THE LIFE AND TIMES OF RIP FORD

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF RIP FORD

Part 22: Inaugurating Governor Coke

by Bob Heinonen

In 1873, the incumbent Reconstruction Republican Governor of Texas, E. J. Davis, was defeated by Democrat Richard Coke in a landslide decision of the voters. The animosity and tactics of the Reconstruction years had created total distrust between the government of Texas and its citizens. Davis refused to give up the governorship. “Sensing a fight, Ford,….left for Austin at once. There he found a crisis almost as foreboding as the secession movement of a decade before.”[i]

Since the end of the War Between the States, Texas had been under military rule and then the rule of the Republican Party that had won the war. Any person who had served in the Confederate Army or had held office prior to the War and supported the Confederacy could not hold office or sit on juries. This meant nine-tenths of the white population was not eligible to participate in its government or civil courts. “The problem was that Radical rule in Texas could only be imposed by bayonets or wholesale chicanery and fraud. United States authorities, unable to countenance the first, chose the second.”[ii] Chicanery and fraud it was.

Within this framework, E. J. Davis had become Governor of Texas in 1870. Under his administration, Davis got bills passed extending his stay in office, creating a militia under his direct control, creating a State Police under his control, giving him power to appoint almost all office holders statewide (including mayors and city alderman), and forcing designated newspapers to print official notices (propaganda).

When Davis could no longer put off democratically held elections, the Democrats were able to field a candidate – Richard Coke. “Rupert Richardson wrote of the election of 1873: ‘The genius of legality had forsaken the people; men practiced fraud unashamed.’ What seems to have happened is that the Carpetbaggers had taught the Texans how. Democrat politicos bluntly indicated that power would be won depending on who outfrauded whom. No practice was ignored.”[iii]

The results of the election were overwhelmingly in Cokes favor…but Davis claimed the election laws that he had proposed and signed into law were invalid. Davis asked the state supreme court, that he had appointed, to invalidate the election. Davis’ supreme court declared the election law unconstitutional. “This ruling would have prevented Democrats from assuming almost every office in the state, because Democrats had won them all.”[iv]

“The supreme court’s order was not resisted—it was ignored. In January, all over Texas the newly elected officials went to their offices and took them over.”[v] Davis asked U. S. President Grant to intervene with Federal troops as he had in Louisiana, but Grant turned him down:

Your dispatches and letters reciting the action of the supreme court of Texas, in declaring the late election unconstitutional, and asking the use of troops to prevent apprehended violence, are received. The call is not made in accordance with the constitution of the United States and the acts of congress under it, and cannot, therefore, be granted. The act of the legislature of Texas providing for the recent election having received your approval, and both political parties having made nominations, and having conducted a political campaign under its provisions, would it not be prudent, as well as right, to yield to the verdict of the people as expressed by their ballots?[vi]

Davis did not do the prudent, right thing and yield to the verdict of the people of Texas. Instead he issued a proclamation telling those elected not to take office until the constitutionality of the situation could be decided.

When Old Rip arrived in Austin, he found chaos. The new legislature was allowed into the Senate Chamber and Hall of Representatives by the keeper of the keys. They officially organized and informed Davis they were ready to begin work. Davis not only refused to accept them, he blockaded the rest of the Capitol Building. A group of armed men in support of Davis gathered in the basement of the capital with muskets and bayonets fixed. Some of the men were white and some were Negro. They were determined to resist with force the taking of the capital by Coke and his government.

Various groups on both sides began to form militia units. The word had gone out from Coke that no shots should be fired or Texas would be put back under military rule. Davis called on the Travis Rifles for support and they marched on the Capitol. Old Rip, the Rifles first commander, intercepted them and ordered them to defend the new legislature and Governor Coke – they obeyed Old Rip.

It wasn’t easy controlling the Travis Rifles. “His men, recalling the humiliating years they had been without political rights, were spoiling for a fight. But they quieted when Ford threatened personally to thrash the first man who stepped out of line. Twice he prevented his men from firing on the Negro militia. Governor Coke remarked later that Old Rip’s control over the [Travis] Rifles had probably prevented another civil war. Until January 23, when Davis finally gave up the governorship and went home, Ford never left the capitol, spending nights on a straw couch in the executive office.”[vii]

“From his office he [Davis] could see the stacked arms of Texas militia—stacked against him. Old Rip Ford, tall, grim, still ruddy-faced and handsome at sixty, was marching toward the Capitol at the head of an armed, angry, but disciplined body of men. They were singing ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ in a mighty roar. Davis surrendered.”[viii] Even then, Davis literally refused to surrender the keys to his office. The door had to be kicked in.

Old Rip Ford, now sixty years old, was still in command and continued to influence the destiny of Texas. But Old Rip didn’t influence just Texas…he influenced the political scene south of the Rio Grande.

Next Month – Part 23: The Cortina Wars

Bob Heinonen is the founder of Texas Heroes and has been portraying Rip Ford since 1993.