The Right to Alter, Reform or Abolish

The Two Sections

Article 1 of the Texas Constitution is the Bill of Rights. Its first two sections answer one question before any other: where political authority in Texas comes from.

Section 1 reads:

Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

Section 2 reads:

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

The Texas Legislative Council's current edition of the constitution dates both sections to February 15, 1876, the day Texas voters adopted the present constitution, and records no later amendment to either one. The wording is 150 years old. The idea in Section 2 is older still. It appears in every Texas constitution but one, and the exception explains a good deal about what the clause means.

1835: The Consultation

The first statement comes from the Consultation at San Felipe de Austin. Its Declaration of the People of Texas, adopted November 7, 1835, charged that Santa Anna had "dissolved the social compact which existed between Texas and the other members of the Mexican Confederacy." The fifth article then claimed a right, on stated conditions:

That they hold it to be their right, during the disorganization of the Federal System, and the reign of despotism, to withdraw from the Union, to establish an independant government, or to adopt such measures as they may deem best calculated to protect their rights and liberties

The same article pledged continued loyalty to the Mexican government "so long as that nation is governed by the Constitution and laws that were formed for the government of the Political Association." The right was conditional. It belonged to the people of Texas, and it came into force when the compact was broken.

1836: The Declaration and the Republic

Four months later the condition was met in the delegates' judgment. The Texas Declaration of Independence of March 2, 1836, opens with the theory. When a government fails the people it exists to protect, it says, "the inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead."

The Constitution of the Republic of Texas, written by the same convention, put the principle into its Declaration of Rights. The second article reads: "All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper."

That sentence is the direct ancestor of today's Section 2. Its key phrases have survived nearly unchanged: "inherent in the people," "founded on their authority," "instituted for their benefit," and "at all times."

1845: The Clause Enters the State Constitution

The Constitution of 1845 carried the principle into statehood. Its preamble says the people of the Republic of Texas ordained it "in accordance with the provisions of the Joint Resolution for annexing Texas to the United States." Its first section reads:

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times the unalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government, in such manner as they may think expedient.

Two things changed. The verbs grew from "alter" to "alter, reform, or abolish." And the object became "their form of government." Texas entered the Union with this sentence at the head of its Bill of Rights.

The Constitutions of the 1860s

The constitution printed in 1861 kept the substance of the 1845 sentence and added a clause. The Tarlton Law Library's transcription shows the addition in brackets, which the 1861 printing used to mark amendments: "and, therefore, no government or authority can exist or exercise power within the State of Texas, without the consent of the people thereof previously given; nor after that consent be withdrawn."

The Constitution of 1866 dropped that addition and returned to the 1845 wording, "the unalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their form of government."

The Constitution of 1869 broke the line. Its Bill of Rights contains no statement that political power is inherent in the people and no right of the people to change their government. Its first section says instead that "this Constitution is framed in harmony with, and in subordination thereto" (meaning the federal Constitution) "and that the fundamental principles embodied herein can only be changed, subject to the national authority." The Handbook of Texas describes the change plainly: the 1869 constitution "accepted the theory that the government of the United States was the ultimate source of sovereignty."

1876: The Clause Restored

The Constitutional Convention of 1875 wrote the present constitution, and voters adopted it on February 15, 1876, by a vote of 136,606 to 56,652, according to the Handbook of Texas. The convention replaced the 1869 text. In the Constitution of 1876, the inherent-power clause returned, with two additions and one deletion.

The first addition was a new opening section. None of the earlier Texas state constitutions examined here begins as the 1876 text does: "Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The second addition was a single stated limit on the right in Section 2. The people's faith "stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only," the right remains. The deletion was small. The 1845 phrase "their form of government" became "their government."

Read against 1869, the choice is clear. The convention was replacing a constitution that placed the final source of authority in Washington. It restored the older statement that authority is inherent in the people of Texas and limited only by the commitment to republican government.

What the Clause Establishes

The clause settles questions of principle. It names the source of political power in Texas: the people, not any government. It describes the right to change government as "inalienable," a word that means the right cannot be given away or taken. It says the right exists "at all times," not only in emergencies. It names one limit, republican government, and says that limit is the only one. And it describes Texas itself as "free and independent," while acknowledging that Texas is "subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

Section 1 also makes a claim about the Union. It says "the perpetuity of the Union" depends on "the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States." The section treats the Union and the self-government of the States as tied together. One does not survive without the other.

What the Clause Does Not Settle

The clause does not say what "their government" includes. It is plain that the people of Texas may rewrite their state government. The Handbook of Texas counts the 1876 document as the sixth constitution to govern Texas since independence in 1836. Whether "their government" reaches the relationship between Texas and the Union is not answered by the text.

The clause also does not stand alone. Section 1 itself places Texas "subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The Supreme Court addressed that relationship in Texas v. White in 1869, seven years before the present text was adopted. The Court held that Texas had never left the Union and wrote that there was "no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States." The companion piece in this series shows why that sentence is dictum, written about a wartime ordinance, and never applied to a decision by the people of a State. The 1876 convention wrote Section 2 after Texas v. White, did not adopt its language, and dropped the 1869 clause declaring the 1861 ordinance void.

Finally, the clause names no procedure. It says the people may act "in such manner as they may think expedient." It does not say who speaks for the people or by what vote. How Texas courts have applied Section 2 is a separate question, not surveyed here.

TNM Education's Position

TNM Education holds that Texas is a nation, and these sections are part of the evidence. The Consultation of 1835 and the Declaration of 1836 claimed the right in its plainest form. Every Texas constitution since 1836 except one locates political power in the people of Texas. The single exception, the Constitution of 1869, was replaced, and its replacement restored the older principle in stronger terms. The people who wrote the present constitution called Texas "a free and independent State" and kept for themselves, "at all times," the right to alter, reform or abolish their government.

The clause settles the source. Under the Texas Constitution, the authority to decide the political future of Texas belongs to the people of Texas. They exercise it by their own deliberate vote. A vote settles whether Texas governs itself. Negotiation then settles the terms.

Sources

Next in The Case of TexasTexas v. White, Explained

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