The Writings of Sam Houston, Volume IV

I - 11

WRITINGS OF S,\l\I HOUSTON, 1846

479

perpetrated more seriously involving the national honor and dig- nity than any which had yet reached our ears. We would then be prepared to act decisively, no doubt. ·Then, why not act at once? The officers of the Mexican Government announced her to be in a state of war; where, then, was the ground for hesitation? When they were informed that an experienced officer, an ex- perienced military commander, had been despatched to the frontier with orders from the Government to assume the com- mand, to supersede an officer already there, and to assume the responsibility of the prosecution of the war, did Senators believe it was without a definite object? Did they believe it was to repel invasion alone that he was sent, and not to commit aggression? Was not the crossing of the Rio Grande by the Mexican forces of itself an act of war? Was not the entering our territory by an armed force an act of war? However the decision might here- after be in regard to the· precise extent of our territory, the Mexicans knew full well that the river had been assumed as the boundary. Up to the time of annexation it had been so considered, and, more than that, the Mexicans had never once established a military encampment on the east side of .the river; it had never been held, even by themselves to be within the limits of Mexico, otherwise than upon the ridiculous ground of claiming the whole of Texas to be theirs. They had marched across the river in military array-they had entered upon American soil with a hostile design. Was this not war? And now were Senators prepared to temporise and to predicate the action of this Government upon that of the Mexican Government, as·if the latter was a systematic, regular, and orderly Government? He, for one, was not prepared to do so. How many revolutions had that Government undergone within the last three years? Not less than three, with another now in embryo. Per- haps the next arrival might bring us news of another change, and that the American army on the Rio del Norte had been destroyed while awaiting the action of the Mexican Government, in the supposition that it was a regularly-constituted Government, instead of being a Government of brigands and despots, ruling with a rod of iron, and keeping faith with no other nation, and heaping indignities upon the American flag. A state of war now existed as perfect as it could be after a formal declaration or recognition of a state of war by the Congress of the United States. Their action had been continually indicative of a state of war,

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