WRITINCS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
525
of a despot; but they bow to the majesty of the constitution and laws. They are freemen indeed. It is not so with your nation; from the alcalde to the dictator all are tyrants in Mexico, and the community is held in bondage subject, not to the law, but to the will of a superior and confined in hopeless subjection to usurpation. In an individual so intelligent as yourself it does seem to me that you have evinced very bad taste in adverting to the subject of slavery in the internal affairs of this country. Your opinions on this subject while here, were freely and frankly avowed. You then believed that it would be a great advantage to Mexico to introduce slave labor into that country, that it would develop her resources, by enabling her to produce cotton, sugar, and coffee for the purposes of exportation; and that, without it, she would be seriously retarded in her march to greatness and pros- perity. Your sympathy and commiseration, at present expressed, are, no doubt, very sincere; and I only regret that they partake so little of consistency. You boast that Mexico gave the noble and illustrious example of emancipating her slaves. The fact that she has the name of having done so, has enabled you to add another flourish to your rhetoric; but, the examination of facts, for one moment, will disclose the truth. The slaves of Mexico, you say, are emancipated. Did you elevate them to the condition of freemen? No, you did not - you gave them the name of freemen, but you reduced the common people to the condition of slaves. It is not uncommon in Mexico for one dignitary, upon his hacienda, to control from one hundred to ten thousand human beings in a state of bondage more abject and intolerable than the negroes on any cotton plantation in this country. If any individual in Mexico owes but twenty-five cents, the creditor, by application to an alcalde, can have him, with his family, decreed to .his service, and remain in that state of slavery until he is able to pay the debt from the wages accruing from his labor after being compelled to subsist his dependent family. This, you call freedom, and graciously bestow your sympathy upon the African race. The abolitionists of the present day will not feel indebted to you for your support of their cause. Had some one else than the dictator of Mexico, the self-styled "Napoleon of the West," the subverter of the constitution of 1824, the projector of Cen- tralism, and the man who endeavors to reduce a nation to slavery, become their advocate, they might have been more sensible of their obligations. So far as its increase can be preYented, our
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