Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/329

 "or unless in cases of emergency, in time of war, the public interest may require their removal."

That this emergency did exist to a most palpable extent is demonstrated by the fact that, for temporary security, the archives were buried, with a view to secure them from injury. The Executive, in accordance with this information, ordered their immediate removal to the city of Houston as a place of undoubted security. Agents were ordered to provide transportation, so as to effect it with the greatest dispatch, and to secure the public arms and stores which were at that point, and which have since sustained much damage and loss by their non-removal. The President considered that he was the sole judge of the emergency requiring their removal. Resistance, however, has been offered and continued up to the present time. Acts of the most seditious and unauthorized character have been perpetrated by persons styling themselves the " Archives Committee," positively refusing obedience to the orders of the Executive, and refusing to permit individuals to remove from that place with their effects unless a passport was granted by some member of said committee. The Executive felt a reluctance to have recourse to such measures as would have enabled him to carry out the provisions of the Constitution. During the late incursion of the Mexicans, the Executive has been informed that a prominent individual made application to call and select such papers as he deemed of importance, for the purpose of conveying them to a place of safety. The Commissioner of the General Land Office, anxious to secure the archives in his charge from injury, attempted their removal, but his authority was resisted—the committee proposing to remove them, but at the same time to retain a supervision of them, and to designate the point to which they were to be removed—thereby clearly conceding the insecurity of their present situation, and assuming to themselves the power of resisting the constitutional authorities of the country, and interfering with the constitutional right and duty of the Executive. The causes which at first existed under the provision of the Constitution for the order for their removal by the Executive still exist with undiminished force. This flagrant violation of all civil rule inculcates the indispensable necessity of some Congressional enactment for the purpose of suppressing insurrectionary acts toward the authorities of the country. If individuals are permitted to associate themselves into bodies for the purpose of resisting the Constitution and laws of the country, the laws cease to be operative. The salutary provisions of the Constitution are nugatory, and rebellion and anarchy take their place. The reasons for the removal of the archives from the city of Austin still existing, it was deemed most proper to convene the Congress at this point. The subject was laid before Congress at the late extra session, and no definitive action took place. In addition to the fact that the Supreme Court had been, by law, recently removed to the town of Washington, and the removal of the archives to the same place would be attended with no public expense, the Executive regarded it as, in many respects, under existing circumstances, the most eligible, safe, and convenient location for the seat of government.

The Executive has been informed that public arms, and other Government property of much value, and which would be of great convenience in our present circumstances, are distributed in various parts of the country, having been appropriated by individuals to their private use, which they refuse to give up incompliance with the orders of the Government. It is therefore suggested, whether