278
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1833
mysterious reverence for the nuptial tie which its votaries by it alone had the right to celebrate, to censure, or to disabuse, added to their nauseious and repulsive practise of taking confessions, have ever been a fruitful and never ending source of domestic strife in all countries that have followed its precepts. ·And those frauds engendered and promoted by themselves they have not failed to declare the accomplishment of the decrees of divine justic that a mysterious God was exercising his incomprehensive judgment, a secret malediction against the desputants for some yet undiscovered sins, etc. Thus these officiates at the altar were continually inventing fresh absurdities for their ambition and cupidity to feed upon. And thus the sanctuary of Hymen has been polluted by the carnival of rant and jargon. But it belongs to the present enlightened age to confound the declamatory sor- ceries of false wisdom and hypocritical piety and avenge man his detractors and culminators. And also to cast all such imposi- tions into the general mass of antiquated delusions, as totally in- consistent with the present defined state of individual right. Happy for Texas she is yet untrammeled and unbound by the fetters of precedent. What population is more suited to adopt a liberal cause than ours? What men more likely to be awakened to habits of cortect and independent thought than those who have felt the stimulating touch of adversity? Texas can look with in- difference to the lumbering tones of ancient jurisprudence as in- applicable to the unsophisticated administration of justice in a community of republicans. If she is wise she will look rather to the temper, the habits and genius of her people than to the an- tiquated, unpopular and preposterous doctrines of trans-Atlantic judges. If she pursues an enlightened and liberal policy, she will bring to her bosom the industrious, the talented, the high-minded, the independent of all nations. Then shall we see cultivated farms, frequented roads, numerous stock, abundant crops, crowded habitations and enlightened seminaries of learning which are the solid demands that constitute the glory and felicity of man. But your petitioner deems it unnecessary to go further into the doctrines and practices of the canon law or dwell longer on ele- mentary principles, the latter of which he is confident are alto- gether in his favor. He is willing to rest his application mainly on the length of time that has elapsed since the separation, all conclusively showing the impossibility of a reunion.
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