191
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1843
He lets too many influences enter into the discharge of his immediate duties. Instead of pursuing his instructions, he must consult with everybody; and whoever does that, never acts for himself. He canvasses in his mind the propriety of a law, and never once reflects that it is a law, and that he is sworn to execute it. He talks of its injustice and impolicy, but admits that he is bound to be governed by it. Some of its provisions he is willing to carry out-others he postpones or qualifies, not realizing that if it is a law at all, it must be regarded in the whole and not in part. It is either a law, or it is no law. Its influence is to be complete, or it is to be nothing. He talks about the embarrassments in collecting direct tax by sheriffs. This he certainly had nothing to do with. By his policy he was to advance the money in value. He has advanced it nominally, and by that very course, has depreciated its real value. I have had a calculation made; and had he carried the law into execu- tion according to its letter and spirit which he was bound to obey, the amount of Exchequers, upon a fair estimate, which would have been received since the passage of the law would be between eighteen and twenty thousand dollars more than had been col- lected. Diminish the present circulation that amount and you will then perceive the detriment which his course has produced to our finances. He was forbidden to advance from sixty cents until he had the direct authority, but he alleges the urgency of Col Daingerfield and other persons connected with the Gov- ernment. He ought to have had the direct order of the Secre- tary of the Treasury. Gail's nervous excitability is too great for a station of the kind. Sometimes he talks about liberal and equitable constructions of the law, when he ,vas perfectly aware that a construction had been given to the law and that it admitted of but one. His duties embraced its execution alone. The construction of the law, if any were necessary, belonged to the Treasury Department, and the Attorney General in the last resort. He was always pledging himself that he would have it at par directly; and his success reminds one of a recent occurrence between two armies in South America. They en- countered each other, and shortly after the action commenced each party began to retreat and each thought itself whipped. ,vhen they were apprised of their true situation they were forty miles apart. So as Gail advanced to the point of one hundred cents, the combination to depress the Exchequers had succeeded in pursuing another direction until they were as far apart as
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