WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1850
163
of people, she has asserted her right. She has no claim to advance. Her right has been asserted from the very beginning of the independence of Texas. The Executive of the United States and the nominal delegate from New Mexico are, I believe, the most ostensible personages that have alleged that Texas has set up a claim to this territory. An adverse claim to the right of Texas has been set up, but Texas has set up no claim adverse to any other. She has asserted no claim which she did not contend for through years of revolution. If Mexico, at any period in the Texan revolutionary conflict, had offered, if Texas would re- linquish her title to the country beyond the Nueces, to recognize her sovereignty and independence, Texas would have spurned it; every man within her borders that had a heart would have bit the dust in defence of that territory. And now it is said that she has set up a claim. Trace her history down to annexation, and that right remains unchanged and undisputed by Mexico. Her contest was for the Sabine boundary, and never for the Nueces; but she subsequently ceded the right of Texas to all the territory east of the Rio Grande. The honorable gentleman from New Jersey, the other day, appeared to think that the Central Gov- ernment-yes, sir, the Central Government, which means, I suppose, the Government at Washington-had power and right, and of right ought to expel Texas from her territory, if she were in peaceable possession of what is called New Mexico. He appeared to think that the troops of the United States should expel them under the direction of the Federal, or as he styled it, the Central Government. That is an ungracious word to Texas ears. Texas, so far as I am acquainted with her history, has never threatened violence to the officers of the United States, nor has she threatened to take the territory [in New Mexico] by force. She sent her commissioner, a single individual, unguarded-not a corporal's guard with him-and the people of New Mexico have acquiesced in the authority of Texas, conveyed by that single individual.2 But will the honorable gentleman say that his lan- guage conveyed no menace, no vaunting, no threat to Texas? Sir, we were told that if we attempted to take possession of our borders, and to fill what had been our claim from our inception of a nation, we should find a lion in our path. But we have met no lion; we have met no adversary hunting without our borders. We have not been a warlike people, but we have resisted aggression and repelled injury, when it was attempted to be
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