Objective:

This study analyzes the influence of the large territorial extensions of Coahuila and Texas in the field of justice, with emphasis on the legal and institutional apparatus during the First Mexican Federal Republic.

Methodology:

Through the constitutional and legal analysis of the justice system implemented in the state of Coahuila and Texas, it reconstructs its institutional-judicial scaffolding.

Originality:

This is a first approach to the criminal justice of a border state, whose geographical and cultural complexity influences the separatist destiny of Texas.

Conclusions:

The cultural clash between two different conceptions of justice -between Mexican Coahuila and Texas Anglo-American or simply foreign- led to the first secession that was in principle, judicial, rather than political.