THE AUSTIN PAPERS 573 titled to the previledges enjoyed by other foreigners settled in this province i For some years the strangers residing in more favoured parts of the State have had their courts legally constituted by which their judicial procedings were entitled to respect, they have been made the rightful proprietors of the soil they cultivate, they exercize the right of suffrage at elections, and have representatives in the legislative counsels of the Nation. In a word they enjoy all the civil rights which the Municiple laws of this nation permit to be exerised by foreigners. But not so with us. Our judicial procedings altho just, yet they are arbitrary, and that from necessaty. Although we cultivate the soil, yet we are at will. Although our civil rights have been suspended since the day we first set our feet on the soil of Mexico, yet we have been faithful to her political institutions Always ready to defend her cause when defence was necessary, and obedient to her laws when her laws were made lmown. These are incontrovertable facts known to your self and also to many worthy J\iiexicans who have traveled among us. But we complain not nor attribute our misfortune to any willful neglect on the part of the Govt. but solely consider it the result of unforeseen, and therefore unavoidable accidents. If I had not considered myself authorised by your favor of the 17th of Novbr. to communicate with you on the subject of the organization of the local government of Trinity and Naches. I should have been totally silent, but conceiving the correspondence already opened and that by one of the constitutional representa- tives of the people, I consider myself under the greatest obligations for the honour you have thought fit to confer by asking my opi[ni]on on the subject now alluded to, and should consider myself liable to great reproach if I should refuse to answer fully and freely on a subject of such vital importance to the political existence of this dist. I would therefore, with due respect, suggest the following mode of organization for this section of country. Let there be a court of equal grade, power, and authority, with those of other jurisdictions of the state, legally established. If other courts or Ayuentamentos possess the power of framing police regulations let this possess the same but this kind of power should be but sparingly given to any court for there is always danger where legislative and judicial powers are vested in the same hands, and the power of passing police laws is clearly a legislative power so far as it extends The limits of this jurisdiction should include the teritory bounded by the following lines (To wit) begining at the mouth of the sabine River thence runing up the same to the dividing ground ·between
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