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TEXAS STATE LIBRA.RY
·when I reflect upon the invaluable rights which Texas will have to yield up with the surrender of her Independence-the right of making either war or peace; the right of controlling the Indian tribes within her borders; the· right of appropriating her public domain to purposes of education and· internal improvements; of levying her own taxes; regulating her own commerce and forming her own alliances and treaties-when I view her divested of the most essential attributes of free government; reduced to the level of an unfelt fraction of a giant power; or peradventure divided into Territorial districts, with Governors and judges and excise men appointed from ab-road to administer laws which she had no adequate voice in enacting, and to gather imposts for the benefit of those who- levy them-when I look upon her, as she soon will be, the cornucopia of the world, pouring her abundant treasures into the lap of another people than her own; a tributary vassal to ·remote and uncongenial communities; communities as widely separated from her in pursuits. as in distance, who are known to be opposed to her peculiar and essential interests, and who are daily sending forth their denuncia- tions against her from the fire-side, the pulpit .and the council cham- ber; and when I bear in mind that all this sacrifice of rights and dignity and character is to be made, for what! for the privilege of going into a union in which she carries we.alth without proportional influence-for the glo-ry of identifying her fortunes with a govern- ment in which a large portion of the inhabitants are alarmed for the safety of the very institution upon which her own hopes of happiness· are based; a government emhr.acing conflicting interests and irrecon- cilable prejudices with lasting causes of domestic quarrel, where· Texas can hope for nothing but a participation in the strifes that distract the public councils, and [.after] passing through many throes and convulsions be the means perhaps of producing or accel- erating an awful catastrophe which none could be more ready to avert or sincerely deplore than herself-when I reflect upon these,. the inevitable .and fatal consequences of the proposed connection, and then turn from the dark and dreary picture to the contempla- tion of the high destiny that awaits our country: the great pros~ perity which lies within her attainment if sh [e] will but appreciate her natural advantages, and not part with the right of developing and controling her incalculable resources: when I view her vast extent of territory, stretching from the Sabine to the Pacific and' away to the South vVest as far as the obstinacy of the enemy may render it necessary for the sword to make the boundary; embracing the most delightful climate and the richest soil in the world, and behold it all in the state of high cultivation and improvement-her mountains of minerals yielding their vast treasures to the touch of industry; her luxuriant pastures alive with flocks and herds, and' her wide fields whitening with .a staple commodity, in the produc- tion of which she can have no rival; with the whole world for her market; and then consider the noble purposes to which this immense· and exhaustless wealth may be applied, in adorning,and beautifying the country, providing for its safety and defence, endowing institu- tions for the spread of virtue, knowledge and the arts, and carrying· to the door of every citizen of the Republic, peace, plenty, and pro-
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