Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/292

 The peculiar condition of the people south of French Broad and Holston continues to be a subject of remonstrance and petition; it has already been a source of much legislation, and although by some late enactments it may be thought difficult again to open their case within any reasonable hope of advantage, yet it seems to me that their situation still entitles them to the very grave and serious consideration of the general assembly. It is true, that according to all the ordinary rules governing compacts, the settlers are bound to pay, and without hesitation, the amount stipulated as the price of their lands but it must at the same time be confessed that the contract in some of its leading features bears the stamp of obligation submitted to under duress.

The occupants of that country were, with very few exceptions, poor, and destitute of visible effects of any kind; they had migrated from the older States be- cause they were poor; they had made small improvements at the imminent hazard of their lives, and had for several years formed a barrier between the Holston settlements and their savage foes. The era of peace and prosperity to other parts of the country found them in possession of their humble log-cabins, unable to leave them in the hope of procuring better, and prepared in their minds to cling to the spot endeared to them by so many interesting recollections, whatever might be the terms of tenure imposed on them by the Government. If in this situation they are forced to raise obligation on themselves which they might then believe, and may have since found to be beyond their ability, should not the Legislature, with the kindest feelings of parental regard, seek with sedulous anxiety for any circumstance of amelioration in the adjustment of claims yet due from them, which even-handed justice will admit?

The interest on all the installments due from the purchase of the Hivvassee sales has now become due, and the great balance of principal owing to the State from that class of debtors will, by the terms of sale, be payable at a short period. A combination of circumstances meeting at the time of these sales, force the prices up to a standard of value which experience has shown to be wholly fallacious; a paper currency deluged the country, and being everywhere considered to be as legitimately the representative of property as specie itself, the facilities of procuring it baffle the calculations of the most cautious and prudent. When the day of sober reckoning came, and the true aspect of things was presented to us all, no one could boast of having seen farther than his neighbor; the delusion had spread through all orders and conditions of society, and suiely we should not now be backward in relieving, by every proper expedient, those who are still victims of that period of general infatuation. The act of the last session of the general assembly, permitting the purchasers to make payment in the notes of the Nashville bank, was no less politic than humane. Considerable collections were thereby effected in a species of fund which, though not immediately available, will become so at no distant day.

From the earliest history of our Government, and even before we had existed as an independent State, the question of boundary and territorial limits had presented obstacles to the harmonious intercourse which ought ever to exist between sister republics. I am not aware that at this time there can any possible misunderstanding arise as to our boundary, of jurisdiction on the north; but in the application of one particular provision of the compact made with Kentucky in the winter of 1820, there seems a difficulty in construction, which ought no longer to exist. Acting on the spirit of compromise and conciliation ever