The Writings of Sam Houston, Volume III

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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842

TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESt Executive Department, City of Houston, July 19, 1842. To the Honorable, the House of Representatives : A resolution of your Honorably Body, of this date, asks for a plan for the improvement and preservation of our currency. The object is of the most vital importance.- Upon its achieve- ment depends the efficiency, and perhaps the very existence of the government. Individual welfare, also, as well as the national prosperity, is deeply concerned. It is worse than vain, however, to hope for the establishment of the desired system, without first providing a basis for the superstructure. Long experience and my daily observation, have taught me to distrust the efficacy of mere articulate sounds as the ground work of confidence. In matters of finance and business, there must be something tan- gible-something available as a last and certain dependence and security for the fulfilment of paper promises to pay. This is peculiarly the case with a government whose faith has been so frequently broken and whose credit is at so low an ebb as our own. To my mind there is but one remedy-but one plan which can be adopted with any prospect of success. It is in substance, what I have more than once, with great solicitude, recommended to the Honorable Congress, and which constituted one of the prominent . inducements to convoking the present session. Let the direct taxation be graduated at just one half what it was at the begin- ning of the last session of Congress; let the Executive be author- ized and empowered to establish such ports of entry on the Eastern frontier as may be deemed necessary; let the collectors have the power to call out such of the militia of the country as may be necessary to enforce the laws: And, generally, let the Executive, or the Secretary of the Treasury be empowered to make such regulations as may ensure a speedy ·and efficient exe- cution of the laws and the successful collection of the impost revenues. Let, say, four hundred thousand acres of the Cherokee Lands be specifically designated and set apart as a guaranty for the redemption of the government paper authorized by law to be issued- the said lands to be subject to the disposition of the Executive for that purpose, in such manner and at such time, as he in his judgment, may think necessary for the benefit and preservation of the currency- ~!ways presupposing that the issue of Exchequer paper be rigidly confined to the amount at present authorized by law.

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