Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/416

 Texas took place, in 1848, there was an almost entire acquiescence on the part of her creditors. Some three or four, or perhaps five, were somewhat refractory, and having more sagacity than the others, they concluded that there was some important advantage which they would gain by coming here, and therefore they had recourse to the Government of the United States. They might then have had in view the idea of a reserved $5,000,000 fund out of which they would be enabled to get their demands by appealing to the sympathy of members; by trying to show that they were bankrupted by their liberality in their anxiety to help Texas in the time of her direst need. They thought that if they could represent successfully to the Congress of the United States that they had been munificent and liberal toward Texas, it would entitle them to some extraordinary interposition of the Government of the United States. They came forward after the compromise was proposed, but not until that time. They received a new impulse by the proposal of the compromise. Most of them had acquiesced prior to that time, and we now find that hundreds came in who were not then interested in the debts of Texas, Strangers have come in as participants in the interest and are to be the recipients of its benefits. This is the case, and none will deny that there has been a most extraordinary change. If it had not been that the compromise of 1850 passed, the Texas creditors would nearly all have received their money, or their proportion of it, by this time, and would have been at rest and quiet, each man consoling himself in the advantage of having made a handsome speculation upon his adventure. But it was thought proper that there should be an appeal to the generosity and magnanimity of Texas, and after her to the United States, and that they might make something, and could lose nothing by that course. In that way it is that these claimants have not only multiplied, but they have become more urgent in their pursuit for gain, and are now resolved that nothing will satisfy them but the hundred cents on the dollar, according to the face of the paper.

Well, sir, Texas has incurred liability. She issued bonds to a certain amount. Let her pay those bonds with interest, since she made a tender of them in the market. Let her pay for her vessels-of-war or navy; let her pay all the just contracts she has made; all the equitable liabilities arising from the currency which she threw into circulation. That currency became valueless in the hands of her own citizens, and was then grasped at by greedy speculators. Let her treat them, as she has done, with justice and fairness. It was twice in prospect to repudiate the debt of Texas. But did she do it? It was talked of, and a little encouragement might have produced the result. The conduct of the refractory creditors had no doubt stimulated it. But Texas did not repudiate a cent. Her Executive discountenanced it. It may be that an extract will be read here from the message of her Executive, in 1843, showing that she would pay the last cent which she justly owed. So she will. But if that message is read, let it be remembered that not a word of the extract is recognized until the whole message is produced here upon the floor, and the whole instrument construed together. It was then laid down as a principle that the Government of Texas would equitably redeem every dollar that she owed.

She had evinced a disposition to do it by submitting her public lands to entry at two dollars per acre when her notes were selling at three cents on the dollar; and she had kept them open for years subject to entry at that rate. She has gone further, and says it will be just to redeem money issued at a depreciation