WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1853
385
been a most extraordinary change. If it had not been that the compromise of 1850 passed, the Texas creditors would nearly all have received their money, or their proportion of it, by this time, and would have been at rest and quiet, each man consoling him- self in the advantage of having made a handsome speculation upon his adventure. But it was thought proper that there should be an appeal to the generosity and magnanimity of Texas, and after her to the United States, and that they might make something, and could lose nothing by that course. In that way it is that these claimants have not only multiplied, but they have become more urgent in their pursuit for gain, and are now resolved that nothing will satisfy them but the hundred cents on the dollar, according to the face of the paper. Well, sir, Texas has incurred liability. She issued bonds to a certain amount. Let her pay those bonds with interest, since she has a tender of them in the market. Let her' pay for her vessels-of-war or navy; let her pay all the just contracts she has made; all the equitable liabilities arising from the currency which she threw into circulation. That currency became value- less in the hands of her own citizens, and was then grasped at by greedy speculators. Let her treat them, as she has done, with justice and fairness. It was twice in prospect to repudiate the debt of Texas. But did· she do it? It was talked of, and a little encouragement might have produced the result. The conduct of the refractory creditors had no doubt stimulated it. But Texas did not repudiate a cent. Her executive discountenanced it. It may be that an extract will be read here from the message of her Executive, in 1843, showing that she would pay the last cent which she justly owed. So she will. But if that message is read, let it be remembered that not a word of the extract is recognized until the whole message is produced here upon the floor, and the whole instrument construed together. It was then laid down as a principle that the Government of Texas would equitably redeem every dollar that she owed. She had evinced a disposition to do it by submitting her public lands to entry at two dollars per acre when her notes were selling at three cents on the dollar; and she had kept them open for years subject to entry at that rate. She has gone further, and says it will be just to redeem money issued at a depreciation at the full value at which it issued from the treasury, with interest thereon. That is the act of Texas. W1rnt the refractory conduct of her creditors may do with the feelings of Texas I can
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