WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1836
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and not for the attainment of a Nation's glory, or an honorable peace, and believing that the system of " privateering" is a war- fare of that description- and keeping in view the example of the United States of the North, and Great Britain, the most en- lightened and civilized Nations of the world-Therefore I Sam Houston, President of the Republic aforesaid, by the authority in me vested do hereby ordain and declare all such " Letters of Marque and Reprisal," and all commissions and au- thorities touching the same, to be and the same are hereby sus- pended. And all persons holding, or having received such "Letters of Marque & Reprisal" or any commission or other authority touch- ing the same, are hereby commanded and required to return the same, and report themselves within Forty days from this date to the Secretary of the Navy of this Republic. Done at Columbia this sixteenth day of December, 1836 and in the Year of the Republic the First. Sam Houston · [ Endorsed] : Proclamation Recalling Letters of Marque 16th Deer. 1836. [ Another copy identical with the above except that it bears the following endorsement] : Copy Proclamation Recalling Let- ters of Marque 16th Deer. 1836 Countersigned S. Rhoads Fisher~ Secy of the Navy. 1 "Proclamations of the Presidents," Congressional Pa.pcrs, Texas State Library. Tclegrciph and Tcxa.s Rcgistc,·, December 17, 1836. ~Samuel Rhoads Fisher. See Houston to the Senate, October 26, 1836. VETO OF THE POST OFFICE BILL 1 Executive Department, Columbia, 17th Dec. 1836. To the Honorable Senate and House of RepresentatiVes: GENTLEMEN: The bill establishing the Post Office Depart- ment has been presented to me for my approval and signature. The bill is incompatible with my opinion relative to the spirit and intention of the constitution, and unsafe to the interests of the country. It provides that the post master general shall be elected by joint ballot of both houses of congress. By the institutions of the United States, to which it was the intention of the members of the convention to assimilate those of Texas, gives to the Presi- dent of the United States the right of nominating the post master
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