Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/472

 tails, and you have them. [Laughter.] You can not catch these fellows in that way. You can not get near enough to them; and there is the difficulty. But, sir, in order to sustain what I said in relation to officers of the army, I wish to read an extract from the last official report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior: "As heretofore reported to you, an association of persons has undertaken to appropriate to their own use a portion of the land ceded by the Delawares, fronting on the Missouri River, and south of Fort Leavenworth; have laid out a city thereon, and actually had a public sale of the lots of the same on the 9th and loth of October last. These unlawful proceedings have not only taken place under the eyes of the military officers stationed at the fort, but two of them are said to be members of the association, and have been active agents in this discreditable business. Encouraged by these proceedings, and prompted by those engaged in them, other persons have gone on other portions of the tract ceded by the Delawares in trust to the United States, and pretend to have made, and are now making, such ' claims ' as they assert will vest in them the lawful right to enter the land at the minimum price under the preemption law of July 22, 1854." There is the authority from which I drew my conclusions in relation to the conduct of those officers. I have not branded them with any opprobrious terms. If they are innocent, what I said can not injure them; if they are guilty, there is no condemnation too deep for them.

Mr. I hope the Senator from Texas will name the persons who have been guilty of the conduct to which he has alluded.

Mr. I have given the quotation from the official documents. I will tell the Senator the reasons why I referred to that transaction. In the first place, it was to demonstrate the fact that aggressions are committed upon the Indians; and is not this calculated to dissolve the bands of peace, and bring on war? In the next place, this country is under the control of the military; and why have they not restrained those people from such an outrage?

Mr. I move to take up the resolution I had the honor to submit some weeks since on the subject of a protectorate over Mexico and Central America; and I believe it is in order to offer some remarks on that motion.

Mr. I must say, in regard to that motion, that I shall have no objection to it, provided it will not supersede the consideration of the special order. When is the hour for its consideration?

pro tempore. At one o'clock.

Mr. Then I will say that of course I do not object to taking up the resolution, if at one o'clock we shall proceed with the special order.

Mr. I thought the deficiency bill was the special order for twelve and a half o'clock.