THE SUPREME COURT OF THE LONE STAR REPUBLIC:
A COMPASS POINTING TOWARD THE FUTURE
DAVID A. FURLOW
Partner, Thompson & Knight, LLP
333 Clay Street, Suite 3300
Houston, Texas 77005
713.653.8653
david.furlow@tklaw.com
In Memoriam: Gerald K. Furlow
February 7, 1921 to April 10, 2013
Website: IsaacAllertonsAmerica.com
713-202-3931
dafurlow@gmail.com
State Bar of Texas
THE HISTORY OF
TEXAS SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE
April 11, 2013
Austin
CHAPTER 2
The Supreme Court of the Lone Star Republic: A Compass Pointing Toward the Future
Table of Contents
I.
II.
Three competing legal traditions came into conflict in Texas before the organization
of the Lone Star Republic’s supreme court ................................................................................. A.
In Spanish Tejas and in Mexican Texas, Castilian jurisprudence evolved
into an informal Tejano system of frontier justice ............................................................... -
B.
In the 1820s, plantation owners from the Southern U.S. introduced
Virginia’s cavalier culture, legal tradition of hegemonic freedom, and
race-based chattel slavery into Mexican Texas.................................................................... -
C.
In the 1830s, settlers from Southern back-country America and British
border country immigrants brought their ideas of debtor protection,
natural liberty, low taxes, and severely limited government to the
Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas ...................................................................................... -
The Lone Star Republic’s supreme court wove three different legal
traditions into the fabric of Texas jurisprudence......................................................................... A.
Texas’ Founders organized their supreme court to advance the rule of
law and preserve citizen rights under the new constitution ................................................. -
B.
Three competing legal traditions offered the first supreme court an
unparalleled choices in creating a new body of law for a new republic .............................. 1.
Vice President Lorenzo de Zavala strove to preserve
Tejano/Hispanic culture and Castilian legal traditions in a
Republic increasingly dominated by Anglo-Americans ......................................... -
2.
Stephen F. Austin and President Mirabeau B. Lamar strove to create
an imperial slavocracy in the image of Virginia ..................................................... -
3.
President Sam Houston’s Texas enshrined the Jacksonian traditions of
the Southern back-country .......................................................................................
C.
Disease, invasion, and inflation plagued the early court ...................................................... -
D.
Chief Justice John Hemphill blended Anglo-American common law,
U.S. constitutionalism, Castilian civil jurisprudence and border-country
equity to create a uniquely Texan jurisprudence.................................................................. 1.
The Hemphill court made Texas the first English-speaking
jurisdiction to unify common law and equity ......................................................... -
2.
The court made Texas the first U.S. state to recognize a woman’s
community property right to control property during a marriage ........................... -
3.
The court protected G.T.T. families and their frontier
homesteads by liberalizing the law of creditors rights ............................................ -
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Chapter 7
The Supreme Court of the Lone Star Republic: A Compass Pointing Toward the Future
4.
The court introduced Castilian concepts of adoption and the
independent executor into Anglo-American probate law ....................................... -
5.
The court protected property rights by recognizing Spanish and
Mexican land grants and Castilian concepts of water law ...................................... -
6.
The court moderated the harshness of slavocracy by recognizing
a slave’s standing to defend his or her freedom ...................................................... -
E. Arbitration became a Texas tradition during the Lone Star Republic.................................. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... -
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