The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964 Page: 22

rke Delegates to the Coanventio of
1875: A Reappraisal
J. E. ERICSON
DURING THE COURSE OF ITS SESSIONS NAT Q. HENDERSON OF
Austin compiled a Directory of the Officers and Mem-
bers of the Constitutional Convention of the State of
Texas, A. D. r875,' which has been overlooked by students of
Texas constitutional history. It sheds a different light upon
the personnel of the convention. Standard reference works base
their information largely upon the analysis prepared initially
in 1924 by S. S. McKay in his Making the Texas Constitution of
1876." Professor McKay relied heavily upon contemporary news-
paper accounts for his information, while Henderson obtained his
from interviews with the delegates. Since the newspaper accounts
differ in several important respects and since conclusions based on
them tend to be somewhat inaccurate, a reappraisal of the known
biographical information relating to each member of the Con-
vention seems pertinent."
While seventy-five members of the Democratic Party were
elected as delegates and only fifteen members of the Republican
Party, one of the Republicans, E. S. Rugely of Matagorda County,
resigned after limited service and was replaced by W. H. Stewart,
a Democrat, of Galveston County. In actual practice, therefore,
the Convention membership was composed of seventy-six Dem-
ocrats and fourteen Republicans. Of the ninety delegates who
drafted the Constitution of 1876, thirty-eight were members of
local Granges.'
'Austin, 1875.
'Philadelphia, 1924. This account was brought up to date by the author in
Seven Decades of the Texas Constitution of 1876 (Lubbock, 1942).
"The following analysis is based on the Henderson Directory corrected and ex-
panded where possible.
'McKay estimated that "about one-half of the delegates elected were Grangers."
Seven Decades, 75; while Henderson concluded that "there are thirty-seven
Grangers." Directory, g.