Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/214

, as the ranks of earnest champions increased, gave a new field for address to Houston as umpire and harmonizer. The occasion to call him forth did not long delay. The Mexican war and the Northwest boundary were still absorbing questions. The British Government had, in 1846, assented to a treaty, fixing 49° N. lat. as the boundary westward to the Straits of Fuca; but the running of the line thence to the sea-coast was still in dispute. The advance of Gen. Taylor into Mexico, on the Texan border, had been found to be impracticable, because of the impassable roads and supplies; Gen. Scott had, in November, 1846, been ordered to enter on a campaign from the port of Vera Cruz, to the City of Mexico. Bills for raising troops for temporary service, and for an appropriation of $3, 000,000, to secure a just peace with Mexico, were discussed in January and February, 1848, in the Senate. The debate took a wide latitude, bringing in side issues relating to the integrity of the administration; the President and his adherents being charged with bringing on a needless war; the whole history of the settlement of Texas, and of the character of its settlers, being criticised; while a measure for the expulsion of the Senate printer entered into the controversy. Houston spoke for two entire days, the report of his speech filling thirteen columns of the Congressional Globe. He replied at length to Mr. Crittenden; who opposed the provision that field officers should not be elected by their regiments; Houston urging that a citizen soldiery always had demanded that their military as well as civil leaders should be the men of their own choice, and that thus alone would an army of volunteers, like a community of free citizens, submit to law and prove efficient in service. On the second day he traced the history of Texan settlement, and of the Mexican Government from the time it became independent of Spain. After Mexico had become a Republic, a New England colony, headed by Moses Austin, obtained a grant of land with the pledge of Republican institutions; the Mexican Constitution of 1824 giving them this guarantee. Santa Anna, however, became Dictator, establishing Imperial Government, and thus subverted the Constitution. The settlers bore the wrong patiently till 1833, and they then demanded only a State Constitution, under the Federal Republic of Mexico. From October, 1835, to March, 1836, they were under a Provisional Government only, not asserting independence. The assault on the Alamo by 9,000 Mexicans, its fall, and the massacre of its entire garrison, roused the people to resistance, and they acted as did the American fathers in 1776. And, now, the present war, brought on by the annexation of Texas, was not a measure forced on the country by the President. There was a dispute as to the boundary of Texas when it was incorporated