Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/400

 'Kearny code,' or other codes, it is proper to remark, that the only regulations which are applicable to their condition are those laws which were in force at the period of the conquest of New Mexico, or Texas may establish. The only exception is, that they be not in opposition to the Constitution and laws of the United States." Thus, on the 2oth of March was clearly acknowledged the right of Texas to establish her laws and jurisdiction over that part of the country which is now claimed as New Mexico. Sir, this is authority which I hope will be conclusive, yet I shall endeavor to satisfy the gentleman's inquiries, and convince him that not only the present, but the former Administration, without qualification, regarded Texas as having the undoubted ownership of all the territory which she had claimed east of the Rio Grande by her ordinance of 1836. Sir, she never claimed less; she never asked more—she will be satisfied with that, and she will be satisfied with nothing else. And how will Senators for one moment vindicate the honor of the United States, and attempt to curtail Texas of one foot of her territory on the east of the Rio Grande? No gentleman who has a due regard for the national character of this country can, upon retrospection of its history, hesitate to admit the justice of our claim. The Government of the United States, as far back as the administration of Mr. Jefferson, whilst Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney were Ministers abroad, in correspondence with the Spanish Minister, insisted that the United States had, by the purchase of Louisiana from France, acquired all the country east of the Rio Grande, and declared that river the western boundary of the territory purchased, upon the principle of new discovery. It is laid down that all the seaboard taken and occupied by right of discovery, with all the lands lying on the tributary waters emptying into the sea, and the lands lying upon those tributaries, belong to the nation by right of prior discovery, as high up as their sources. This principle embraced all that has been and is now claimed as the right of Texas. This principle was either correct, or it was incorrect. If it was a just claim on the part of the United States, the same principle will hear out Texas in her claim. She occupies the same country on the seaboard that was (as insisted) embraced in the purchase of Louisiana from France. The United States acquired it, as it was insisted upon, by the riglit of purchase. Texas has acquired it by the right of revolution, and resistance- to oppression. She asserted this claim at the outset of her war of independence; during ten years of war she maintained her boundary, without having for one moment faltered in the assertion of her rights. But what did the United States do? That they always act honestly and honorably can not be doubted; theirs was either a just or unjust claim; if it was an unjust claim they were dishonored by making it—if it was a just claim on the part of the United States against Spain at that time, it is equally just now when made by Texas. But what did the United States do? They insisted upon the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Louisiana. Spain was not in a situation to go to war to vindicate her claim, and it was virtually surrendered. By the treaty of 1819, at the time Florida was acquired, the country embraced within the identical limits which Texas now asserts was disposed of to Spain. If the United States had a valid right to it, it was an honest transaction to sell it to Spain; if she had no right to it, then the recollection of such a transaction ought to suffuse the cheek of every Senator in this chamber with the blush of shame. Texas now only claims the same boundary in virtue of the right of revolution and the compact of annexation. If the claim of the United States was honest at the