WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1840
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he had too high an estimation of the gentlemen to think that they would be guilty of intentional error. As he was aware of the brilliant talents he had to meet on this occasion, and should trust rather to the justice of his cause than to any persuasive powers which he possessed: he looked upon his position as a very humble one, and he lamented his inability to investigate the subject in such a manner as its importance re- quired. He should do his duty, but if the measure should fail, he should acquiesce and contemplate the ruin of his country with as much philosophy as his ardent devotion to the public good would admit. We should be told that the Indians had no title, and that there was no settled boundary to their territory-but empty declama- tion was no proof-if it was we should have had abundant proof of the Indians' perfidy at the last session. The murdered Keloughs 2 would be called in to raise a sympathy and their man- gled cor[p]ses would be held up as a proof of Cherokee barbarity; but he would call upon them for the proof-he had never seen any to convince him of their perfidy. The whole proof he believed, rested on a book which had once belonged to that ill fated family which was taken from a portion of them at the time Col. Burleson surprised and captured a portion of their women and children on the Colorado, last winter. There was so many ways by which this book might have come into their possession, that it proved nothing; perhaps some of the children might have picked it up and carried it home. It was very evident they would not have kept it on hand if they had not come in possession of it in an honest way; they were too shrewd to carry about with them the proof of their own conviction; and if they had killed the Kel- loughs, they would not have preserved anything which would lead to their own conviction. No-they were living with peace and quietude upon their Lands -lands the title of which had been ratified by two governments, when our troops attacked and carried death and carnage to their peaceful homes. But we have been told by high authority that they were in- truders upon the white people; but he thought when this question should be fully examined, the intrusion would be found to proceed from another source. They were no more intruders, than \Ve were-we were invited to this country by the Mexicans, and so were the Indians; and privileges were extended to them which were denied to us.
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