Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/21

Rh established throughout the province, the civil authorities were trampled underfoot, and the people were subjected to the capricious tyranny of unrestrained military rule. Allusions to these and other facts will appear in the course of the following work. The attention of Gen. Sam Houston was turned to Texas about the time this tyranny was manifested.

What the history of Texas has been, the civilized world knows. What Texas now is, and promises to be, is the theme of the press of English-speaking Christendom, and what it is to be is the vaticination of the political prophet.

Any history of Texas would be incomplete without awarding due honor to Stephen F. Austin. All parts of it, from the Colony to the American State, exhibit his self-sacrifice, patriotism, and ability. The pages which will follow will show what part Sam Houston took in moulding and saving a State. To Houston has been awarded the high honor of giving name to a city which, in no remote future, will be a great commercial centre. To Austin has been assigned the honor of giving name to the present beautiful capital of this great empire State. Let the sculptor do his work, let the painter exert his skill, let the historian exhibit his ability, let the orator speak the truth, Austin will say, "Lector circumspice," and Houston will say, "Exegi monumentum cere perennius."

In the Senate of the United States, in 1836, Hon. T. H. Benton said:

"Heartless is the calumny invented and propagated, not from this floor, but elsewhere, on the cause of the Texan revolt. It is said to be a war for the extension of slavery. It had as well been said that our own Revolution was a war for the extension of slavery. So far from it, that no revolt, not even our own, ever had a more just and a more sacred origin. The settlers in Texas went to live under the form of government which they had left behind in the United States—a government which extends so many guarantees for life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and which their American and English ancestors had vindicated for so many hundred years. A succession of violent changes in government, and the rapid overthrow of rulers, annoyed and distressed them; but they remained tranquil under every violence which did not immediately bear on themselves. In 1822 the republic of 1821 was superseded by the imperial diadem of Iturbide. In 1823 he was deposed and banished, returned and was shot, and Victoria made President. Mentuno and Bravo disputed the presidency with Victoria; and found, in banishment, the mildest issue known among Mexicans to unsuccessful civil war. Pedraza was elected in 1828; Guerrero overthrew him the next year. Then Bustamente overthrew Guerrero; and quickly, Santa Anna overthrew Bustamente, and, with liim, all the forms of the Constitution, and the whole frame of the federative government. By his own will, and by force, Santa Anna dissolved the existing Congress, convened another, formed the two Houses into one, called it a Convention, and made it the instrument for deposing, without trial, the constitutional Vice-President, Gomez Fatias, putting Barragan into his place, annihilating