ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the balance of constitutional authority between the national and the state governments in the American federal system. It traces Texas constitutionalism from its origins in Spanish Mexico, through the tumult of independence, statehood, and the American Civil War. The chapter explores the current Texas Constitution of 1876. During the nineteenth century, domestic policy was state and local policy. Secession, military defeat, reconstruction, and readmission brought series of short-lived Texas constitutions between 1861 and 1869. Texas joined United States of America as the 28th state in 1845. The statehood Constitution was modeled on the US Constitution and the constitutions of southern states already in the Union, particularly Kentucky and Louisiana. When Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America (C. S. A.), it needed new constitution. John H. Reagan had a keener understanding of constitutions and federalism than perhaps any other Texan of the nineteenth century.
