241
PAPEns 01!' MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
No. 831
1838 Oct- 10, T. J. GREEN TO J. A. WHARTON
Wilmington No. Ca. Octr. 10th. 1838.
My Dear Wharton, After sailing from Velasco on the 25th of AuguE:t, we were out 26 days to St. Marks Florida a,nd suffered every thing else than absolute S'trangling and was one of the few vessels not lossed in the long September gale. This unexpected delay will consequently throw me back and I shall not be able to reach Houston until the 20th to ·25th. next month- So far as I can learn from the tone of political feeling in the South, the application by Florida for admission this Winter a,nd its allmost certain rejection will bring about a crisis which will make this confederacy Two. Under these circumstances if admis- sion be still the voice of the people of 'l'exas ( which I doubt) the natural. question, is, whether our continuance of the application after a preemptory rejection, is not more detrimenta,l to our character and dignity, than by any possibility useful. · I am clearly of opinion you should unhesitatingly withdraw it. If you desire France and Great Britain to recognize you, withdraw it, and simultaneously with that withdrawal take the locks and Keys off your ports, leave them as open as when God made them, in the Same hour send a Minister to each, then all your points will be filled. Act thus and you a,ct wisely-the argument must be to the pocket of Great Britain, to the heart of France. It will indeed be a pickayune policy to Urge the want of reverence, against the abolition of your Tariff. ·what has your Tariff done for you? Has i_t restored your treasury circula,tion to a money value as was promised? Has it filled your public coffers? It has paid into your treasury a few thousand dollars of that stuff, which your Secretary may make in a hour and a like amount into the pockets of the Tax gatherers, whom are the only ones benefitted by the tribute. But its greatest home nuisance is, that it places a specious pretext in the hands of the merchant to extortion upon the cus- tomer in the prices of his goods-its greatest political objection is, that it levies 25 pr. cent upon British and 50 pr. cent upon French industry at the same time you are piteously holding forth your hands to those Nations to acknowledge your existance. l\Iost political economist contend, that the whole import tax is pa,id by the consumer-all agree, that the greatest portion is paid by that class. In Texas all are consumers. In fact it is a system poorly suited to the production of the raw material, and fit only for the protection of manufactures and tho robery rights of strong governments, You may very naturally ask, how are the annual expences of the government to be defrayed. To this I answer, that the co~fidence of all good men at home and friends abroad will rally to the stand- ard of the New a,dministration and give it a moral character and elevation which is commonly called national. faith, this with the proper appointment will procure you any amount of money from abroad; then we will be poorly entitled to the Name of a Nation,
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