395
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
our country; The Cherokees were driven from the country, after·sus- taining two signal defeats, in which the power of our arms was made conspicuous over the boasted prowess of an impudent race having been flattered by the success of their past audacity had vainly hoped to find ns thev had hitherto done securitv in the weakness of the Govt. or the fear,: ~f the people. Bowles the "Chief agent in the foul machinations against us, atoned for his perfidy with his life. Merited chastisemts have also been inflicted upon the various other offensive tribes, [Endorsed] Lamar Rough draft 39 of speech at public dinner given in his honor- defending his policy The charge of Extravagance has been frequently preferred against my Administration. Holding as I do, that the Executive is properly re- sponsib[le] to his Constituents for every act of his administration I cannot regard with indiference any charge however insincere may be its immediate authors & unjust the charge itself which has a semblance of truth, & may be converted by the artifices of selfish men, into a cause for dissatisfaction among the people. There is no one subject within the range of govertal [sic] operations on which the people are more justly and wisely jealous than that of the disbursements of the public funds, and there is none perhaps in which public agents are more prone to err. But an intelligent people will always discriminate between a useful and a prodigal expenditure-between an honest and a corrupt application of the national revenues- That the expenses of the Govt. for the last eighteen months have exceed.ed those of an equal preceding period there is no doubt. But you gentlemen need not to be informed that adequate pecuniary means are as necessary to the benificial operations of a government as to the suc- cessful prosecution of individual enterprise-Within the last year & a half much has been done to render Texas secure at home and respectable abroad. Our foreign relations have been extended; the curtaim of our tents have been enlarged; our settlemts have spread out over a wider surfase; and our means of defense or of assault have been greatly per- fected & increased. The hostile Indians have been chastised & driven back to deeper wilds; much of what was lately a harrassed & blood stained frontier where the tomahawk of the savage was often bathed in the blood of mothers & infants is now reposing in safety; while our adventurous pioneers are stretching their fields & planting the standard of civilization amidst the familiar haunts of these beings of fierce & stealthy spirit. But Indians cannot be chastised & driven back, nor the lives of our actual jurisdiction be extended without incurring some additional costs. The multiplication & enlargemt of the civil func- tions of the Governmt renders a proportional increase of expenditures indispensible ;-and every advance of the country in organic improvemt or extension of dominion, is necessarily attended with additional ex- pense- Such succinctly are some of the causes which have inevitably produced 39 An:other rough draft, dealing altogether with tb.e Cherokees, is included in no. 1805a, but is not published here for the reason that it is in a large measure a repetition of the above, and further because it is included in Lamar'.s address to the people of Galveston, no. 1810.
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