Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/561

 of his especial advocates, to explain the feeling that prompted the passage of these resolutions, by the fact that he had given an unpopular decision on the statute of limitations. Indeed, Judge Watrous, in his printed answer to the charges assigned against him, adopts this preposterous assertion as his principal defense, and appears to suggest that, instead of himself being the criminal, the people of Texas are so dishonest and depraved, that the standards of morality he has adopted in his court are too high for them to appreciate and conform to. The falsehood of this is only exceeded by the obliquity of the shameless man who utters it. In making such a statement in his answer, he knew that he was stating what was untrue in fact and false in spirit. And, further, I shall prove that he not only stated what was untrue, but was constrained to convict himself of it before the committee that inquired into his conduct.

In his answer to which I have reference, Judge Watrous has the effrontery to assert that his ruling in the case of the Union Bank vs. Stafford, on the statute of limitations, brought upon him the censure and denunciation conveyed in the resolutions of the Legislature. This was worse than puerility, for it proved to be utterly untrue. The Stafford suit was not even instituted until some months after the resolutions had been passed by the Legislature.

This essential fact Judge Watrous thought to suppress; but when the committee called for witnesses from Texas, and he had reason to suppose that his falsehood would be detected, he was then fain to acknowledge it, and to make the humiliating and self-convicting request of the committee to withdraw his answer, committing him to the falsehood, from the files, so that he might suppress the public evidence of his infamy, at least in this particular.

In 1852, the matter of the judge's nefarious dealings in fraudulent land certificates was brought to the attention of Congress, and this charge, among other matters of crimination, was assigned against the judge in a memorial of William Alexander, a citizen of Texas. Only three witnesses, however, out of twenty-one tasked for by the prosecution, were sent for, and these three not witnesses to any one of the specifications pending against the judge. The committee reported the evidence insufficient; the House failed to act in any way on the matter, and the facts, therefore, of the case, remained undeveloped and occult, and the justice of it unvindicated.

The Legislature of Texas, at its last session, instructed the Representatives of that State to urge the trial of Judge Watrous on all the charges against him; and in obedience to these instructions the Hon. Mr. Reagan, who in part represents the State in the other branch of Congress, had the memorial of Mr. Alexander taken from the files, and referred to the Judiciary Committee for investigation. Mr. Reagan urged an investigation of the charges contained in that memorial; and in his speech in the House, on that subject, states: "I also offered to the committee to make the charge against Judge Watrous, that he had sold three fraudulent league certificates to a gentleman by the name of Lowe, of Illinois, for about six thousand dollars, when he knew the certificates to be fraudulent, void, and worthless; and when, by the laws of Texas, to sell such certificates was a crime of the grade of forgery, and punishable with a most ignominious penalty. And I proposed to prove this charge by a part of a record which I had from the district court for Galveston county, Texas, and by