Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/548

 a secrecy that would adorn a romance, and extending in its ramifications through different parts of the Union — I know not where.

The history I propose to recite, with strict adherence to the evidence in my possession, a part of which has been slumbering until this time, not designing to indulge in any assertions, or in any criminations not fully warranted by the text of the testimony. In the first place, it is necessary to explain the condition of the public domain of Texas, at the period when the history of the appalling conspiracy referred to commenced. In the year 1837, by a general law of Texas, large donations of land were made to those who had arrived and settled in the country previous to 1836, the date of her declaration of independence; to married men one league of land, and to those who were unmarried, one-third of a league. Under this law boards of land commissioners were appointed, whose duty it was to investigate all claims on the Government for head-rights to lands, and to grant certificates to such persons as furnished the requisite proofs of their being entitled to the same. Many of these boards betrayed their trust, and perpetrated frauds of the most alarming magnitude, assigning large numbers of certificates to fictitious persons. These frauds came to be of the most open and notorious character; so much so that cases could be instanced where, to counties not numbering more than one hundred voters, nine hundred certificates were issued by the fraudulent action of these boards. The amount of these false certificates reached at last to such an overwhelming number that on the 5th day of February, 1840, a law was enacted, visiting the most severe penalties on the crime of making, or issuing, or being concerned in the making or issuing any such fraudulent or forged certificates, and providing that those who issued, or dealt in, or purchased or located, or who were concerned in the issuing, or dealing in, or purchasing or locating, these fraudulent land certificates, should be punished by thirty-nine lashes on the bare back, and by imprisonment from three to twelve months, in the discretion of the judge. A law was passed about the same time, forbidding the survey of any land claimed under these certificates, until certified to be correct by other boards of commissioners, appointed to examine into and detect the frauds by which the bounty of the Republic had been abused, and an attempt made to despoil it of its domain.

Senators will be enabled, by the light of the legislation to which I have referred, to comprehend, on unimpeachable authority, the distressed and terrible condition of affairs in Texas, about the year 1840, with reference to her public lands. It is not necessary to accept the truth of the statement of the enormous and frightful frauds which threatened to devastate the Republic, robbing it of millions of acres of its public domain, on the faith of the popular clamor, or even on that of the general history of the time; for we have here the special and severe legislation of the State, attesting the justice of the public alarm, and defending her interests against the advances of the stupendous fraud that threatened to engulf the fortunes of herself and of her people. To this we may even add the high testimony of the Supreme Court of the United States, which at a subsequent date we find confirming the just causes of terror that had so agitated the Republic of Texas on the subject of these certificates, in the following terms : "Immense numbers of these certificates were put in circulation, either forged