Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/417

 at the full value at which it issued from the treasury, with interest thereon. That is the act of Texas. What the refractory conduct of her creditors may do with the feelings of Texas I can not say. Within a few years a total revolution has taken place in her population. The number of emigrants since annexation, I suppose has more than doubled or quadrupled the previous number of inhabitants. The interest on the money retained in the Treasury here will diminish the necessity of taxation by her. What her people may deem to be politic and expedient hereafter in relation to their debts I know not. I do not encourage repudiation. I hope it never will take place; but if it should, let those be accountable for the result who invoke and provoke their destiny. Let the sin lie at their doors. I hope it will never lie at the door of Texas; but those who have advanced, or who have contracts with her, shall be paid to the last farthing of what they have advanced.

A law was passed by the Legislature of Texas, after annexation to the United States, in 1848, by which it was provided, that any person coming forward and depositing fifty cents at the treasury of Texas, should take a receipt from the treasurer, and for every fifty cents received at the treasury he should be entitled to one acre of land. Certificates to the amount of more than half a million of dollars were deposited under this law, as I was informed, and land drawn, or land warrants issued, to that amount. These gentlemen have gone quietly and located their lands, and now realize several hundred per cent. How are the benefits of this bill to be extended to them.? How are they to be recompensed for the losses which they have sustained, according to the plan of this bill? Are they to fall back upon the United States? Are they to become recipients of the benefits proposed in this bill, or are they to be excluded?

But I am sure that the honorable gentleman who introduced this bill can not object to the principle of Texas scaling. She is to be the judge of her own matters. She knows very well under what circumstances the debts or liabilities were contracted. She knows their character perfectly; and we find that the honorable gentleman who introduced the bill has not determined to pay according to the face of the paper, or of the demands of the creditors; but he, too, is for scaling the liabilities. He proposes that a certain amount shall be paid, and that, if that does not cover all the liabilities, the creditors shall receive it according to the proportion of their demands, and shall give a receipt in full. Now, Mr. President, as for the morality of the thing, whether one cent or one dollar, one degree or ten degrees of discretion at all changes the standard of morality, I am not prepared to say. I think Texas is the best judge of this matter; so that the United States would incur an additional reproach upon herself, if she were, by this law, to take it out of the hands of Texas to adjust her own affairs. Texas knows what her liabilities are; she knows all the circumstances surrounding them, under which they grew up, under which they dragged along, and by which they were managed. She knows, too, the influences and the means of their acquisition. But she is not acquainted with the means and influences that surround this Capitol, and which grow every day. I know it is perilous, eminently perilous, to oppose an influence so overwhelming as that of the claimants here. I have stood in perilous positions before, but when I felt badly nobody knew it. I feel well on this occasion, and proud that I have a colleague who has realized all that experience could teach or suffering inflict. Personally, to those who are the Texas creditors. I have no objection. I look