[17651 [SMlTH to COUNClL]
Executive Department of Texas. the President, and ~!embers of the Lemslative "
To the Honorable, Council: Gcntlemen:-
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The communication sent to your body on the tenth inst., in which I used much asperity of lanuuaac, which I considered at the . d " " hme was calle for from me; owing to what I deemed improvident acts of your body, in which I considered much intri~ue and duplicity had been used, which was in their nature and t~ndcncy calculated lo breed confusion and greatly injure the public good. Among other things the appointment of Colonel Fannin, was one which 1 deemed unwarranted by law and of injurious tendency. If the act of your body was ratified by me, it is plain and evident, that neither the Commander-in-Chief, the Council, nor the Executive, could have any control over him. l therefore deemed it a gross insult offered by the Council to my Department, and one which l was not willing to overlook. l admit that I repelled it with a keem1ess and ssperity of language beyond the rules of decorum; because I believed it was certainly intended as an insult direct. If therefore your body should think proper to acknowledge their error by an immediate correction of it, which I consider would only be their reasonable duty, all differences between the two Departments should cease; and so far as I am concerned be forever buried in oblivion. And that friendly and harmonious intercourse resumed which should ever exist between the different branches of the Government. I suggest and solicit this from the purest motives, believing the public good would thereby be advanced. Believing that the rules of Christian charity require of us to bear and forbear, and as far as possible to overlook the errors and foibles of each other. In this case I may not have exercised towards your body that degree of forbearance which was probably your due. If so, I have been laboring under error, and as such hope, you will have the magnanimity to extend it to me. And the two branches again harmonize to the promotion of the true interests of the country.
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I am respectfully gentlemen, Yours &c. Henry Smith, Governor
[January 12, 1836]
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