249
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1844
sustaining the country under pressing difficulties, the Executive is unwilling to make any change in the existing laws regulating the duties on imports. The injury which a vacillating policy always inflicts upon the commercial community would under the passage of this bill not be light. Those merchants who have, under the sanction of our laws, already imported their merchandise and paid their duties, would be seriously damaged ; for they would be reduced by legis- lative action to an unequal footing with those who might make importations after the reductions contemplated by the proposed bill, the consequence of which would soon be that no merchant would ever import his goods during the fall and winter months, until after the adjournment of Congress, under the apprehension or expectation that the duties would as a matter of course, be reduced-This is, with the Executive, a very prominent objection to this bill. Something like stability must be observed in order to prevent injury to private interests as well as the public good and the Executive is satisfied that the commercial men of the country as a body would infinitely prefer that the laws regulating imports should remain as they are to the frequent changes which have heretofore been made, all of which tend, more or less, to destroy everything like certainty and safety in business transac- tions. Sam Houston. 1 "Messages of the Presidents," Congressional Pa7Je1·s, Eighth Congress; also Executive Record Book, 1\To. 40, pp. 334-336, Texas State Library. Jounwls of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas, 8th Cong., 1st Sess., 465-468. Telegraph and Texas Register, April 17, 1844. The House Journal, p. 468, shows that this bill was carried over the veto by 34 to 4 votes.
To CHARLES ELLIOT 1
P1·ivate
Washington, February 6th, 1844.
My dear Captain: I have been so much oppressed by the business devolving upon me, during the session of Congress just closed, that it has been impossible for me to address you as often as I would have done. And now the confusion and bustle conse- quent upon the departure of members, put it out of my power to write you more than a few lines.
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