WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1839
336
To say that the question of expediency should not enter into our calculations now, when an act of justice would redeem our honor and increase o·ur 'treasure, was to assert a principle which was very strange to him.- The right of the Cherokee did not depend upon the pledge of the Constitution- that was only the acknowledgment of the right by this government, which they before held under the government of Mexico. While President of the Republic, he had been called on by Congress to show why he had ordered the running of the Cherokee line. In making that communication, he had appended to it a letter from Col. Horton, the gentleman who had been employed in running the line. He had been alluded to before in this de- bate, or he would not allude to him, himself. But his letter con- tained an impartial story of the times, and he would read it for the information of the House. 0 [ He read the letter] 5 This was Col. Hortons sentiments when he had much cause to fear that if the line was not run, it would produce the hostility of all the tribes. Believing, as he did, that the safety of the country required it, and that it was correct and proper, he had ordered it done. [ He read an extract from the President's message on that subject.]5 He regarded it as a question of right between the people of this country and the land speculators-' "let justice be done, if the Heaven should fall." If the speculators had went into the Nation and run off lands, they had went there without author- ity-and no one could take advantage of his own wrong! He had been informed that there were now three companies in the Country, and that they had been pushing their surveys as far as the last sentinel of Texas. But he would refer to the pledge again to show that he was not the father of it, but he was not ashamed of it, for it had been called a very able legal, document. But he would not filch from _the dead, the Hon. John A. Wharton was the chairman of the committee who reported it, and moved its adoption- No one will dispute his patriotism-and he proved himself a friend to his country in its darkest hour. After it was reported to the house it was adopted without a word being changed. ( He read the full extract from a memorial, which he imputed to Mr. Burnet, published in Edwards' history of Texas, pages 207 and 8.] 6
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