WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1850
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none. We have had the same boundary from first to last. We commenced our existence as a nation with a declared boundary; we maintained it in the revolution for eight years, and contended for that boundary when the United States were substituted in place of Texas, and the contest was going on for the attainment of that boundary. None other was ever thought of; and when the United States extended their conquest beyond the declared boundary of Texas embracing it, it seemed natural that so soon as the boundary she claimed was acquired, it should be at once accorded to her, and all difficulties should be erased. This is all she has looked for, and not for money; nor for any particular sum, because her Senators could not accept it. The honorable Senator says he does not blame us for that; of course he intends to cast no reflection. I must confess that in politics, morals, or in ethics, I have not been conversant; but if I were, upon a great occasion like the present, to govern my action by the amount of money given, without reference to the general justice of the transaction, I should feel I was a reproach to the community which I represent. I trust the Senators from Texas have been governed, and will be governed by higher motives than pecuniary consideration. Texas's necessities have been presumed upon, and it is thought she is very poor indeed. I grant it; but she is sufficiently prepared to meet her necessities. She does not expect to realize anything from whatever sum may be acquired. It may lighten her taxes at home; but, Mr. President, it will not enrich Texas if you were to give her twenty millions, and her national debt amounted to that. The United States would be the benefi- ciaries of her achievements; for the national debt is consequent upon the revolution by which she was enabled to become a part of this Union. So really, I do not know of any pecuniary benefit to result to Texas, after she has put the money in her pocket. She has given in advance whatever she might receive, and has experienced the inconvenience incident to her peculiar situation. She could have repudiated her debts if she had been disposed to do so. Certainly it is a practical contradiction to assert that her Senators here, and her Legislature at home, can be influenced by a pecuniary consideration, •and she has been governed by a loose morality that does not hold her to the rules of common honesty. Sir, if she had been regardless of her honor, truth, and pledges, she had illustrious examples of the richest and most illustrious nations of the earth; she could have repudiated her debt, and assimilated her conduct to some of her sisters. The United States,
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