WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
96
is incapable of rising. With life and property secure, it is esti- mated that she could produce $100,000,000 of silver annually. Instead of fifteen or twenty miles of railroads, she might, in a score of years, have as many hundred. With such an attractive climate and fruitful soil and variegated scenery, she would become the center of fashionable travel, and the abode of enter- prising industry; and the occurrence would not only command the approval; but also the admiration of Great Britain and other European States. The London Times, which molds rather than follows public opinion, says : "There is not a statesman who would wish to see Great Britain hamper herself with an inch of Mexican ground. Let t}Je United States, when they are finally prepared for it, enjoy all the advantages and responsibility of ownership, and our merchants at Liverpool and eslewhere will be quite content with the trade that may spring out of it. The capacity of the Mexi- can population, for appreciating a constitutional rule, is not so remarkable that we should volunteeer to administer it." The Monroe doctrine has been repeatedly ridiculed of recent years, and by grave Senators, as the merest of abstractions-as unmeaning as valueless. But let me tell you, sir, that, but for that doctrine, Texas, probably, had never entered your Confed- eracy. Canning might have yielded to Polignac for the consoli- dation of a monarchical or aristocratical form of government for the ci-devant colonies of Spain, by which, of course, she would have been included as one of those colonies, had it not been for the seasonable declaration of that doctrine, and the thrill of joyous delight ·with which it was hailed by the votaries of liberty everywhere. On this account alone I may be pardoned for fancying that it is deserving of a worthier designation, even by the most violent tongue, than an abstraction. When Cortez returned to Madrid from his conquering expedition to America, he went to Court. The haughty Charles V., observ- ing his stately mein, as he approached him, emphatically de- manded: "Who are you, sir?" "The man," replied he, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities!" With equal truth may it be said of Texas, that she has been instrumental in giving the Union more dollars than its founders left it cents. She has been instrumental in develop- ing its resources more in twelve years than had been previously developed in sixty. I do not mention this in a spirit of vain glory. Who could be vain-glorious of such a State?-a State that is a~vancing with giant's strides in all that constitutes a
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