There were incidents with Indian marauders and cattle thieves in Texas and on May 6, 1870, Senator Theodor Rudolph Hertzberg introduced a bill to reorganize the state militia.
David Webster Flanagan who had for years been a staunch Radical Republican opposed the bill because of its clauses allowing Governor Edmund J. Davis to impose martial law.
[1] On May 17, at a Republican caucus, Senators Bolivar Jackson Pridgen and E. L. Alford announced their opposition to the bill and were thrown out of the meeting.
[1] On June 16, 1870, Flanagan put forward a substitute militia bill without the martial law sections, but it failed to pass.
Senator Mijamin Priest then publicly supported a bill which had passed the house, which would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
Thirteen Senators, Marmion Henry Bowers, Flanagan, Alford, E. Thomas Broughton, Amos Clark, David W. Cole, Ebenezer Lafayette Dohoney, James Postell Douglas, Andrew J. Evans, Henry Russell Latimer, Edward Bradford Pickett, William H. Pyle, and George R. Shannon, withdrew from the chamber to prevent the presence of a quorum and to prevent passage of the bill, to a nearby Capitol committee room.
[1] During the confinement the Rump Senate took full advantage of their absence to pass as many of Governor Davis's bills as could be rushed through legislature.
The Senate confirmed James Davidson as adjutant general who later stole thirty thousand dollars of state money.