The first Congress of the Republic of Texas met October 3, 1836, in Columbia in a large dog-trot house "meager in every respect." The fourteen senators who convened there must have been amazed at the circumstances that brought them together and fearful of the impermanence of their offices. Only a year earlier the representative body of their territory had been a provincial government of the Republic of Mexico, and not too long before that, residents of the region had sworn fealty to a Spanish king. On this autumn day, however, the inhabitants of the lands north of the Rio Grande were calling...

When the Ninth Legislature convened in November, 1861, representatives gave little thought to the somber days that lay ahead, instead making exultant predictions of a quick victory over the enemy to the north. Houston's warning was forgotten. "The Texas Senate, Volume II," picks up where the first volume left off, covering the story of this sometimes venerable, sometimes raucous, and sometimes unsavory body from the onset of the war until another eve, that of the period sometimes called the Era of Reform. Written by members of the Senate Engrossing and Enrolling Department and edited by...