WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
105
the conclusion that these petitioners are very honest, gentlemanly men, and that the delinquency of their clerk, or partner, if you please to call him so-and technically, I do not care what he was- should not be visited upon them. They in good faith advanced the money to him to pay the duties upon all the goods received, and he misapplied it. For allowing this to pass the first, the second, or the third time, the officers of the Government may have been excusable; but after that, I think it would be an act of injustice on the part of the Government to expect the duties from these gentlemen, when it was a duty of the Government officers to examine into the accounts, and to detect any errors; and we have the evidence of the honorable Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Slidell] that the individual who was in charge of the custom- house was one of the most worthless men that could have been placed there; and we have a right to infer that it was owing to delinquencr or neglect on his part that this evil was continued. Mr. Slidell. Allow me to say to the Senator, that if I made use of that word, I certainly do not wish it to remain in the sense in which the Senator applies it. I say he was incompetent. I said nothing against his personal integrity. Mr. Houston. Very well; that devolves the responsibility on the Government, for they are bound to select capable men to discharge the public trusts. For that reason, I cannot think of voting to tax these men when the Government had a fair oppor- tunity to detect these frauds that were practiced upon the custom- house, and it was the duty of the Government officers to do so. When the successor of the delinquent collector came into office, he detected those frauds. His predecessor had four years in which to do it, ·and if he had discharged his duty, he would have done it in the course of three weeks, as this officer was enabled to do. I do not say that there was any complicity between the custom- house officers and this delinquent clerk or partner; but there is no doubt that the fault was that of the Government, and not of these partners who come forward as petitioners, and ask relief. If they have already paid the duties in good faith, as is testified, it would be a very severe penalty to make them pay them over again. At any rate, to mulct them in the sum of two or three hundred thousand dollars, merely to give a portion of the money to the informer, is a principle that I will never recognize in legislation. If this collector, for having discovered the fraud in so short a space of time, is to receive such a recompense, what ought to be the penalty inflicted on the delinquent collector? Sir, there is none that could reach him. I am prepared to vote to
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