The Last Compilation of Texas Laws Published Before the Civil War Commissioned by an act of the Texas State Legislature in 1858, Oldham and White's Digest was the last compilation of Texas laws published before the Civil War. It includes the general statute laws, repealed laws of the Republic and State of Texas, "by, through, or under which rights have accrued," and the colonization laws of Mexico and of the State of Coahuila and Texas, which were in force before the Declaration of Independence by Texas," the Articles of Annexation, the constitutions of Texas and the United States and a thorough index. It is listed in John H. Jenkins's Basic Texas Books: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works for a Research Library. [T]he mechanical execution of your Digest seems to me to be highly creditable to the State, and in all respects as good as the Legislature could have contemplated. I think no work of the same kind has been published in the United States, with which your Digest will not bear a very favorable comparison. (...) I think your work is a very full compliance with all the requirements of the Act (...) and that it will be received with much applause by the legal profession in Texas.

James H. BellAssociate Justice, Texas Supreme Court, 1858-1864 iv, 836, [3] pp.