Texas Documents, Part 3: John H. Reagan and The Future Texas Refused

As we continue our look at important documents in Texas' past, John H. Reagan's letter of 1865: the Civil War was lost, secession was finished, slavery was over, and survival meant embracing a new order. We unpack John H. Reagan’s prison letter—its stark realism, its calls for legal protections for freedpeople, and its blueprint for rebuilding Texas through reconciliation, immigration, and industry—and place it against the charged backdrop of early Reconstruction.

If you value history grounded in documents rather than myths, this conversation opens a sharper lens on Reconstruction, Texas history, and the choices made—and refused—after 1865. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves Texas history, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway or question.

Transcript

Opening And Topic Shift

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This podcast is not sponsored by and does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is solely our thoughts and ideas based upon our professional training and study of the past.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it. And of course, all of us who live it and love it. Well, it's time for another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Preuce. I'm Scott Zusby.

Why Passions Still Burn Over The Civil War

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Gene, we left off last time talking about Travis's letter and the Texas Revolution in our last episode. So now, if we haven't, you know, made anybody else mad, let's move on to something else and talk about the end of the Civil War. That might make people mad too.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, we're we're stepping on some toes here, I'm sure. I mean, it's not because they're, you know, people get very passionate about these well, about any history, right? Especially when you're talking about Texas. But these uh these are issues that transcend just Texans. I mean, look at all the fighting we've seen politically going on over Confederate monuments, Confederate flags. This is all across the the South, I would say the South, but it's really all across the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, that's true. I mean, you have people, I mean, there were groups of certain groups in Wisconsin waving Confederate flags, which I can't imagine if you'd have told anybody in 1865 that that would happen in the 2020s, that they wouldn't have just uh grasped their heart and fell over the heart attack immediately uh to see that. But yeah, the you know, the passion of history and the fact how people embrace it, it actually is somewhat in congress with you hear so many people particularly talking about learning history and reading history. Oh, history's boring, it doesn't really matter. Well, I guess it does if it arouses those kind of passions, doesn't it?

Who Was John H. Reagan

SPEAKER_00 2:07

That's absolutely right. So today we're gonna talk about a letter that doesn't come during the Civil War. We're gonna actually jump forward to the Reconstruction period, the end of the whole Civil War Reconstruction era. We're gonna jump forward to forward to the past, to a letter written by somebody who actually becomes who is becomes very well known. In fact, there's a building in Austin still named after John H. Reagan, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

That is correct. That is definitely correct. Uh I well, maybe we should start off with just I don't know, maybe I'll are we assuming everybody knows who John H. Reagan was. Maybe maybe we should offer or maybe I should offer just a little bit about who he was. He yeah, uh who was John H. Reagan? He was a politician in Texas. Um he was uh at the time when the Civil War break out, he was a fairly young man uh uh at that time. I don't exactly if he was over 40, he was barely over 40 at the time the Civil War broke out. Uh he had was in the House of Representatives uh uh from Texas when the Civil War, when Texas seceded at that point, he immediately uh like all the others resigned his seat in the House of Representatives, and Jefferson Davis made him the postmaster general of the Confederacy. He was the first and only postmaster general of the Confederacy. And interestingly, I read a thing one time I was uh sharing before we started. The post office of the Confederacy was the only government entity in that, and probably anywhere that actually made money uh on this. He actually turned a profit in the that probably because he didn't do much. They I don't think the Confederacy did a whole lot of delivering mail during the Civil War.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

They bought these forever stamps, right?

Reagan’s Imprisonment And Return

Introducing The 1865 Letter

SPEAKER_01 3:57

That's that there you go. Maybe they're still working after he comes back. Now, when the war ends, like a whole lot of of, and that's where this document we're gonna talk about comes from, like a like so many of the uh governmental officials from the Confederacy, he is put under arrest uh by the Union Army, and he is sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where he serves a a 22-week sentence there. I mean, he never was charged and put on you know trial or anything. He was there points, then they let him go. He comes back to Texas uh after this, and we're gonna talk about the letter he wrote that I'll let Gene introduce in a moment. He comes back from Texas, he again goes to the United States um House of Representatives. He becomes the only former Confederate cabinet member who actually will be served in the government of the United States after the Civil War, which is some distinction after that. And then he will also become the first appointed by uh Governor uh James Hogg, the first chair of the Texas Railroad Commission, which is that building that's named for him in uh Austin, does house the railroad commission offices today. So he's a very prominent member of uh Texas history and Texas politics. But this letter that he wrote, Gene, is an extremely interesting letter. He wrote it from prison in August of 1865.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So, yeah, this is August the 11th, 1865. I like it because uh that is 101 years before I was born. So it it coincides with my birthday uh in the fall semesters. Um but what Reagan uh I I read this to my students and it's it's really interesting to see their response to it. Yeah, so he gets permission from the government to write this letter, right? So he's not just like you know, writing this on like toilet paper or something and smuggling it out. He actually has permission to write this letter.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And um I don't even want to think about toilet paper in 1865, what it might have been.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Uh so he writes this out and he and and he and he says that he wants people in Texas for their for their benefit to follow some suggestions. He says to adopt measures conforming to the new order of things, the new order. And Scott, as as you said, uh when you read this, you and I were talking about this, as you read this, you were just kind of surprised. It sounds very um forward thinking, very progressive, if if we can use that term anymore, um, for the time. We might get in trouble.

A Conquered People And Hard Realities

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It it does, it really does, Jean. And it's kind of striking in that, particularly given the attitude of so many Southerners in August of 1865, which is a lot of them was a feeling of animosity towards the Union as they looked at it as, oh, they invaded our land, and we were, you know, while we may have, they may have ended the war and we lost, we're not going to be a conquered people, and we're not going to give up some of our concepts and ideas of this, and we're going to resist them actually imposing some of those ideas onto us. I mean, the word we often use is still unreconstructed Southerners, which comes up later. But that really was the attitude of so many Southerners at the end of the war. And this letter that Reagan writes is eventually essentially saying, listen, that's a bad idea. That's a really bad idea for you to do. Do you not realize that we are a conquered people, that we are facing a power that if you don't actually conform and actually begin to adopt many of these new ideas, it's not they're going to come down very, very harshly on you. Essentially, I read this a lot and I see this almost a prediction of listen, if you don't go ahead and go along now, I mean, we've got to remember, this is August of 1865. Lincoln's assassinated in April, uh, so that's only four months after Lincoln's assassination. Andrew Johnson's in charge. He's reformulating, he hasn't quite finished, he's reformulating that whole presidential reconstruction idea that's happening. And but still Lincoln's idea is out there, and it's not that draconian of a reconstruction on Southerners. And Reagan's basically saying, we need to keep it this way, I think. You don't resist. If you do, something more harsh is coming, which is exactly what happened. The Southerners did resist it, they did try to keep their ways of lives. Uh, they didn't uh try to give Africa they you know uh grossly attempted to steal uh civil rights from African Americans, and that's exactly what happened. Congressional Reconstruction happened, and Reconstruction got a whole lot more harsh for the South.

Slavery, Secession, And Core Causes

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Well, let's let's set some the stage here, Scott. We're we're talking about Reconstruction, but really, you know, this is you don't have Reconstruction without the Civil War. So let's talk a little bit about what gets us involved in the Civil War. Um, and I I you know when I think when I was going to school earlier on, um, you know, when I was I you know took seventh grade history, uh even then it was not as um uh pol politic to talk about slavery, uh you know, that it existed, that it happened, uh, that people in the South, especially, I mean, but other people elsewhere supported it. Um and, you know, well, well, why? Well, I mean, to not to put too too much too uh too too broad of an emphasis on this, but you know, people in those days, racism was actually very commonplace. And I think that in in you know, many young people today, many of our college students, they they are removed from that um that milieu. And so they think, well, people discriminated, they can get behind that, but they don't see racism um as as the same way that people in the 1860s, eighteen hundreds would have seen it. I mean, uh, and look, there's plenty of documents that support this in the United States, especially in the South, white Southerners saw African Americans as being not on the same standard as white people, and that they could be bought and sold as property.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Exactly right. I mean, they honestly believed in white superiority. They believed that if you weren't white, you were inferior. And that was not just a it wasn't just something that was out of the norm. It was the norm. It was the norm. It was not uncommon. You read documents from the time, the racial slurs they use, the the the just using language that they would consider absolutely uh, you know, everyday use that today shocks us when we read it, and you see the degrees of that. That's this type of society we're talking about. That's the type of society we're talking we're actually dealing with in that point. And that's the society that is why, and I always tell my students quite often, I think we have to try to put ourselves in this place. If you're going to understand how the South mindset was, they could not fathom a society in which slavery was not present because their society was one whose almost entire foundation was based on that concept of white superiority. And if slavery went away, that concept had so much serious, if you will, chasms in it, it might fall apart on this. So to keep our society together, we have to continue to keep this idea alive and what it is. And that's why I mean, we want to argue. People want to argue on oh, what caused so did slavery cause the civil war? Sunside says no, slavery really didn't, or other people might say, well, it was a little bit, but not much. Well, there's a good slavery was totally responsible for the civil war. Let's be very clear. What caused the civil war was secession. Secession caused the civil war, the South deciding to secede. And when you take that question and you reframe it, then you have to ask, what caused secession? Well, that's very clear when you read the documents. It is the southern states worried that they're going to lose their concept of human bondage, is what it is.

Reading Texas Secession Documents

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And and if and you know, people people argue about this, and I say, and and I make the students do this, read the Texas Declaration of Secession. Read what they what was called the Declaration of Causes. And you can Google it. It's housed by the Texas State Library. They have uh, you know, the printed document. And very clearly, over and over again, in that document, it says, why are you secede? Why do we want to secede? Why do we want to leave the United States? Because we feel that the institution of slavery is threatened if we stay in the Union. And so they and 10 other states left the union. Um, and you know, and and I and again, you know, people I think young people today um uh have have grasped that, but even when I was, you know, when we were in college, we had people that argued about it much more vehemently uh than they do today, I think.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Well, yeah, I we had a colleague of ours were in school with that we argued with. We there were many uh uh beverages involved, and but this person was, I mean, this person was a very, very studied person, and this person absolutely believed we were way off uh uh claiming just what we just claimed. Now, that person now doesn't believe that, uh, for sure. And I think, but you know, of course, part of that is the lost cause, and that's what has happened, which is right, and that's enshrined this whole idea in the South, which is to me, to get back to the document, what makes Reagan's document so remarkable? Because he was so, as you said, forward-thinking, future thinking about it. So why don't you let people again just give some highlights of this document, Dina, what it is.

Juneteenth Versus Full Citizenship

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, okay. So here he says, look, you must in the first place recognize the necessity of making the most you can of your present situation. They had just lost the war, right? Without the hope of doing all that you might desire. This is required by both reason and necessity. The state, he writes, occupies the condition of a conquered nation. State government and state sovereignty are in abeyance and will be so held until you adopt a government and policy acceptable to the conquerors. Right? So he's saying you got to realize we just lost the Civil War. That's right. We're losers. Yeah, and and and so we've got to follow the rules of the winners. He says a refusal to accede to these conditions would only result in a prolongation of the time during which you will be deprived of a civil government of your own choice. First, recognize the supreme authority of the government of the United States within the sphere of its power and its right to protect itself against disintegration by the secession of the states. Okay, so no more secession.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

That's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. So second, you must recognize the abolition of slavery and the right of those who have been slaves to the privileges and protections of the laws of the land.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Which is so huge. There, I don't know, there's no way to know the precise number, but I wouldn't bet 10% of Southerners would have agreed with that statement at the time Reagan makes it. You know? He's what he's saying is listen, these people are no longer enslaved people, and they are citizens of the United States, and they have the same protections everybody else does. That's revolutionary for 1865 in the South.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Well, look, we we get to, you know, one of the most celebrated aspects of the Reconstruction period is uh Gordon Granger uh in Galveston on June 19th issues the proclamation uh announcing officially that slavery is over, right? It was in the Emancipation Proclamation. Uh it's going to be in the 13th Amendment. Uh, but he's saying that there is no more slavery. Slavery's over. Well, why does he have to say it? Well, one of the reasons is that many Southerners thought, you know, this is temporary. We lost the war. You know, they that they they many of our enslaved people were confiscated, but we're gonna get them back. They're gonna come back. What else are they gonna do, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, it's and it's you know, and this is essentially Reagan telling people that's not gonna happen. All right. It's and and I think it's also uh worth us looking at the fact that what like you said, they did think it would happen. They didn't think it was over, they had not accepted that. That most Southerners had not accepted that this was at it at an end. Granger had to actually announce that. It wasn't something that, okay, the war's over, we're losing this all. They had announced it. But also go back to Granger's document and his thing. Granger says slavery's over with, but Granger doesn't say what Reagan said. There is nothing in Granger's document that says, hey, you're about to get all the rights of a citizen if you're a formerly enslaved person. He doesn't say that. In fact, he implies that they may not.

Reagan On Rights For Freedpeople

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Well, and you know, uh, and and you know, read read the document. Read um his his order. Um, and yeah, I also have students read this and sometimes they're surprised by it. What does he say to these newly freed people? Stay where you are. We don't want to see you uh unemployed, don't we don't want to see you milling around anywhere. Stay where you are and keep working. I mean, so it, you know, here is here are two documents, right? One is saying, Grangers, the one that we celebrate, it says, stay where you are uh and and just hold on tight, right? Just hold on, don't stop working, just keep going. This one here, Reagan's document, says we're gonna have to treat them as citizens.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

In fact, the whole last half of his document is essentially this is how we have to approach these formerly enslaved people. These freedmen now have these rights, and he spells out what they should do and how you should treat them in the last half of the letter.

Paternalism And Limits Of Equality

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, it's and and once again, if if you if you want to see this whole letter, this is in Reagan's memoirs. It's in the appendix where he reprints this that you know long afterwards, uh, that he reprints what what what he wrote. He reprints this letter, uh, reprints this letter that that he published or had published for him while he was in prison, urging people to do. Now, uh I do I do want to uh want to read a little bit more. So because I know I know the painful struggle against education and habit and tradition and prejudice which such a course will require you to encounter. I know how hard it is for human nature to overcome such difficulties, but it my sincere prayer is that God in his goodness and mercy may enable you to exhibit this last crowning evidence in the middle of your calamities and sorrows of your greatness and wisdom as a people. The Negroes, he continues, will, it is hoped, gradually diffuse themselves among the greatly prepondering number of the whites in the different states and territories. Many of them will probably go to Mexico or other countries in search of social equality, and few or none of their race will be added to by the number by uh to their numbers by accession from other countries, while the steadily rapid influx of the great number of white races from other countries will gradually increase the disproportion in numbers between them and the whites, and so render this new element in society and government innocuous, or at least powerless for evil, if they should be so inclined. But from the general docility of their dispositions, we may expect the most of them to be orderly, and many of them industrious and useful citizens. Now, this is that that that for you know this is this is kind of a mixed bag quotation, but I think he represents, I think in in this in this quotation here, I think. It represents what some people were believing. Now, you know, look, this is another thing we have when we're teaching about abolitionism and slavery in the 1800s up to 1830s, 1840s. A lot of students, and probably people in general, will say, well, the abolitionists were all about social equality. They wanted to see. I wish that were true. But a lot of abolitionists, even, did not believe in social equality. They didn't believe in slavery. And they said we should free the slaves and then let's let them go somewhere else, right? Then this, yeah, this back to Africa movement. Uh or and and and Reagan kind of adopts some of that, right? He says, maybe they're going to go to Mexico, maybe they know somewhere else where they will feel where they will be treated with social equality.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Well, you see that when you read that and what you read, there are the tinges of paternalism, there is the tinges of white tinges of white superiority, certainly. And that's not to be praised, but that's also who people were at that time. I mean, you can scrub that out of society. That's exactly that's what he would have thought at that time, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And and so, but but the other thing, uh on the other side, right, you know, he keeps coming back. He says, look, let's not just think that they're going to be bad and they're going to be uh a bad element. He actually, there's there's there is praise in here for how African Americans uh reacted to the Civil War. There wasn't this massive uprising. You know, John Brown, when he massacred those people on Pottawanomy Creek in in Kansas, he was hoping to start a race rebellion. And when he uh captured the the uh military arsenal up by Washington, D.C., he was hoping to start a race rebellion. That never happened. And and I think that that surprised a lot of people. I mean, you know, can you or I say that if somebody was hella holding me against my will and forcing me, if I got the chance, uh you wouldn't strike back? I don't know that I could I could say that.

Gratitude, Restraint, And Postwar Fears

Reconciliation And Immigration Strategy

SPEAKER_01 24:13

I think it's a it's both instructive and actually eye-opening that when Ranger came to come and when the uh emancipation of Texas slaves took place after June 19th. And let's be clear, some slaves did not become free until like 1867. There's many owners kept the word from them, and there were people that stayed enslaved in Texas for quite a while. But the slaves did not react with animosity, the former slaves did not react with animosity, they did not act uh with with violence, they acted with joy that they were now free. But there was not, I mean, I don't know that I would have not wanted to get some payback uh on this. And so that's not, and I think it's instructive too when we read, I like when you read this document. I always like where you kind of ended off. It's interesting, and it has some, I guess, instruction for our current situations. As Reagan goes on to talk about, he's talking about the formerly enslaved people, and he says, and we must very pass animosities with those of our fellow citizens with whom we've been at war. So we got to be nice to the northerners on this and cultivate with them feelings of mutual charity and paternal goodwill. And it will be greatly to your advantage in many ways, which I cannot trespass upon you to mention now, to hold out inducements to them and to immigrate from other countries to come and settle among you with their labor and skill and capital to assist in the diffusion of employments, the increase of your population, and the development of your vast resources into new creations of wealth and power. Now, there's a lot to unpack in that statement that you can't. Without a doubt, part of what he is saying is we've got to encourage immigration from other countries, particularly Europe, because we want them to come here and we want them to move here and we want them to help us rebuild. But also he's there there's an implication there. These are gonna be white people, and we're gonna build our numbers up against these because you gotta remember, in many places in the South at that time, uh, people of African descent were half the population. Yes, they don't, and when they automatically become citizens, and if they can vote, we live in a democracy and they can outvote people. So part of this is Reagan's and all right, we gotta let's get over everything this so we can you know actually build. And it's also unpacking to say he's telling Southerners, I mean, think what he says labor, skill, capital. We got to change how new south. That's yeah, uh that we gotta change the way we're doing things. We've got to adapt, we've got to adopt the way of industrialism, the new way of an economy. And he's telling Southerners, this is a brave new world, and you've got to get on board. Which, as we know, most Southerners never did. If and so I think once we get to the end of this today, Gene, if I say, Wow, sure wish a lot of Southerners would have listened to Reagan, what would you say about that?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Oh, I I I agree a hundred percent. In fact, that that's one of the things I asked my students. I said, I asked them to comment on if people would have followed what he said, how might history have been different in the South in the years after the Civil War, during the Reconstruction period, and even up until the 1950s or 60s and beyond, right? How would things have been different if Southerners in general would have just accepted? Now many did. People did, right? And people did begin to change, but it was long and slow coming. And what if they would have just said, you know, he's right, taking a deep breath and move forward, which is really kind of what he's advising them to do.

Industrialization And A New South

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Uh yes, absolutely. And of course, you know, they all one of the things they teach you when you're becoming a professional historian, don't be a historical, don't ask questions of what would have happened if this had happened. Because not you, it didn't. Well, but that's no fun if you don't ask those questions, right? That's right. The fun part is speculating on what would happen. And that's a good way to speculate. That I'm just I you know, I don't know how to look at that because on the other hand, they should have listened to Reagan. On the other hand, they should have adopted what he said. That would have, in the end, been better for them. They'd have they'd have built a better society if they'd have been more accommodating. However, I would also offer that was also impossible to expect that to happen because Southerners were so grounded in those concepts of white superiority that they could not have adopted the thinking Reagan's asking them to do. They could not have actually changed what their culture was, because that would have been like proverbial changing the spots on a leopard. Yes. Yeah, the Southerners could not even fathom any sort of concept that they would gain this right, anything that would go against uh white superiority. Now, I guess we could say we missed an opportunity, absolutely, because there was a small window. When Reagan was writing this letter, that maybe this could have happened, uh, but it didn't. It passes, it doesn't, and it bleeds into eventually the South trying to reconstruct this society of white superiority and eventually, you know, erecting the Jim Crow uh idea of separation and segregation of the raches, which comes in by the you know 1890s for sure, late 1880s, 1890s. And a lot of what brings that about is the populist movement uh that begins that, which I guess is some segue to our next episode.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Right. And I I do want to say this, I do I do want to say that Reagan faced a lot of opposition to this letter whenever he got back and whenever he was freed. He was kind of persona non-grata. Uh eventually, though, now if you go to Palestine, there's a big uh monument to John H. Reagan there uh in the in the park. But he rebuilt his political standing. He gets uh elected to Congress, gets a uh U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, uh, and then he joins the most unusually named office in Texas politics, and that uh is the Texas Railroad Commission, which today has nothing to do with railroads, nothing with but in those at the time.

The Path Not Taken

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Which at the time he was, it was an extremely progressive uh political development that it came. Now Reagan lived to be 88. I mean, he was which was quite elderly uh when he finally died in the early 20th century. Uh God, that scares me when I said early 20th century. You know what a I had a student do to me at the end of last semester, and it just almost freaked me out, Gene. They came and they started talking, and it's just how your mind works, they started talking about the and what they were saying was the later part of the century, and when the century is over. And of course, I'm programming 19th century, and I'm thinking, wait, what this person's talking about in the 1880s and 1890s, that's not accurate. And then it dawned on me, he's talking about the 1900s, the late 1900s, he's talking about 1919. I'm like, I was already old in 1990. This is not right.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

But I I I know, yeah, that's kind of yeah. I always tell people when they say, When were you born? I say 66, 1966.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

And well, I don't know, maybe we want to start going, oh, you know, sometime in sometime very recently in the last century, you can start saying, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:04

So it's uh yeah, but it's uh and we talk about the the populist movement, we'll talk about that next time. And uh, you know, race plays a big role in that as you a huge role, a huge role. So we may step on some more toes, and but that's okay. It's it's good, you know. We're Texans, we wear cowboy boots. You're always gonna step on someone's toes.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

That's true. And you know, that's right. You know, and it's good. I I like this, and we're doing it. I hope people are getting out of it because we're actually we're looking at documents, and we're actually this is this is history and action. This is how it's interpreted when you look at this, you know, and uh that's why I enjoyed this and hope we at least am doing some good for people, right?

Reagan’s Backlash And Later Career

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah, Scott, we're gonna do two things. We're not since we're just talking to ourselves, we don't have to say what do you know about history, but uh one of the things we started is a couple of recommended readers, uh, a couple of recommended books. And I am going to say, and and uh I uh for the Civil War period and the Reconstruction period, you get uh there's a lot of specialty books out there. And by specialty, I'm talking about they're they're looking at at smaller, you know, what we would call microhistory, looking at a small study and then projecting out from there rather than big, overarching histories. And that's okay because I'm gonna tell you the one that made me say, wow, the one that really changed the way I think about Civil War is Rick McCaslin's The Great Uh, a book on the Great Hanging, Tainted Breeze on the Great Hanging at Gainesville.

Book Recommendations On Reconstruction

SPEAKER_01 33:44

It's a yeah, it's that's an excellent, absolutely excellent book. It gives you, and one thing about it is yeah, it's so he he's talking about a specific episode, but he also sets a great stage. Oh, he does that social and cultural clash that's going on between races and everything at the time and things going on. Yeah, that's excellent. I would recognize uh recommend if you want to get a good overview of uh the Reconstruction in Texas. You could pick up almost anything by this man that has written extensively on Reconstruction, Texas. That's Carl Monty Hun. Absolutely. Uh the book I really like is Republicanism in Reconstruction, Texas, where he goes on and really he he he gives this idea of the clash, somewhat like Reagan. Reagan would have been one of those that eventually was more of a he never becomes a Republican. He stays a Democrat, but he starts moving more towards them on that. But the whole clash that goes on in Texas, I think uh that is a great one by him. He does. Now he wrote another book, Arkansas and the New South, that's about Arkansas. He went to school in Arkansas, but it's somewhat of the same type of situation that you can really get to. So anything that you can pick up by Carl H. Uh Montehan, you you really should about that because he's he's so good at at getting uh to the really to the core of what's going on in republicanism and reconstructionism, I mean, in Texas.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah. And and there's a in fact, he just came out with a book a couple of years ago on uh EJ Davis. That's that's correct. Who is who is the Reconstruction Governor of Texas? And uh um, yeah, that's yeah, Carl Munihan, excellent, and Rick McCazin. I do want to say this shout out to Rick, uh, because he is our newest state historian of Texas.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Number six, number six, and we're gonna be a little bit more than a little bit. Well, let's see. So we had um Frank Delanteja, Frank Delanteja, and then uh Bill O'Neill who just passed away. Like Cummins, Bill O'Neill, uh and then uh Monty Monty Monroe.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

So some guy named Monty Monroe.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

And Monty, and we've had him on, yeah. So I guess uh I guess Rick is the fifth, the fifth state historian of Texas.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So yeah, congratulations. And you know, uh yeah, all of those guys, really good guys, and I'm I'm I think you know, don't always praise the legislature for its acts, but I think in in every one of those cases, they made good decisions.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Although I guess it's the governor that appoints that, doesn't it? I wonder, I don't I don't think Governor Abbott is listening to us on our program here. But if he is, Governor Abbott be in there where uh Rick's a great choice, but I'm also gonna say when Rick's term is done, it's time for a woman to be a state historian of Texas. I think it's time for you to do that.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

We and we've had some good, good uh uh women who women historians who have uh been in the running. Um, and um I hope that we will continue to have good names. I I think uh I don't know who all um who all was who all ran this time, but uh we've had some good candidates uh and good names float around for state historian of Texas, and I hope we continue that good trend.

State Historian Shoutouts

SPEAKER_01 37:04

I do too. Well, Gene, this has been fun. So we're gonna next week, or our next episode, we do have for two weeks on two weeks. Next episode, we're gonna talk about uh the farmers alliance and the populist movement, and uh and particularly about uh it's uh the alliance resolutions. They had a convention, the state convention, and this basically they're saying this is what we want, and this is their platform, if you will, that comes uh about and eventually most of this platform from Texas it comes on is what is adopted to become the actual populist party, the people's party, and a big core of what they were looking for. A lot of these things you'll recognize because we have actually eventually adopted them.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, it'll be interesting. Scott, just like this conversation was interesting, thanks again, and we want to thank everybody for listening, and we'll see you next episode.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Bye bye. Thanks, everybody. Bye.