to us west of the Rocky mountains. Those who governed had seen, in their day, the savage of the valley of the Mississippi conquered, and its forests give way to the Western rifleman as the harvest to the sickle; and they wisely calculated that the same results would attend the employment of similar means. The consequence was, that from 1821 to 1835, there were drawn from the United States to the province of Texas some seventy thousand of our citizens, who permanently settled there, and this under the stTongest legal guaranties for the protection of life, liberty, and property. . In 1824, the Federal constitution of the Mexican States was adopted, ours being taken for a model. State constitutions were adopted, in substance the same as our own. The spirit of freedom was then truly abroad; and the power and influence of the monarchists, sustained by the priests, but lately armed with the terrible authority of the inquisition, were overwhelmed. The tyrant's will and the inquisition were no more; and he who, for cenh1ries, had been a degraded out-cast and slave, scourged by the Spaniard like ·the beast of the field, the Mexican native, was admitted to the enjoyment of a portion of his political rights. Our institutions were studied and imitated; our statesmen sought and consulted; our people were caressed; the migratory and restless temper of our ":estern population was encouraged, and, by the most seductive means, they were induced to abandon their own country, in large numbers, and settle in Texas. Contracts for the settlement of families, in numbers of from one hundred to eight . hundred, were made with almost any of our citizens who would apply for the privilege, the contTactor receiving large bounties in lands for his exertions and agency in furnishing the settlers. These contractors, denominated empresarios, were Government agents, and, as such, set forth the institutions of the country as highly just, free, and liberal: and so, indeed, were they at that period. Under these sanctions was Texas settled; and had the Federal and State constitutions continued in force, no cause, on the part of the colonists, would have existed for a change of Government. But the bland yet insidious means which once made the Jesuits masters of Spanish America, had again brought into the ascendant the party of the priests and monarchists. They seduced to their interest General Santa Ana, the most popular military chief of the opposite party; and, by a successful battle, the Federal Government was seized upon, and in May, 1834, suppressed by a military order. A new Congress was decreed by the dictator and his party to assemble, arlitrarily made up of their friends, which acted as the instTument of the usurpers, registering and issuing, in its own name, the
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