The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952 Page: 165
562 p. : ill. (some col.), ports., maps (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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County Government in the Republic of Texas
Far and away the most important unit of local government
was the municipality. The municipality was a regional area gov-
erned by an executive and council, both exercising certain judi-
cial functions. The council, ayuntamiento, normally was made
up of an alcalde, two to four regidores, and a sindico procurador.
The alcalde was at once the chief judicial and chief executive
officer; the regidores were councilmen; the sindico functioned
primarily as a prosecuting attorney. All these officers were elected.
In separate districts, within municipalities, having a population
greater than five hundred a comisario, or sub-alcalde, and an-
other sindico were elected. For the municipality were appointed
an alguacil, or sheriff, and a secretary for the ayuntamiento.3
It was from the municipalities that delegates were sent, on the
call of a citizens' meeting in Columbia, to the Consultation in
1835 at San Felipe. These delegates were presumed to have been
elected by a majority of the citizens of their districts,4 although
doubtless in many municipalities not all of the electorate had
participated. The Consultation established twenty-one articles of
organic law by which the government of Texas would be oper-
ated by the General Council. Articles Five, Six, and Fourteen
had a direct bearing on the structure of the local governments.
In an attempt to remedy the defects previously existing in the
judicial system, a provisional judiciary was created for each mu-
nicipality by Article Five. The new judiciary was to consist of
a primary and a substitute judge, the substitute to act only in
the absence of the first, and both to be nominated by the General
Council and commissioned by the governor. Article Six defined
the duties of these justices but specifically provided that each
municipality also hold elections and continue to fill the various
offices in the local government. Article Fourteen was the most
controversial article of the Organic Law and was long in debate
before finally crystallized. Principally it abolished civil govern-
ment at the department level and ordered an immediate cessation
in the operations of all land commissioners, empresarios, survey-
3Eugene C. Barker, "The Government of Austin's Colony," Southwestern His-
torical Quarterly, XXI, 223ff.; H. Bailey Carroll and J. V. Haggard (eds. and
trans.), Three New Mexico Chronicles (Albuquerque, 1942), 169, note 1o8.
4H. P. N. Gammel (comp.), The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897 (io vols.; Austin,
1898), I, 508.165
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952, periodical, 1952; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101139/m1/211/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.