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In his seminal 1949 study of southern politics, the esteemed political scientist V. O. Key offered a detailed analysis of the Texas political culture and tradition at midcentury. Assessing the state’s regional identity, he argued that the “changes of nine decades have weakened the heritage of southern traditionalism, revolutionized the economy, and made Texas more western than southern.” On the relationship between politics and economics, Key asserted that Texas was primarily “concerned about money and how to make it, about oil and sulfur and gas, about cattle and dust storms and irrigation , about cotton and banking and Mexicans.” In this context, Key argued that trumping virtually all other issues in Texas was the persistent debate over the extent, scope, and role of government in shaping the economy . Finally, on the issue of electoral politics, Key argued that Texas, more than any other southern state, and in “as sharp a form as is possible under a one-party system,” operated within a strained political culture rooted in the discourse of political ideology. According to Key, factions of conservatives and liberals, exemplified by colorful and powerful personalities, dominated the state’s midcentury political culture, while most Texans based their own political behaviors upon the publicly constructed definitions ascribed to each personality, faction, and ideology.1 For these and other reasons, the Texas political culture and tradition was—and is—complicated and unique. That complexity is largely rooted in the pride Texans have in their state’s distinctive and colorful history—a history that is the stuff of legend. Schoolchildren in Texas grow up with those legends; they are compelled to do so by law. From the honor and courage exemplified by the 183 men who held off as many as 6,000 Mexican soldiers for thirteen days at the Alamo before sacrificing their lives for the dream of independence to the state’s brief period as an independent republic to secession and rebellion to cattle drives, cowboys, Indian wars, and the Old West, Texans have long prided themselves on the legends that buttress their state’s unique history.2 When mixing these with other, more steThe Eyes of Texas Chapter 1 Political Culture and Tradition 12 Political Culture and Tradition 13 reotypically southern and western traditions, Texans have constructed a history and a political culture that defy simple regional categorization. This amalgam of legends, traditions, and cultures has contributed to the formation of a unique political heritage notable for its colorful personalities, its conservative commitment to tradition and loyalty, and its somewhat paradoxical positioning as a state often at the forefront of change, radical factionalism , and political disunion. Understanding the modern Texas political culture and tradition, the origins of which are arguably more than two centuries old, is fundamental to understanding the transformational paths taken by conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans in the 1960s and 1970s. Revolution, Republic, Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Radicalism Texas history is peppered with stories of conflict. Following a period of exploration that began in the late sixteenth century, which inaugurated centuries of conflict between the Native Americans already well established in Texas and encroaching Europeans, much of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Texas was shaped by competition between Spain and France. Spain eventually established dominance in Texas, but between 1810 and 1821 a war for independence was fought and finally won, pushing Spain permanently out of Texas while creating the independent nation of Mexico. By 1835, Mexico was struggling against a war of rebellion in Texas. Mexico fought to maintain control over the largely Anglo population it had enticed to move into the region in hopes of creating a geographical buffer zone between its new nation and the ever-expanding United States. Most new migrants to Mexican Texas had come from the American South in search of opportunities that were either inaccessible in the United States or had been denied them. Slaves came, too, though obviously not by choice. The Anglo-American settlers rebelled against Mexican authority, in part because they wanted to protect their “property” against the antislavery laws being advanced by the newly dictatorial Mexican regime of Antonio López de Santa Anna. They rebelled for other reasons as well, including a patriotically American belief in representative democracy and local autonomy couched in the stereotypical frontier mentality of the American West. After legendary battles at the Alamo and San Jacinto, Texans won their independence from Mexico in 1836. Yet independence did not end the conflicts. Between 1836 and 1845, Texas existed as an independent...

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