Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/547

Rh in the proceedings of the other House, and before the committee of investigation, that reflections of the most unwarrantable character have been cast, not only upon the general character of Texas, but upon her citizens at large. In the first place, I find in the answer of Judge Watrous before the committee that he alleges these facts as the reason for the clamor which he contended was raised against him. He has the effrontery to affect a tone of injured innocence, and says: "I should have much more respect for the manliness which should have disclosed the real cause of the assault. As to the 'divers citizens' whose rights had been improperly invaded, they must, of course, be the defendants in the only two suits which I had tried. Can it for a moment be supposed that, in trying these two very ordinary suits, I could have been guilty of such enormous outrages as to call for or to justify this anomalous and this clandestine mode of procedure? The mystery is solved by the simple fact that the decision of one of the cases involved the construction of the statute of limitations, to which so many of the emigrants to Texas had looked as a sure and certain protection against those creditors whom they had left behind, and who were so unreasonable as to follow them into the country of their adoption, and commence suits upon the liens which had been created upon the property to secure the payment of these debts. It was, indeed, a just subject of complaint that the statute of limitations was not declared to be a sponge to wipe out all the debts of the citizens of Texas, If I had put the construction on the statute required by the exigencies of the case and the popular cry; if I could have been driven from my position by any of the means resorted to; if I had consented to surrender my reason and my judgment, and to tamper with my conscience and my oath, these resolutions would never have been heard of; and I should have glided smoothly down the stream cf popular favor, and have been enabled to taste the 'froth from every dip of the oar.' "

I find also in the Globe that a most zealous speech was made in advocacy of Judge Watrous by a gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Tappan], and that, in debating the subject of impeachment when the resolutions were under discussion in the House, he not only retracted a former judgment of Judge Watrous' guilt, but sought to protect him by indulging in aspersions upon the State and citizens of Texas, who were his accusers. This uncalled-for and wicked defamation, made before the country, calls for reply and for rebuke. The gentleman, with others who were interested with him in the defense of Judge Watrous, showed such utter disregard of the facts as to assert that the resolutions of the State urging the resignation of the judge, "grew out of the fact of a decision made by him, which touched the pockets of a good many citizens of Texas."

I request the close attention of honorable Senators to a history which it is now time to divulge, of one of the most extraordinary and monstrous conspiracies ever formed by the ingenuity of man, and under the incitements of plunder. I design to make a full and authentic exposẻ, which circumstances now call for, of a conspiracy against the public domain of Texas, of the most enormous designs, conceived in the most grasping and comprehensive spirit of fraud, armed with the most extraordinary resources, enlisting talents and power, and all the ingenuities of intellect in its execution, and involved in its progressive steps, in