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WRITINGS OF S.\M HOUSTON, 1837
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preservation, and I still consider it important that we should preserve all the resources in the country. Sam Houston. 1 The Journal of the Hrnise of Representatives, of the Republic of Texas, 1st Cong., 2nd Sess., 121.
To THE TEXAS CoNGREss 1
Executive Devartment, City of Houston, June 8th, 1837. GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRE- SENTATIVES: The act supplementary to an act entitled an act to establish a general land office,2 I have received, and considered as its importance deserves. This is an act, it appears .to me, upon the good or evil effects of which not only the present and future prosperity, but even the very salvation of the country would for a time be virtually suspended, should it go into operation. After all the reflection I have been able to bestow upon it, it is with a regret, I know not how adequately to express, that I think I perceive in it defects and omissions of a character far too great to be overlooked, and on account of which I find myself under the necessity of withholding from it my signature. Aware as I am of the great difficulties there are in the way of making a law on the subject, at the present moment, which should at all approach the standard of our desires, I am disposed to view with the greatest indulgence the errors which I think are to be found in the one now before me, and this I do the more readily in the hope that you will be disposed to regard with similar indul- gence, the objection I find myself conscientiously constrained to make to it. In the midst of the many difficulties and cares that surround me, it will be impossible to take so careful and minute a view of the subject as its great importance deserves. One observation occurs to me, however, at the threshold, which I will take occasion to make, and that is this that, according to my view of the matter, it were far better for the substantial interest of the country that no land law at all should be passed at the present, than that one should go forth to the world containing imperfec- tions calculated at once to alarm and distress our friends, and inflict in the end irretrievable mischiefs and injuries to the community.
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