WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1850
158
it will not be contracting the limits of New Mexico, and it will be an advantage to Texas, and if it were to fall below the thirty- fourth parallel of north latitude, it would be curtailing the limits of Texas from that to El Paso. As to the authority relied upon by my honorable friend, I know the influence he has here, which seems to have been so great that the Senator from Kentucky was willing to take his bare opinion, his single say-so, against the right of a sovereign State of this Union, declaring and determining what our boundary is or ought to be, or rather declaring there shall be no boundary at all. I do not know even that the Sabine is admitted to be our boundary. That is what the Mexicans contended for, whilst we contended for the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source. Well, my honorable friend, I believe, never has professed jurisprudence. Now, if it were a point of military tactics, I would at once accede to him all that he could ask. If it were in relation to gallantry, chivalry, and noble bearing in the front of an enemy, or officiating in the onset, I would accede to him, and rejoice that he bore the palm before me. But when ,ve come to these nice and critical matters, I do not admit that he surpasses Chief Justice Marshall, or Judge Story, or Lord Mansfield, and I do not believe he thinks I disparage him in saying so, and especially when he hangs his opinion on the say so of the Delagate from New Mexico. I deny that we have any Delegate; or, if we have, I have not been informed of it in any of the newspapers, (though I do not go to newspapers for everything which I receive for truth.) I do not happen to know the names of those who sent the honorable Delegate here. But I have heard some testimony on this subject from Major Weight- man, a very respectable gentleman-a gentleman who is highly associated and connected-a gentleman of fine intelligence, and a lawyer. Whether the honorable Senator would like this opinion or not, I do not know. I will read from a letter of the Indian Agent at Santa Fe, which I find among the documents accom- panying the President's annual message: "Santa Anna, as Major Weightman informs me, decreed in 1834 that one born in Mexico was a Mexican citizen, and as such, was a voter, and that, therefore, all the Pueblo Indians were voters. But still the exercise of this privilege was not known prior to what is termed an election." "Termed an election." That, I suppose, is different from an election in ordinary law and usage.
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