Richard Coke
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Richard Coke (March 18, 1829May 14, 1897) was an American lawyer and statesman from
Waco, Texas Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the ...
. He was the 15th governor of
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
from 1874 to 1876 and was a US Senator from 1877 to 1895. His governorship is notable for reestablishing local
white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
rule in Texas following
Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
. Richard Coke was revered by many Texas
Southern Democrats Southern Democrats, historically sometimes known colloquially as Dixiecrats, are members of the U.S. History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States. Southern Democrats were generally mu ...
due to his perceived triumphs over Reconstruction era
Federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
control in Texas politics. His legacy is also marked by his use of the newly established state power to disfranchise
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
voters and institute
White Supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
policies. His uncle was US Representative Richard Coke Jr.


Early life and education

Richard Coke was born in 1829 in
Williamsburg, Virginia Williamsburg is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula ...
, to John and Eliza (Hankins) Coke. Octavius Coke was his brother. He graduated from the
College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III a ...
in 1848 with a law degree.


Confederacy and Early Career

In 1850, Coke moved to Texas and opened a law practice in Waco. In 1852, he married Mary Horne of Waco. The couple had four children, but all of them died before age 30. In 1859, Coke was appointed by governor Hardin R. Runnels to lead a commission tasked with removing the remaining
Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
natives from West Texas and the
Texas Hill Country The Texas Hill Country is a geographic region of Central and South Texas, forming the southeast part of the Edwards Plateau. Given its location, climate, terrain, and vegetation, the Hill Country can be considered the border between the Ameri ...
. Coke was a delegate to the Secession Convention at Austin in 1861. The Convention's chief concern was keeping
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
legal. Coke owned slaves himself. He voted that Texas should leave the United States to join the Confederacy. He joined the
Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
as a private.http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000601 US Congressional bioguide In 1862, he raised a company that became part of the 15th Texas Infantry and served as its captain for the rest of the war. He was wounded in an action known as Bayou Bourbeau on November 3, 1863, near
Opelousas, Louisiana :''Opelousas is also a common name of the flathead catfish.'' Opelousas (french: Les Opélousas; Spanish: ''Los Opeluzás'') is a small city and the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. Interstate 49 and U.S. Route 190 were ...
. After the war, he returned home to Waco.


Reconstruction

In 1865, Coke was appointed a Texas district court judge, and in 1866, he was elected as an associate justice to the
Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the supreme court, court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the ...
. The following year, the military Governor-General
Philip Sheridan General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...
removed Coke and four other judges as ‘an impediment to reconstruction’, in pursuit of unionist
Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
policies. The removal of the five judges became a ''cause célèbre'' and made their names famous, synonymous in the public eye with resistance to Union occupation. Richard Coke leveraged resentment at Union occupation to construct a Democratic electoral coalition that ruled Texas for more than 100 years. Through
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
attacks, intimidation, and public
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
of Black voters and their white allies, Coke's coalition re-established conservative white control of Texas in the 1870s.
Disfranchisement Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
of Black Texans was maintained with
poll taxes A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...
and
white primaries White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Ca ...
. The number of black voters decreased sharply from more than 100,000 in the 1890s to 5,000 in 1906. Having been removed by Sheridan, Coke ran for governor as a
Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...
in 1873 and took office in January 1874. The
Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the supreme court, court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the ...
ruled his election invalid in an extraordinary ''
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' writ called ''Ex Parte Rodriguez'' because the polls were open for only one day, rather than the four days mentioned in the state constitution. The court is known as the "Semicolon Court" because the meaning of a particular
semicolon The semicolon or semi-colon is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought. When a ...
in the constitution was important in the case. As recounted by the Texas State Historical Association, in response,
Disregarding the court ruling, the Democrats secured the keys to the second floor of the Capitol and took possession. ncumbent Gov. EdmundDavis was reported to have state troops stationed on the lower floor. The Travis Rifles (a Texas military unit created to fight Indians), summoned to protect Davis, were converted into a sheriff's posse and protected Coke. On January 15, 1874, Coke was inaugurated as governor. On January 16, Davis arranged for a truce, but he made one final appeal for federal intervention. A telegram from President
Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
said that he did not feel warranted in sending federal troops to keep Davis in office. Davis resigned his office on January 19. Coke's inauguration restored Democratic control in Texas.
Coke's administration was marked by vigorous action to balance the budget and by a revised state constitution adopted in 1876. He was also instrumental in creating the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, which became
Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
. Having once been removed from the Texas Supreme Court, as governor, he appointed all its members, naming as Chief Justice
Oran Roberts Oran Milo Roberts (July 9, 1815May 19, 1898), was the 17th Governor of Texas from January 21, 1879, to January 16, 1883. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Roberts County, Texas, is named after him. Early life Roberts was born in Laure ...
(after the US Senate had refused to seat him). George F. Moore, who was Chief Justice when he had been fired along with Coke, became the first chief justice elected under Texas' 1876 Constitution, an honor he held until his death. Others from the Texas judiciary under the Confederacy received key appointments. Once the new Constitution had been negotiated, Coke resigned his office in December 1876, following his election by the legislature to the United States Senate.


Later life and death

Coke was re-elected to federal office in
1882 Events January–March * January 2 ** The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. ** Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in ...
and 1888, serving in the 45th
53rd Congress The 53rd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1893, ...
es until March 3, 1895. Coke was not a candidate for reelection in 1894. Coke retired to his home in Waco and his nearby farm. He became ill after suffering exposure while fighting a flood of the
Brazos River The Brazos River ( , ), called the ''Río de los Brazos de Dios'' (translated as "The River of the Arms of God") by early Spanish explorers, is the 11th-longest river in the United States at from its headwater source at the head of Blackwater Dr ...
in April 1897. After a short illness, he died at his home in Waco and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.


Legacy

Coke's rise to power marked the return of locally elected government in Texas and the establishment of a rigidly white supremacist Texas Democratic party that would maintain a strong hold on Texas government for over 100 years. Historians in the state praised Davis for this, and consolidated a version of Texas history that downplayed or omitted the liberal government that had preceded him. In 1916 the state archivist wrote: The 1876 constitution created under Coke's administration is the current
Constitution of Texas The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of Texas. The current document was adopted on Feb ...
. Coke County in
West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio. No consensus exists on the boundary betwee ...
is named for him. Texas Governor
Coke Stevenson Coke Robert Stevenson (March 20, 1888 – June 28, 1975) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of Texas from 1941 to 1947. He was the first Texan politician to hold its three highest offices (Speaker of the Texas Hou ...
was named after Richard Coke.Caro, Robert A. (1990). "The Story of Coke Stevenson". Means of Ascent. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. pp. 145–178. ISBN 0-394-52835-2.


References

*Biography o
Richard Coke
fro
''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Texas''
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History


External links

*Sketch o
Richard Coke
fro
''A pictorial history of Texas, from the earliest visits of European adventurers, to A.D. 1879''
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History
*

Grits for Breakfast, December 15, 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Coke, Richard 1829 births 1897 deaths Politicians from Williamsburg, Virginia American people of English descent Democratic Party United States senators from Texas Democratic Party governors of Texas Governors of Texas Justices of the Texas Supreme Court American white supremacists Texas lawyers American slave owners 19th-century American politicians William & Mary Law School alumni Confederate States Army officers People of Texas in the American Civil War Burials at Oakwood Cemetery (Waco, Texas) United States senators who owned slaves