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353
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1844
ready to throw the country into confusion and break down the government, hoping that in the ruin they create, they may find some personal advantage. The friends of order and of Texas will support you, and you could, I am sure, have the favor of none other. Your course upon the Tariff was of immense value to the country, and I am happy to know that you had the courage and integrity to do your duty-notwithstanding the loud mouthed denunciations of the opposition faction in Congress, who would very willingly have ruined the country to prostrate me. To have repealed the tariff would have been to have at once sub- verted the government, or, in other words, to have starved it out of existence. Whenever the time is at hand that the good people of the Republic are unwilling to support a government, then your course can be consistently condemned; but not before. It was purely a question of life and death to the Government. If your constituents wished the government to cease its functions, then you were wrong. If they wished to sustain the institutions of the country, then you were right. It is true that you differed with the representatives of your district in supporting the government of your country. But this difference should be your proudest boast. You can tell it to your children with honest pride. They will rejoice that they had a father, who was too much a patriot to lend himself to faction to upturn the foundations of his country, so recently laid in the blood and sufferings of the soldiers of the revolution. Yes, Patillo, you should be proud of your course in sustaining your country's best interests. I do not tell you this because I might hope for any further support to my administration. I must very soon go out of office; and he who succeeds me will either perfect what I have done or overturn and destroy the results of my best efforts. I shall never doubt that you will always be found on the side of your country and opposed to the factions which have ever been ready to apply the torch of destruction and break down the organization of Society. With an earnest hope that this may find you and family in the enjoyment of good health, I subscribe myself, your friend, Sam Houston [Rubric] wHouston's Private Executive Record Book," pp. 545-5-16, courtesy of Mr. Franklin Williams. For the activities of George A. Patillo, see the Senate Jo11,.11als of the Eighth and Ninth Congresses, Republic of Texas.
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