WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1836
people of Texas? is he not the man who impressed the property of the people of Bexar? is he not the man who took from Bexar, without authority, or knowledge of the government, cannon and other munitions of war, together with supplies necessary for the troops at that station, leaving the wounded and the sick destitute of needful comforts? Yet this is the man whose outrages and oppressions upon the rights of the people of Texas are sustained and justifiecl by the acts and conduct of the general council! Several members of that body are aware that the interests and feelings of Dr. Grant are opposed to the independence and true interests of the people of Texas. While every facility has been afforded to the meditated campaign against Matamoras, no aid has been rendered for raising a regular force for the defence of the country, nor one cent advanced to an officer or soldier of the regular army, but every hinderance thrown in the way. The council had no right to project a campaign against any point or place. It was the province of the governor, by his proper officers, to do so. The council had the right of consenting or rejecting, but not of projecting. The means ought to be placed at the dispo- sition of the governor; and if he, by himself, or his officers, fai!ed in their application, while he would be responsible for the su~- cess of the armies of Texas, he could be held responsible to the government, and punishable: but what recourse has the country upon agents who have taken no oath, and given no bonds to com- ply with the powers granted by the council? The organic law declares, in article third, that "the governor and general council have power to organize, reduce, or increase, the regular forces;" but it delegates no power to create army- agents, to supercede the commander-in-chief, as will be seen by reference to the second article of the "military" basis of that law. After declaring that there shall be a regular army for the pro- tection of Texas during the present war, in the first article, it proceeds in the second to state the constituents of that army: "The regular army of Texas shall consist of one major-general, who shall be commander-in-chief of all the forces called into pub- lic service during the war." This, it will be remembered. is a law from which the council derive their powers; and, of course, all troops in service since the adoption of this law, and all that have been accepted, or to be accepted during my continuance in office, are under my command. Consequently, the council could not create an agency that could assume any command of troops, so as to supercede my powers, without a plain and palpable violation
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