Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/413

 she would establish a reputation above all suspicion; that she would then sustain herself with credit; that it would do her more honor, and make her a more glorious nation than ever existed. Sir, Texas as a State is only a part of this Confederacy; one of thirty-one; and she does not aspire to be more glorious than the United States, or the mighty nations of the earth. We find that they have perpetrated offenses against good morality and national honor, which Texas scorns to do. They have repudiated debts, not only revolutionary debts, but others contracted in good faith. This Texas has not done, and will not do. She has not repudiated one dollar of her revolutionary debt, and she will not do it. She will pay a hundred cents upon every dollar she has realized. Is not that worthy of admiration? Yet gentlemen say she would be glorious if she would pay the nominal amount of her liabilities.

When the United States repudiated—I do not claim that as authority, but I wish to bring it in array before the public mind—it was for an amount upwards of $240,000,000 of revolutionary debt. Has Texas done anything of that sort? Has she repudiated one just demand, amounting to a single dollar, of citizens of Texas who assisted her in her hours of difficulty? Not one. The United States repudiated millions, and hundreds of millions, held in the hands of war-worn veterans, who had toiled through a revolutionary struggle of seven years. The United States repudiated the revolutionary debt of the war of Independence, which commenced in 1776. Texas, during her revolution of nine years, did not repudiate one dollar that was held by her revolutionary soldiers. The United States, when they assumed the debts of the several States—the old thirteen — after the war of the Revolution, required the States to scale those debts, and paid them at the scaled rates. If we were disposed to be a little tricky, might we not follow these examples? But if we have been tricky I do not know what fair dealing means.

We do not, however, claim the benefit of the high examples to which I have referred; but I think that in view of them it comes with a very bad grace from the United States to become administrator on the affairs of Texas, and to determine what are her liabilities.

The amount of $5,000,000 that was reserved in the Treasury of the United States was reserved at the instance of creditors, who were importuning and surrounding Senators here when legislating on this subject. Some sagacious lawyer had discovered that the United States were liable when they acquired Texas, and received from her means which were intended for the liquidation of her debts. It was not intended by that reservation to determine what the debts of Texas were, but only the debts of a certain character for which the Government of the United States might possibly be held liable. When were they to pay these debts? When ascertained by Texas, and certified to the Treasury of the United States. That was the object of retaining the $5,000,000, as I understood it at the time, and 1 voted upon the subject in all good faith and confidence, satisfied, as I was, that the amount upon which the impost duties of Texas were pledged did not amount to $5,000,000, and that there would be a large residuum to Texas of that amount.

The President and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, after the passage of that bill, determined, in effect, that the Government of the United States were liable for all the debts of Texas. It will be remembered that in the administration of the Government of Texas from 1841 down to the time of the