Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/402

 "'In this position of affairs the Administration, through a conservative principle, and with a hope of shielding our country from the calamity by which she is so menacingly assailed, calls upon us to take such decisive measures as will tend, so far as we are concerned, to achieve that object, and propose, as the only effectual means in our power, the immediate adoption of a State Constitution and form of government, with the explicit declaration that we are for or against slavery, and present them for the action of Congress this session. Hence it is we find ourselves placed in a very peculiar and delicate position. On the one hand we may hope, within the next three years, to get a territorial government, should the Union be undissolved; and on the other, it appears to be our imperative duty to abandon those hopes, and, for the preservation of our nationality, to assume a form of government we have always, and conscientiously, opposed as disadvantageous for us.'"

This shows most conclusively that an influence of a controlling character was operating upon the mind of the writer. That influence could have been none other than that of the Executive of the nation, operating through the officers of the army and their employés in the country. I have been informed that more than half a million of dollars are annually expended in that vicinity, and this, with the authority of the military, among such a population as inhabits Santa Fé, is sufficient to coerce the action most desirable to the Administration. The writer of the article is deeply impressed with the necessity of action on the part of New Mexico; he was well informed, too, in relation to the bearing which its action would have on the well-being of the Union; the evidences were before him, and he was "conscientiously forced" to abandon his former policy.

Where did he get the "evidences"? What "forced" him to action? Was it directions from Washington, which embodied the "evidences" that "forced" upon him a change of policy? Yes; and with all, he owed a "sacred duty to the Union." I will read the extract: "Believing, as I am most conscientiously forced to do by the evidences now before me, that the peril to the Union is certain, imminent, and immediate, and that it is in our power materially to aid in diverting it, I hold it a sacred duty I owe to the Union, my adopted country, and to myself, to advise the native people of New Mexico that I conceive it to be their duty, as well as my own, and that of every other American citizen in the territory, to come forward boldly, and at once, and endeavor to sustain the integrity of our Union by the formation of a State Constitution and government, with an explicit declaration on the subject of slavery." Previous to writing this article, it appears that the people had been "always," and conscientiously, opposed to the State government, as disadvantageous to them; but now the conservative principle of the Administration calls upon them to take decisive measures, which they certainly have done, as far as they were able.

The Executive is not here directly charged, but the Administration is, and "whatever has been done amiss the President is responsible for. He has attempted to trample down the rights of a sovereign State, and thus by military power to vindicate the wrongs inflicted. The outrage upon Texas has been enforced by military power, contrary to the authority of the Constitution. Is this military power a portion of the "sovereign power" which we hear spoken of?