Texas Constitution Research Paper

To understand and what the Texas Constitution is, we must define the word constitution. A constitution is the legal structure of a government, which establishes its power and authority as well as the limits on that power. Both the U.S and Texas Constitutions share many fundamental values. They both share that political power should be derived from the people, separation of powers which from the three branches of government we know today, checks and balances to prevent one branch becoming too powerful, prevent tyranny of any sort, and to have both a central and regional government, or federalism. Although we have the U.S Constitution, each state has their own constitution. Texas has been through seven different constitutions, and each draft
was a reflection of what was needed during that time period in history from claiming independence from Mexico to the reunion to the United States because of the Civil War. Today, Texas is still using the 1876 constitution, but with over 400 amendments. The Texas Constitution has the notion of limiting what the government to do and addressing specific policy problems in text. The current constitution has a short preamble, and 17 different articles with the first one being the Bill of Rights. The rest of the articles addresses different topics such as education, powers of government, and suffrage.