Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/593

Rh All these stupendous and vile objects were sought to be accomplished through the subserviency of Judge Watrous' court, and by the aid of the corrupt appliances he possessed. The whole conspiracy centered in him; and for the sum of all its wrongful acts he is to be held responsible.

How shall this fearful responsibility be exacted? This honorable body can not do it; it can not administer the punishment, or series of punishments, that the black record calls for. But although it can not visit a felon's doom upon the culprit, it may banish him from the offices of the State. The least it can do is to deprive of further opportunities of further wrongs a judge who has disgraced his station and defiled his ermine and stricken dismay in the hearts of the people. This is all that is asked for: simply that Judge Watrous' opportunities, as a judicial officer, of continuing with impunity his offenses, may be limited by the passing of the bill I have offered. And in making this least request, I appeal for your compliance in the name of a noble, outraged people; and in the name of interests which are even higher in their appeal to you — those of the honor of this Government as residing in the character of our federal judiciary.

Mr. President, I shall for only a few moments longer occupy the attention of the Senate. This has been a most extraordinary case. It is one that appeals to the integrity, to the consideration, and to the reflection of the Senate. These disclosures of criminality, the evidence furnished by his confederates, the extraordinary character of his judicial decisions, his tyranny, his unprecedented despotism in judicial action — all these things seem to present it as the only alternative that we should get rid of this man in some way.

Why, sir, the temptations of twenty-four million acres of public domain and the corrupting influences of a combination so extensive and extraordinary as this has been, are calculated to engulf all the interests of the State. There is a mode of remedy that has heretofore been resorted to, and can be again. By consolidating the two judicial districts of Texas into one, we can get rid of this intolerable incubus; we can divest ourselves of this calamity. Texas, in all that she has ever felt in her days of extreme excitement to the present day, has never felt so keenly the afflictions of revolution as she feels this moral curse and this judicial iniquity upon her. She has passed through many trials, but none that compare to this. This promises an interminable duration: we know not when we are to get rid of it. Twenty-four million acres of land ! there is magic in its sound — magic in the number of acres. It is a kingdom; it is an empire worth fighting for; and it will be fought for; and it admits of divisions and subdivisions. Where it is to go, through what ramifications it is to run, no one knows. No one knows the artifice that is now used, and the means that are to be employed in these and other speculations in Texas referred to. Sir, rid us of this man; give us an honest judicial officer. The people of Texas, of AngloSaxon descent, are an honest people. It is that which causes them to feel this curse with tenfold wretchedness. They are not capricious. No other people, with the manifest outrages that have been there committed, would tolerate this man to sit on a judicial bench, and to remain in a position where he could soil his ermine, and attach infamy to his office. Sir, our people have been always submissive to law, or enough of them to maintain