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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
coming out of the revolutionary war, repudiated her national debt; and Texas, in imitation, having greater difficulties to sur- mount, and a sparce population to contribute to the payment of her debts, might, with similar propriety, have repudiated her debts. But, sir, she scorned to do it, as much as she now seems to traffic, unworthily, her honor and her right for pecuniary con- sideration. She has nothing .to sacrifice. It is her boundary she asks-not your millions. Keep them if you choose, but give her her boundaries. Is she, I would ask the honorable Senator, an impediment to the admission of California? Or is California an impediment to the recognition of the rights of Texas? California has just rights to admission. But did not Texas, by a voluntary connec- tion with this Government, establish a prior claim upon its con- sideration and its justice? I think she did, Mr. President, and she asks not to postpone California; she asks that her rights may be accorded to her, and her boundary fixed; and if it is proposed here to give all of New Mexico to Texas, we do not want it, unless it is justly accorded to us. We never claimed anything else; and, if it is referred to commissioners, we have no intimation what their decision will be-whether they will give us our territory, or whether they will give us fifty or a hundred millions of dollars. If my colleague has asked for it, I am not apprised of it from any intimation of his. We ask our boundaries, and the people of the State of Texas demand their boundaries; and, although the hon- orable Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Clay,] has said that the United States, if Texas attempted to take possession of that, pending the negotiation, would be repelled-a sovereign State that has always borne herself with becoming humility and de- ference to the paternal Government, to the Government of the confederated States, it is a menace, I say, as unseemly as it will be unavailing. We have set up no arrogant contensions; we do not intend to do it; Texas will not do it; but she understands her rights, and she asks for justice; and her declaration, once made and resolved upon, once fixed, she will not be driven from it by Federal bayonets. They are for the protection of her rights, and not to strike her down. You may crush her if you will, but she will be Texas still. She will acquire a new existence, and every lash you give her will only make her more sensitive to apprehended flagelation and chastisement. Already bas the lash been applied, and she has borne it meekly. She has had recourse to remon- strance, but not to threats. She has already, as she supposes,
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