John Ireland (politician) - State Politics

State Politics

Ireland reentered politics in 1872, when he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives and chaired the executive committee of the Democratic party. In 1875, he served as an associate justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Later that year, he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The new state constitution reduced the number of associate justices on the supreme court, and in 1876 Ireland lost his position.

In late 1875, Ireland decided to run for the U.S. Senate. His primary competition was the current Governor of Texas, Richard Coke. Coke's supporters accused Ireland of having been a member of the Know-Nothing party and of opposing ratification of the new constitution. Ireland lost the election and remained in the Texas House.

During his time as a state legislator, Ireland backed the bill creating the University of Texas at Austin. He was also a proponent of low taxes and favored regulating the railroads. In 1882, Governor Oran Roberts declined to run again, and Ireland received the Democratic nomination. His main competition was G. "Wash" Jones of the Greenback party. Ireland defeated Jones by over 48,000 votes. One of his first acts as governor was to have an amendment added to the state constitution establishing an ad valorem tax. He also reformulated the policy for selling public lands. While "this policy at first increased the state's revenues... eventually led to large accumulations of land in the form of cattle ranches." The ranchers soon began running barbed wire around their own land and the public lands that they used, without permission, for grazing. This practice often cut farmers and other ranchers off from water. During a large drought in 1882, people began cutting the barbed wire, leading to violence between the ranchers and farmers. This practice soon lead to the Fence Cutting War. Ireland called a special session of the legislature in 1884 to pass a law allowing the Texas Rangers to intervene in these disputes. The Rangers were able to quell some, but not all, of the violence.

Construction began on the new Texas State Capitol building during Ireland's tenure. At his insistence, the building was constructed of Texas pink granite instead of imported Indiana limestone.