WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 185,t
488
You will find that all treaties have been violated by double dealing of those who were sent to negotiate with them. Now, can these people be sustained in their political institutions, and in their civil rights? They can. You can receive from each nation of the four I have numbered, a Delegate upon the floor of the House of Representatives, and one Delegate to the Senate, to tell their wants and to understand more thoroughly our insti- tutions, so that they will be enabled more exactly to copy them, and perfect their own; and one quarter of a century, progressing as they have done for the last century, will render them fit associates for any people or any community of men. This can be done; and it rests with the American people to say whether they will aid and sustain them. Their intelligence recommends them to your consideration; and the benefits derived from inter- course with them, and the acquisition of their territory, have imposed obligations upon us towards those people which we can only redeem by sustaining, upholding, and cherishing every high impulse they possess, and giving it maturity and perfection. This can be done with the civilized portion of our border brethren. I alluded yesterday to the frontier Indians, and the probability of civilizing them by an expenditure much less than is required by our garrisons. There is one man within my knowledge, who, with one thousand men, armed and equipped as he would suggest, in New Mexico and T'exas-from his chivalry, for he is as brave as Pyrrhus-from his integrity, for he is as just as Aristides- from his sagacity, for it is equal to any emergency-can civilize every border Indian in the course of ten years, if you will give him the means that can be withdrawn from other branches of expenditure and appropriate it to that purpose. I refer to Ben McCullough, 2 the Texas ranger, a man whose thoughts soar as high as Heaven, and whose impulses would adorn the proudest character that ever lived in the annals of history. He can accomplish all this. I never conversed with him on the subject; but I know his properties of heart, his readiness of hand, his man- liness of soul. Here, Mr. President, I shall terminate my remarks on the subject of the Indians. I leave them to the vague and uncertain future. What kindness and justice the American people may exercise toward them is in the obscurity of the future. All that I can do is to invoke that beneficent spirit which prompts us, on some occasions, to extend them justice and right.
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