One of the most unusual features of Texas trial courts, including district courts, is the tradition of having only one judge per trial court. Single-judge trial courts were the dominant form of American state trial court organization well into the late 19th century. According to Roscoe Pound, 23 of the 34 states in the Union adhered to that model on the eve of the American Civil War. Accordingly, in 1836, this then-commonplace and familiar model was duly written into the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. Section 2 of Article IV provided for "not less than three nor more than eight" judicial districts, and that "a judge" would be appointed for each district. Similar clauses using the indefinite article to imply one judge per court appeared in all subsequent constitutions. For example, Section 7 of Article V of the 1876 state constitution provided for 26 judicial districts (subject to the right of the Legislature to increase or diminish them), and that "a judge" would be elected for each district. This rigid constitutional language was finally fixed by a constitutional amendment in 1985, but by then, the tradition of one judge per court was thoroughly entrenched.