161
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
military matters, it will not do for me to follow h1m in judicial matters. 1 Congressional Globe, A1>ven.dix, XXII, 857-858. Houston's speech was in 1·eply to one made by Mr. Shield on the Compromise Bill of 1850. In fact, Houston made several long speeches, which follow in this volume, during the long debate on the Compromise of 1850, in which the boundary of Texas was one of the provisions. Two rather brief but highly documented accounts of the Texas boundary controversy are to be found: (1) W. J. Spillman, "Adjustment of the Texas Boundary in 1850," in The Qua1·te1·ly of the Texas State Historical Association, VII, 177-195; (2) W. C. Binkley, "The Ques- tion of Texan Jurisdiction in New Mexico under the United States, 1848- 1850," in Southwesteni Historical Quarterly, XXVI, 1-38. These well docu- mented accounts verify in detail practically all of the statements made by Houston in his speeches on this question. See also, The Senate Jom·1w.l of the Texcts Suite Legislcitu.1·e, for the second and third legislatures, passim; and Gammel, Lciws of Texas, III, 50, 464-465. A SPEECH ON THE TEXAS BOUNDARY QUESTION, JUNE 13, 1850 1 Mr. Houston. Mr. President I have entertained great anxiety for the progress of the business of the Senate, and it is therefore with great reluctance that I intrude myself in this discussion, but some remarks have fallen from an honorable gentleman this morning respecting Texas, which, as a co-representative of that State, I cannot permit to pass without notice. My silence might be deemed submission to an indignity. The honorable Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] has thought proper to give an opinion upon the title of Texas to the boundary which she claims, and we have been asked to show the authority by which that boundary has been claimed. I will · not enter into the discussion of that subject after the arguments which have been submitted by gentlemen who have participated in this debate, amongst whom is my very able colleague, who has left nothing for me to say. If he has failed to convince the Senator from New York, I certainly do not> expect to succeed in convincing him, that the title of Texas extends beyond the Sabine. Yet, sir, the Government of the United States must be placed in peculiar circumstances in relation to the national honor, if Texas has not a claim even beyond the Nueces. It was not objected after the annexation of Texas to the United States that Corpus Christi was then a territory of Texas; and it will be admitted that the war grew out of the position taken by Mexicans opposite Matomoros on the Rio Grande. But, sir, Texas was annexed with her declared boundaries of the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source. No question then
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