WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1853
377
Congress, by a mere dictum of the Executive. The arms and munitions of war of the country were entirely expended in that expendition; and accumulated expenditures were bequeathed to the succeeding Administration. Thus issues to the amount of millions were made without authority, and they became value- less. In December, 1841, Texas suspended payment because she was then unable to pay her debts. But here let me ask, Who are these creditors who now come forward with such plaintive appeals to this body? Who are they who are imploring the commiseration of Senators: "Help us or we sink"? Are they men who were sufferers by the Texan revo- lutionary struggle? or are they men who speculated upon the individuals who went through the toils and dangers of that revolution? These promissory notes depreciated in the hands of men who had toiled and fought in the revolution, men who had there given their services and their energies to the cause of independence. In their hands the notes depreciated until they became valueless. They were then thrown upon the market, they were seized upon by speculators. At auctions, in the streets of our cities and villages, they were submitted to public sale and cried off at from three cents to five cents, "Going, going, gone." Then it was that these speculators came in and secured their claims to the generosity and clemency of Texas, and the feeling and commiseration of this body! There were no bonds sold in market for what they would bring; but these were promissory notes sold for a mere song under the auctioneer's hammer, and "in quantities to suit purchasers," for they were piled up as large as cotton bales. When they were cried up till they reached about three cents on the dollar, they would be knocked down to the bidder, and he would be told to go and select from the pile as many as he wanted; he might take a bundle as large as a cotton bale. That is the way in which these evidences of debt were obtained. These are the liabilities for which gentlemen claim a hundred cents on the dollar, and which were acquired at the rate of from one to three or five cents on the dollar. No doubt gentlemen in the United States thought the prospect was very fine; they knew that the Texans were descended from the Anglo- Saxon stock, and that they would maintain their liberty in defiance of every difficulty; for the American race never re- treated nevei· took one step backwards; and that from the day they had impressed their footsteps upon a perilous soil, they
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