Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/819

 Jackson and the Texas Revolution 809 Throughout his administration General Jackson displayed, it seems to the writer, a desire to maintain unsuIHed the dignity and honor of the United States in regard to the Texas question. He was not the most fortunate in his choice of agents, perhaps, and certainly Butler ought to have been summarily recalled ; but he did not connive at Houston's revolutionary scheme, whatever it may have have been ; he heartily condemned Butler's tortuous plotting ; he did what the law permitted to enforce neutrality when the revolu- tion began ; he disapproved Gaines's invasion of Nacogdoches on the strength of the evidence submitted ; and he opposed precipitate recognition of the new state when the revolution was accomplished. We are judging him largely by his own words, it is true, but one has much to do who proves that they were not sincere. For the general was characteristically neither a hypocrite nor a liar. Eugene C. Barker.