Confederate Texas Legislatures

The wartime legislatures sat under the Constitution of 1861, the secession convention's amendments to the 1845 charter. It left the legislature's basic framework alone but dropped United States citizenship as a qualification for office, limited constitutional amendment proposals to regular sessions, a rule that lasted until 1972, and let the legislature call a convention by a two-thirds vote. It raised the debt the legislature could authorize from $100,000 to $500,000. The Tenth Legislature adjourned on November 15, 1864, during its second called session.

What the plaque says

Confederate Texas Legislatures When Texas seceded, Feb. 1, 1861, the 8th Legislature was in Austin in a called session, adjourned Feb. 9. On March 18, the 8th came back for a second called session; the 9th and 10th Legislatures in turn were harassed with problems of the Civil War. They found it necessary to raise, equip and supply 90,000 Texas soldiers, who fought on all fronts; and to provide for defense against Indians, enemy troops and ships on 2000 miles of state coastline and frontiers. As naval blockade reduced imports, the Legislature established plants to make guns, powder, cloth, salt. Contracts, subsidies and land grants were provided to encourage private industry to help meet heavy wartime demands for arms, supplies, clothing, food. The lawmakers taxed property and business and made farmers turn in tithes of produce to feed citizen and soldier. Funds were voted to finance state barter in Mexico of cotton for factory goods; to aid soldiers' dependents; and to provide medical care and hospitals for Texas troops, in and out of state. Legislatures were in almost continuous sessions. Poor pay and inflated Confederate money caused many members to live in tents and covered wagons on the capitol grounds and cook over campfires. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.3 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.6 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.

More markers nearby

• Tyler Rose — steps away
• Texas and the Civil War - Secession Convention — steps away
• The Archive War — steps away
• State Bar of Texas — steps away