and reflect directly the popular will, jurisdiction over the nearest and dearest rights of the citizen—to regulate his conduct, the use, possession, title, and descent of his property, his duties as a member of society; in fine, to govern him and his family, his home and his fireside, in every particular wherein the interests of society require that they shall be governed.
How indispensable to the liberty of the citizen it is that the government which thus controls and deals with his person and property should be near him and directly accountable to him. On the other hand, the Federal government, which is more remote, inaccessible, and therefore not so directly accountable to the people, is delegated power over matters that do not so nearly concern the people, in which they are not so directly and personally interested, but in which the people of all the States have a common and general interest.
Under our Federal constitution these two powers are so adjusted as to work in perfect harmony, each achieving in its appropriate sphere the desired result, and the two combined constituting that grand fabric of free government which is the pride and boast of every American citizen.
In this plan of government, the wisest ever devised by the ingenuity of man, the right of local self-government, so indispensable to a preservation of the liberties of the people and to their material prosperity, is the fundamental principle. In virtue of it, each State, being free to pursue its interests and the happiness and prosperity of its people according to its own ideas of proper policy, possesses opportunity and margin for development and advancement, which is limited only by its resources and the wisdom of its government and people.
Having an equal voice through its representatives in the administration of the Federal government; sharing its burdens and its benefits alike with its sisters, and having with them a common interest and a common pride in its greatness and power, and its beneficence and care, each State may in the career chosen by the will of its own people speed onward to the fulfillment of its destiny, while the Federal government, uniting in itself the combined efforts of all the States, receives momentum from its constituents and represents within its constitutional sphere the aggregate greatness and power of them all.
The adoption of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal constitution, which are as binding as if promulgated in the original instrument, has taken from the States and vested in the Federal government powers formerly residing in the State, and it is true that in the operative agency of the Federal government there is a natural tendency to an absorption of power from the States, which tendency was greatly stimulated during our civil war and has grown constantly since.
Still the essential principles of local self-government remain to the States respectively untouched, and now that slavery and secession are dead and buried beyond the possibility of resurrection and no sectional question disturbs the public mind, since the States recently undergoing reconstruction have been restored to their constitutional relations with the Federal government and the people remitted to their original rights and duties, since a true and lasting peace has come and the power and authority of the Federal government, within limits which cover all the issues of the war, have been amply vindicated and are acknowledged by all—since it is the inherent right of every American citizen to do so in the interest of good government, has not the time arrived when, without being obnoxious to the charge of disloyalty, we may recur to original principles on which the government was founded, discuss them among ourselves and base our political action upon them?
Is it inconsistent with a patriotic devotion to the Union and the constitution to do so? Is it not rather the highest duty of the citizen to study and understand the principles of the government under which he lives, and in defense of which, if necessary, he would lay down his life?
If, while perpetuating the Union, we, at the same time, would preserve the right of local self-government in the States from the dangers which menace it in the constantly growing process of centralization, we must exert such political influence as we have for the protection of that priceless heritage, and this we can only do by recurring to the principles of the constitution, invoking a strict adherence to them in the administration of the government and making them the basis and guide of primary popular action.
If the original framework of our government and the fundamental canons of the constitution are to be preserved and handed down to our posterity, as we received them, we must appeal to the virtue and intelligence of the voting masses of the people. They sometimes, under the influence of excitement, passion, or feeling, go astray, but their sober second thought is the perfection of human wisdom, and ever brings them back to the maintenance of correct principle and good government.
In every section and quarter of this great republic evidence of this fact is being given in manifestations of popular enthusiasm and determination for a return to honesty and economy and the limitations of the constitution in the administration of the government. In this disposition of the American people to return to old constitutional landmarks so soon after the subsidence of the great civil strife, which caused a departure from them, we recognize the popular instinct which tolerated what the necessities of the times demanded, but keenly appreciate the fact that the necessity no longer exists and demand a restoration of government, based on fixed principles.
The patriotic believer in republican representative government finds in this manifestation abundant cause for rejoicing, because he sees in it that conservative quality of the popular mind and heart which is the surest guaranty of the stability and permanence of our institutions.
Opposing political parties, aspiring to the control and direction of the government, have existed under every limited government in the world, and will always exist. In a government like ours, they are a necessary consequence. When based on principle and the advocacy of great measures of public policy, when they demand popular confidence and support on account of the excellence of their respective theories of constitutional construction, when “Measures, not men,” is in truth their controlling idea, they constitute the stanchest prop, the most powerful element of support, and the most effective preservative of constitutional government to be found in the organization of our society.
The masses of the people are educated by them to an understanding of the principles of the government. But when abandoning or ignoring principle, political parties become the mere partisans of men in their scramble for power and place, they are hurtful and demoralizing to government and people, and a bane and curse upon the country.
This is not a country for personal parties and personal issues. In the empires and kingdoms of the old world, where opposing dynasties marshal their adherents in contests for crowns and sceptres, each claiming to be master of the people by divine right, such parties are legitimate, because in full accord with their theory of government. But here where the people are sovereign and the government constitutional, where all men are free and equal, and where, in a great measure, the preservation of our peculiar form of government and with it the liberties of our people depend upon the policy and measures of administration, and the principles which guide and control it, no party should be trusted with power which does not boldly avow and blazon on its banners its leading principles and measures of policy, and ask for them the popular indorsement and approval.
The great civil war with its madness and passion is a thing of the past, while patriotism, broad and comprehensive as our common country, now possesses the hearts of our people. Reason and cool, unclouded intelligence have resumed their sway. Henceforth acrimony and bitterness and appeals to prejudice and hate in political contests must give way to enlightened discussion of the element and the principles of government, and the party which would propitiate popular favor must achieve that result by appealing to the sober judgment and intelligence of the people and through the excellence of its principles and plan of administration.
Hence, I repeat, the time has arrived when the people of Texas, recurring to fundamental principles and drawing new inspiration from them, should base their political action on them and demand of their servants a strict adherence to, and observance of them in their official conduct. The limitations of the constitution observed, and the rights of local self-government preserved, as it now exists, from further encroachment, the future is bright with promise of stability for the government and happiness and prosperity for the people.
Let the people be true to themselves, and exercise with intelligence, with watchfulness and care their elective franchise—demanding, as a condition to a bestowal of place and trust and power, capacity, unsullied honor and integrity, and unswerving devotion to the principles of the inner spirit of the constitution—and our government, the freest on earth, will go down and carry its blessings to our remotest posterity.
Under it, the inestimable boon is now ours of seeking the progress, development and advancement of Texas, and the happiness and prosperity of our people in our own way. The genius, tastes, sentiments, feelings, and will of the great mass of the people of Texas will find expression in the administration of their State government, and the destiny of Texas, her glory and her history, will be the work of her own people.
We have the fairest land that the sun of heaven shines on, rich in all the elements of greatness, in vastness and extent, in fertility of soil, in variety of climate and productions, in ore and mineral, in beauty and grandeur of scenery, and in salubrity and healthfulness, and richer still in the heroic history of its people. This glorious land is ours. Forgetting the troubles and adversity of the past, except the lessons of wisdom to be drawn from its bitter experience, and remembering only its glories, let us in the spirit of true statesmanship look to the future which lies bright before us, beckoning us on to a higher and more advanced civilization, to progress, development, prosperity and greatness, and by seizing the opportunities in our reach show that we are worthy of our magnificent country and of the heroes and statesmen who won and transmitted it.
With firm reliance on the capabilities of our people, an unfaltering faith in the greatness of the destiny of Texas and a determined purpose to reach the highest excellence in all that pertains to her development and to the material prosperity, and moral, intellectual and political advancement of her people, let us mould the action of our government to the achievement of these grand results. Let our watchword be progress—and I mean by progress that vigor which may be imparted to the natural growth of Texas by skillful and generous cultivation, the policy which is broad and comprehensive enough in its sweep to discern and utilize all the resources of the State, which leaves none of its wealth unmined and none of the elements untouched which may be used in building up its greatness.
That healthy, steady, sturdy advancement which is born of intelligent, considerate, persistent effort to be up and abreast with the times in all that is good and great, and which carries along with it increased and increasing prosperity and elevation to both State and people. The great purpose embraced in this idea should animate our people and pervade all departments of our government.
We should mature, adopt and pursue an educational policy, an internal improvement policy, an immigration policy, and a financial policy, each to be improved as time and experience may suggest, and as the changing conditions of the State may require. With a common free school system which shall secure to every child in the State an education fitting him for the high duties of American citizenship, an immigration policy which shall make known to the world the unrivaled advantages of Texas, her liberal homestead laws, and the cheapness of her rich and productive lands, the remunerating prices of labor, the healthfulness of her climate, the magnificent rewards of thrift, energy and industry within her limits, and by appropriate legislation stimulate and increase the steady and swelling tide of enterprising, thrifty and intelligent population, now pouring into her borders from every quarter of the old and new world.
A wise and liberal policy, which shall invite the investment of capital in works of internal improvements, especially in the construction of railroads, by giving ample margin of profit and by friendly and just legislation inspiring confidence in the good will of our people towards such enterprises, now so absolutely essential to the growth and development of Texas; reserving at the same time such powers over them as will surely subordinate them to the will, interests and supremacy of the people; and with a financial policy running parallel with a strictly economical and thoroughly honest administration of the government, which shall reduce taxation to the lowest figure adequate to the expense of the government, the prompt payment of the public debt and the preservation unblemished of the credit of the State.
To these I will add a system which will supplement the efforts of the Federal government for the protection of our suffering frontier, and give that protection to the inhabitants of that portion of the State to which they are clearly and justly entitled, thereby opening up an area of magnificent territory to settlement and productiveness, while discharging a high obligation to the frontier people; with the inauguration and steady, judicious prosecution of these lines of policy, Texas will develop, in the near future, a greatness truly magnificent.
Wealth, population and political power will flow in upon us, and every interest and industry will be buoyed in the rising tide of the country’s prosperity. Let us be true to ourselves and posterity and use with wisdom the munificent gifts bestowed upon us by a kind Providence, and we will reap the rich reward of our efforts in the prosperity and happiness of our people and the greatness and glory of our beloved State.
We must remember that this is an eminently practical era, that abstract principles, barren of practical results, find no favor in the popular mind. The people demand facts, results. The world is moving around them and if they stand still, the party in power will justly be held responsible.
They cannot see the excellence of principles which keep them in the rear while others are advancing in the general march of improvement. Hence the political party which would commend its principles to popular favor must show by its works, by the results it accomplishes when in power, that it stands upon no platform of dead abstractions, but upon living, moving principles, in full harmony with the spirit of the age, having the power of expansion and adaptation to the changing conditions of society, fully capable of meeting its wants and responding to its demands in all the phases it may assume.
A government adhering in its operations closely to constitutional restrictions, marked by vigor of administration as well as the strictest honesty and economy, giving perfect protection to life, liberty and property by a vigorous enforcement of the laws, advancing the moral and intellectual condition of the people by means of common free schools, filling the country with population by means of an immigration policy which shall actively promote the object, liberally fostering by friendly legislation the construction of railroads which shall give rapid and cheap transportation to the production of the country, and maintaining the honor and credit of the State by paying the public debt, and incurring no debt in future without at the same time providing a specific fund for its payment, is demanded by the times and the people of Texas, and nothing less will satisfy them.
Let us respond fully to this call of duty and patriotism, and prepare to acquit ourselves of the duties and responsibilities now devolving and to be devolved upon us, in such manner that hereafter, when the great tribunal of the people shall pass judgment upon our acts, it shall find not only their liberties preserved, but their material prosperity and the power and greatness of the State advanced.
The attainment of these grand results need involve no accumulation of public indebtedness, or the imposition of further burdens upon our people. On the contrary, a careful administration of our government, added to a prudent husbanding of our resources and due attention to proper retrenchment of all unnecessary expenditures, will enable us to secure not only these but other blessings to our State and people, and at the same time enable us to take from their shoulders a large portion of the load of taxation now resting on them.
The healthy development superinduced by a wise administration of these essential measures will add new sources to our revenues each day, and thus in a manner furnish the means necessary for their due execution. Demanded alike by the exigencies of the hour and the united voice of our people, their successful inauguration must command our early and assiduous attention and our most untiring energies.
Standing today in the threshold of a new era in the history of our State, our thoughts naturally recur to the past with its checkered vista of storms and sunshine. We remember the privations, hardships, struggles and victories of the fathers, the gradual advancement of civilization and the building up of waste places, the development of our resources, the increase of population, and we look around us today and find, as a reward for steadfast devotion and constant toil and effort, a State, the peer of any in this proud commonwealth of States.
We love Texas because we have, day by day, watched her growth and contributed in part to her development. It is the home of our nativity or adoption, and we cheerfully lay upon her altar the purest treasures of our heart’s devotion. Her government and the administration of her laws receive our most zealous watchfulness, because committed to our hands by her people.
But we do not forget that a part of our sovereignty is lodged elsewhere, and that as patriots we owe duties and obligations to another authority which in its sphere equally demands our loyalty and devotion. As Texans we stand by Texas, as American citizens we stand by the Union and are prepared to peril our lives in defense of our national government, its interests and its honor, as Texans have done before. Its interests are ours, its prosperity is ours, and to us belongs a part at least of its glory and its greatness.
Side by side with our sister States, we have labored for the achievement of a common result—the development and advancement of our common country. And Texas will prove no laggard in the race, but with the stride of a young giant will press forward to the fulfillment of her every duty.
Fellow-citizens of Texas, this day I assume the high trust to which you have called me. Chosen by a portion of my fellow-citizens of one political belief, I am not unmindful of the fact that others of a different faith are citizens of Texas and equally entitled to the benefits and blessings of good government. We must forget the passions and prejudices of the past, and vie with each other only in a generous emulation to subserve the true interests of our glorious State.
Invoking the charity and forbearance of my fellow-citizens, and humbly asking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, I announce to you my acceptance of the responsible duties devolved upon me, and my unwavering determination, so far as in me lies, to so discharge them that the interests and liberties of our people will be protected and preserved, and the honor and glory of Texas advanced.
- Constitution of 1876, (Art. VII, §7). ↩︎
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