177
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
_consideration of Congress, it is not her fault. She received the solemn pledge of this Government to fix her boundaries long before the acquisition of California; that acquisition has been consequent upon the annexation of Texas, and has grown out of it; and yet California comes forward, and now claims admission as a State. I shall not now express my views in relation to the course which I think ought to be pursued; I am here to vindicate the rights of Texas, and to urge them upon the attention of the American Senate. Feeble as my advocacy of them may be, her rights are most eloquent, and her claims are prior to those of California, and are not to be postponed. No, sir, there is an urgent reason why her rights should be at once considered, and why her bound- ary should be at once settled. Is it not all-important that a sovereign State, claiming rights from this Government, under its solemn pledges, should have justice meted out to her at the earliest moment? Is it unreasonable that she urges her demand? Not at all. Years have rolled away since she received the pledge of this Government to determine her rights, and yet gentlemen say that the war with Mexico has nothing to do with the Texas boundary. I take the liberty of assuring the gentleman from New York [Mr. Seward] that it had much to do with that ques- tion. Mexico declared that if Texas was annexed to the United States it would be cause of war. The work was consumated, and war ensued. I ask, then, if war had nothing to do with our bound- ary? Has it not brought vast acquisitions to our territory, embracing our boundary, and deciding it according to our stipu- lated limits? You have made Texas a bridge to march over to foreign conquests, and are you now longer to postpone the adjust~ ment of her rights? But how are these rights considered by the Executive of this nation? Is it thought fit to trample on Texas because she is young, or because she has not the thews and muscles and the sinews of older States to uphold her rights? Are her rights to be postponed or cloven down because, perchance, she might not agree with the Administration, and might not give to it the numerical support necessary to carry measures obnoxious to the nation? Sir, the prejudices of the Executive against Texas, to which I referred the other day, are most strikingly made manifest in his message to the Senate relative to the recent proceedings at Santa Fe; yes, sir, and even in her misfortunes, and humiliation as supposed by some, she is taunted by the Executive, and we are
Powered by FlippingBook