Early records indicate that King Alfred of England
established the first constables in the 871 A.D. The
Constable was the highest judge in military crimes and in
disputes of chivalry and honor. The Constable was also named
by the King to be the supreme arbitrator in tilts,
tournaments and martial displays.
On June 15,
1215, the Magna Carta established Judiciaries, Constable,
and Bailiffs (or Sheriffs). The Magna Carta was the
institution of due process or the law and jury system.
Dating back to near or about 1066 and the Norman Conquest of
England. William the Conqueror appointed constables to
supervise individual communities, or boroughs. A constable's
duties varied considerably in different circumstances and
times. They were often similar to those of a sheriff, who
supervised a shire (the equivalent of a county). Over time,
however, as sheriffs were given increasing administrative
duties, constables assumed primary responsibility for local
law enforcement. The office of constable had been
transplanted to the British colonies in North America by the
mid-sixteenth century, and with it continued the divergence
between constable and sheriff. In America as in England, the
main qualification for the office of sheriff was "that he be
of sufficient estate." This limited the choices for sheriff
to a relatively small and elite group of planters in each
county. As a result, few sheriffs had either the ability or
desire to serve warrants or bring offenders to justice.
Consequently, the constable and justice of the peace were
about the only law and order most rural American settlers
ever saw.
The Constable had
established existence in Texas under Spain and France rule
prior to becoming a colony in Mexico. While a colony of
Mexico, the Constable was re-established in Texas when
Stephen F. Austin wrote and proposed codes of criminal
regulation. The Mexican Government approved these
regulations and added them to the established elections by
precinct for the Office of the Constable.
On March 5, 1823, John
Tumlinson, the newly elected alcalde of the Colorado
District in Stephen F. Austin' first colony in Texas, wrote
to the Baron de Bastrop in San Antonio that he had
"appointed but one officer who acts in the capacity of
constable to summon witnesses and bring offenders to
justice." That appointee, Thomas V. Alley, thus became the
first Anglo law enforcement officer in the future republic
and state of Texas. Other prominent colonists who served as
constable included John Austin and James Strange.
The Constitution of the
Republic of Texas (1836) provided for the election in each
county of a sheriff and "a sufficient number of constables."
During the ten years of the republic's existence,
thirty-eight constables were elected in twelve counties, the
first in Nacogdoches County and the largest number
(thirteen) in Harrisburg (later Harris) County. Court
records indicate that violent crime was rare in the
republic, except when horse or cattle thieves entered Texas
from Arkansas or Louisiana; most indictments were for
nonlethal crimes such as illegal gambling or assaults
resulting from fights or scuffles. Juan N. Seguín and
Elliott M. Millican both served as constables during the
republic.
Shortly after Texas became a
state, an act passed by the legislature specified that the
constable should be "the conservator of the peace throughout
the county," adding that "it shall be his duty to suppress
all riots, routs, affrays, fighting, and unlawful
assemblies, and he shall keep the peace, and shall cause all
offenders to be arrested, and taken before some justice of
the peace." Constables were the most active law-enforcement
officials in many counties during the early statehood of
Texas.
After Texas seceded from the
United States in 1861, many county offices, including that
of constable, remained unfilled or were filled by men less
competent than their predecessors. During the military
occupation of Texas after the Civil War, the election of
county officials all but ceased, as the Union military
appointed more than 200 individuals to state and county
offices. A number of these appointees refused to serve; from
1865 to 1869, over one-third of the county offices in Texas
were vacant. Many counties had no appointed or elected
constables during this period. Austin, DeWitt, Fayette,
McLennan, and Navarro counties had but a single constable
each, appointed by Gen. Edward R. S. Canby, head of the
Fifth Military District, in 1868-69.
Under the Constitution of
1869, a Reconstruction document that centralized many
governmental functions, no constables were elected in Texas
from 1869 to 1872, though some were appointed by justices of
the peace. Many of these appointees lacked experience in
handling violent offenders and access to secure jail
facilities, and had few deputies to call upon for
assistance. They were no match for the poor, embittered, and
heavily armed former soldiers from both sides who roamed the
state, often turning to crime. As a result, the office of
constable began to diminish in importance, and the
better-equipped county sheriffs began to assume a leading
role in law enforcement. Still, a number of prominent peace
officers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries
began their careers as constables or deputy constables,
including Thomas R. Hickman, George A. Scarborough, and Jess
Sweeten. In 1896, while serving as a United States deputy
marshal, Scarborough shot and killed the controversial El
Paso constable John Selman, who had himself gunned down the
notorious John Wesley Hardin in 1895.
The
Constitution of 1876, designed to decentralize control of
the state government, reduced the power of many state
officials and mandated that constables would once again be
elected at the precinct level. A 1954 constitutional
amendment extended their term of office from two years to
four. Today, constables numbering approximately 780 are
elected from precincts in most Texas counties. Their
law-enforcement roles vary widely, but in general their
police powers are no different from those of other peace
officers in the state. Complete records do not exist, but
the most recent estimate is that at least ninety-three Texas
constables have died in the line of duty, including
sixty-seven in the twentieth century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3
vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Allen G. Hatley, Texas
Constables, A Frontier Heritage (Lubbock: Texas Tech
University Press, 1999). Allen G. Hatley
