names, and embalm your memories. Inexorable history will sit in judgment upon all concerned, and will reject the plea of Government orders, even if those orders emanated from the Government, instead of being dictated to it. The French National Convention, in 1793, ordered all the English prisoners who should be taken in battle to❘ be put to death. The French armies refused to execute the decree. They answered that French soldiers were the protectors, not the assassins of prisoners; and all France, all Europe, the whole civilized world, applauded the noble reply.

But let us not forget that there is some relief to this black and bloody picture--some alleviation to the horror of its appalling features. There was humanity, as well as cruelty, at Goliad--humanity to deplore what it could not prevent. The letter of Colonel Fernandez does honor to the human heart. Doubtless many other officers felt and mourned like him, and spent the day in unavailing regrets. The ladies, Losero and others, of Metamoras, saving the doomod victims in that city, from day to day, by their intercessions, appear like ministering angels. Several public journals, and many individuals, in Mexico, have given vent to feelings worthy of Christians, and of the civilization of the age; and the poor woman on the Guadaloupe, who succored and saved the young Georgian, (Hadaway,) how nobly she appears. He was one of the few that escaped the fate of the Georgia battalion sent to the Old Mission. Overpowered by famine and despair, without arms and without comrades, he entered a solitary house filled with Mexican soldiers hunting the fugitives of his party. His action amazed them; and, thinking it a snare, they step ped out to look for the armed body of which he was supposed to be the decoy. In that instant food was given him by the humane woman, and instant flight to the swamp was pointed out. He fled, receiving the fire of many guns as he went; and, escaping the perils of the way, the hazards of battle at San Jacinto, where he fought, and of Indian massacre in the Creek nation, when the two stages were taken and part of his travelling companions killed, he lives to publish in America that instance of devoted humanity in the poor woman of the Guadaloupe. Such acts as all these deserve to be commemorated. They relieve the revolting picture of military barbarity--soften the resentments of nations-and redeem a people from the offence of individuals.

Great is the mistake which has prevailed in Mexico, and in some parts of the United States, on the character of the population which has gone to Texas. It has been common to disparage and to stigmatize them. Nothing could be more unjust; and, speaking from knowledge, either personally or well acquired, (for it falls to my lot to know, either from actual acquaintance or good information, the mass of its inhabitants,) I can vindicate them from erroneous imputations, an place their conduct and character on the honorable ground which they deserve to occupy. The founder of the Texian colony was Mr. Moses Austin, a respectable and enterprising native of Connecticut, and largely engaged in the lead Mines of Upper Louisiana when I went to the Territory of Missouri in 1815. The present head of the colony, his son, Mr. Stephen F. Austin, then a very young man, was a member of the Territorial Legislature, distinguished for his intelligence, business habits, and gentlemanly conduct. Among the grantees we distinguish the name of Robertson, son of the patriarchal founder and first settler of West Tennessee. Of the body of the emigrants, most of them are heads of families or enterprising young men, gone to better their condition by receiving grants of fine land in a fine climate, and to continue to live under the republican form of Government to which they had been accustomed. There sits one of them, (pointing to Mr. Carson, late

[SENATE.

member of Congress from North Carolina, and now Secretary of State for Texas.) We all know him; our greetings on his appearance in this chamber attest our respect; and such as we know him to be, so do I know the multitude of those to be who have gone to Texas. They have gone, not as intruders, but as grantees; and to become a barrier between the Mexicans and the marauding Indians who infested their borders.

Heartless is the calumny invented and propagated, not from this floor, but elsewhere, on the cause of the Texian revolt. It is said to be a war for the extension of slavery. It had as well be said that our own Revolution was a war for the extension of slavery. So far from it, that no revolt, not even our own, ever had a more just and a more sacred origin. The settlers in Texas went to live under the form of Government which they had left behind in the United States--a Government which extends so many guarantees for life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and which their American and English ancestors had vindicated for so many hundred years. A succession of violent changes in Government, and the rapid overthrow of rulers, annoyed and distressed them; but they remained tranquil under every violence which did not immediately bear on themselves. In 1822 the republic of 1821 was superseded by the imperial diadem of Iturbide. In 1823 he was deposed and banished, returned and was shot, and Victoria made President. Mentuno and Bravo disputed the presidency with Victoria, and found, in banishment, the mildest issue known to unsuccessful civil war. Pedraza was elected in 1828; Guerrero overthrew him the next year. Then Bustamente overthrew Guerrero; and, quickly, Santa Anna overthrew Bustamente, and, with him, all the forms of the constitution, and the whole frame of the federative Government. By his own will, and by force, Santa Anna dissolved the exist ing Congress, convened another, formed the two Houses into one, called it a convention, and made it the instrument for deposing, without trial, the constitutional Vice President, Gomez Farias, putting Barragan into his place, annihilating the State Governments, and establishing a consolidated Government, of which he was monarch under the retained republican title of President. Still the Texians did not take up arms: they did not acquiesce, but they did not revolt. They retained their State Government in operation, and looked to the other States, older and more powerful than Texas, to vindicate the general cause, and to re-establish the federal constitution of 1824. In September, 1835, this was still her position. In that month a Mexican armed vessel appeared off the coast of Texas, and declared her ports blockaded. At the same time General Cos appeared in the west with an army of fifteen hundred men, with orders to arrest the State authorities, to disarm the inhabitants, leaving one gun to every five hundred souls, and to reduce the State to unconditional submission. Gonzales was the selected point for the commencement of the execution of these orders; and the first thing was the arms, those trusty rifles which the settlers had brought with them from the United States, which were their defence against savages, their resource for game, and the guard which converted their houses into castles stronger than those "which the King cannot enter." A detachment of General Cos's army appeared at the village of Gonzales on the 28th of September, and demanded the arms of the inhabitants; it was the same demand, and for the same purpose, which the British detachment under Major Pitcairn had made at Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775. It was the same demand! and the same answer was given--resistance--battle--victory! for the American blood was at Gonzales as it had been at Lexington; and between using their arms and surrendering their

SENATE.]

arms, that blood can never hesitate. Then followed the rapid succession of brilliant events, which, in two months, left Texas without an armed enemy in her borders, and the strong forts of Goliad and the Alamo, with their garrisons and cannon, the almost bloodless prizes of a few hundred Texian rifles. This was the origin of the revolt; and a calumny more heartless can never be imagined than that which would convert this just and holy defence of life, liberty, and property, into an aggression for the extension of slavery.

Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, sacred in its object, the Texian revolt has illustrated the Anglo-Saxon character, and given it new titles to the respect and admiration of the world.

It shows that liberty, justice, valor--moral, physical, and intellectual power-discriminate that race wherever it goes. Let our America rejoice, let Old England rejoice, that the Brassos and Colorado, new and strange names-streams far beyond the western bank of the Father of Floods-have felt the impress and witnessed the exploits of a people sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, and customs, their magna charta and its glorious privileges, into new regions and far distant climes. Of the individuals who have purchased lasting renown in this young war, it would be impossible, in this place, to speak in detail, and invidious to discriminate; but there is one among them whose position forms an exception, and whose early association with myself justifies and claims the tribute of a particular notice. I speak of him whose romantic victory has given to the Jacinto that immortality in grave and serious history which the diskos of Apollo had given to it in the fabulous pages of the heathen mythology, General Houston was born in the State of Virginia, county of Rockbridge; he was appointed an ensign in the army of the United States during the late war with Great Britain, and served in the Creek campaign under the banners of Jackson. I was the lieutenant colonel of the regiment to which he belonged, and the first field officer to whom he reported. I then marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which have since distinguished his eventful career: frank, generous, brave--ready to do, or to suffer, whatever the obligations of civil or military duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honor, patriotism, and friendship. Sincerely do I rejoice in his victory. It is a victory without alloy, and without parallel, except at New Orleans. It is a victory which the civilization of the age, and the honor of the human race, required him to gain; for the nineteenth century is not the age in which a repetition of the Goliad matins could be endured. Nobly has he answered the requisition; fresh and luxuriant are the laurels which adorn his brow.

It is not within the scope of my present purpose to speak of military events, and to celebrate the exploits of that vanguard of the Anglo-Saxons who are now on the confines of the ancient empire of Montezuma; but that combat of the San Jacinto! it must forever remain in the catalogue of military miracles. Seven hundred and fifty citizens, miscellaneously armed with rifles, muskets, belt pistols, and knives, under a leader who had never seen service, except as a subaltern, march to attack near double their numbers-march in open day across a clear prairie, to attack upwards of twelve hundred veterans, the elite of an invading army of seven thousand, posted in a wood, their flanks secured, front intrenched, and commanded by a general trained in civil wars, victorious in numberless battles, and chief of an empire of which no man becomes chief except as conqueror. In twenty minutes the position is forced. The combat becomes a carnage. The flowery prairie is

Hyacinth; hyacinthus; huakinthos; water flower.

[JULY 1, 1836.

stained with blood; the hyacinth is no longer blue, but scarlet. Six hundred Mexicans are dead; six hundred more are prisoners, half wounded; the President General himself is a prisoner; the camp and baggage all taken; and the loss to the victors, six killed and twenty wounded. Such are the results, and which no Europe an can believe, but those who saw Jackson at New Orleans. Houston is the pupil of Jackson; and he is the first self-made general, since the time of Mark Antony, and the King Antigonus, who has taken the general of the army and the head of the Government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he has spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine.

I voted in 1821 to acknowledge the absolute independence of Mexico; I vote now to recognise the contingent and expected independence of Texas. In both cases the vote is given upon the same principle-upon the principle of disjunction where conjunction is impossible or disastrous. The union of Mexico and Spain had become impossible; that of Mexico and Texas is no longer desirable or possible. A more fatal present could not be made than that of the future incorporation of the Texas of La Salle with the ancient empire of Montezuma. They could not live together, and extermination is not the genius of the age; and, besides, is more easily talked of than done. Bloodshed only could be the fruit of their conjunction; and every drop of that blood would be the dragon's teeth sown upon the earth. No wise Mexican should wish to have this Trojan horse shut up within their walls.

The debate was further continued by Mr. PRESTON, who asked for the yeas and nays on the resolution; which were ordered, and the question being taken, was decided as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hendricks, Kent, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Leigh, Linn, Mangum, Moore, Nicholas, Niles, Page, Porter, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, Webster, White, Wright—39.

So the resolution was unanimously adopted.

On motion of Mr. SWIFT, the Senate agreed to take a recess from 3 to 5 o'clock.

After taking up and going through with several bills, The Senate took a recess until 5 o'clock.

EVENING SESSION.

INDIAN APPROPRIATIONS.

Mr. WHITE, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, reported the bill from the House making appropriations for carrying into effect certain Indian treaties, with amendments.

The bill was taken up, and, after some discussion be tween Mr. WHITE and Mr. WEBSTER, the amendments were ordered to be engrossed.

FORTIFICATIONS.

The bill making appropriations for fortifications was received from the House, with a message concurring in one amendment, and non-concurring in the other.

On motion of Mr. WEBSTER, the Senate receded from the amendments which had not received the concurrence of the House.

DELAWARE BREAKWATER. The Senate took up the bill making additional appropriations for the Delaware breakwater, &c.

There was a discussion on this bill, in which Mr. DAVIS, Mr. MANGUM, Mr. BUCHANAN, Mr. WALKER, Mr. PRESTON, Mr. PORTER, Mr. LINN, Mr.

MOORE, Mr. CALHOUN, Mr. WEBSTER, Mr. LEIGH, Mr. WRIGHT, and Mr. SOUTHARD, took part.

The Committee on Commerce had reduced the amount of appropriations in this bill one third from that which had passed the House.

Mr. CLAYTON asked for the yeas and nays on the reduction made by the committee of the appropriation for Newcastle harbor, in order that he and his colleague might record their votes against it.

The yeas and nays being ordered, the question was taken, and decided in favor of the reduction: Yeas 22,

nays 5.

The other amendments of the committee were concurred in.

On motion of Mr. DAVIS, the bill was amended by the addition of an appropriation of $30,000 for surveys, under an existing law of Congress.

The bill was then reported to the Senate, and ordered to a third reading by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Bayard, Clayton, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Ewing of Illinois, Goldsborough, Hendricks, King of Alabama, Linn, Niles, Page, Robbins, Robinson, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tomlinson, Wall, Webster, Wright--20.

NAYS--Messrs. Calhoun, King of Georgia, Leigh, Walker, White-5.

At half past one, the Senate adjourned.

Mr. PRESTON opposed the motion.

Mr. TOMLINSON called for the yeas and nays on the question; which were ordered, and it was decided in the affirmative: Yeas 18, nays 15, as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Ewing of Illinois, Grundy, Hendricks, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Linn, Nicholas, Robinson, Southard, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Wall, Webster, White-18. NAYS-Messrs. Black, Calhoun, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Kent, Leigh, Mangum, Moore, Porter, Preston, Robbins, Ruggles, Swift, Walker, Wright-15.

Mr. TOMLINSON explained and advocated the bill. Mr. PRESTON opposed it, as extending the pension system to an enormous and alarming degree.

The debate was continued by Messrs. CALHOUN and KING of Georgia, who moved to amend the bill by confining its benefits to the widows and orphans of those who have died or may die of wounds actually received in service, or who have been killed or may be killed in action.

After a debate the amendment was adopted.

Mr. TOMLINSON submitted a further amendment, embracing the widows and children of certain revolutionary pensioners who have died since March, 1831; and an amendment at the suggestion of Mr. BUCHANAN, to provide for widows of revolutionary officers and soldiers

[SENATE.

who were married during the war and who have remain. ed widows since; which amendments were agreed to, and the bill was ordered to a third reading.

DELAWARE BREAKWATER.

The bill making additional appropriations for completing the Delaware breakwater, and for the improvement tain rivers, was read the third time and passed: Yeas 25, of certain harbors, and for removing obstructions in cernays 12, as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Bayard, Benton, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Grundy, Hendricks, King of Alabama, Linn, Niles, Page, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Wall, Webster, Wright-25. gia, Leigh, Mangum, Nicholas, Porter, Preston, Rives, NAYS-Messrs. Black, Calhoun, Clay, King of GeorWalker, White-12.

DEFENCE OF THE FRONTIER.

The bill to provide for the better protection of the western frontier was taken up.

Mr. CALHOUN said a few words in opposition to the bill, and proposed laying it on the table, that the subject might be taken up next winter, when they would be in possession of the estimates and surveys for the military road contemplated.

Mr. LINN and Mr. BENTON severally addressed the Senate in support of the bill; after which it was ordered to a third reading, and subsequently read the third time and passed.

LIGHTHOUSE BILL.

Mr. DAVIS, from the Committee on Commerce, made a report on the bill from the House making appropriations for lighthouses, &c., referred to that committee yesterday. The report states that, in so short a period as that allowed to them, it had been found impossible to give to the bill that examination which its importance required; and, although there are many useful objects which must suffer, the committee find themselves compelled to return the bill, for the Senate to make such disposition of it as may be thought desirable.

HARBOR BILL.

Mr. DAVIS, from the Committee on Commerce, reported the bill making appropriations for certain harbors, &c., with amendments.

The Senate then proceeded to the consideration of the bill.

The amendments reported from the committee were considered and agreed to.

On the amendment striking out the appropriation of $8,000 for the improvement of Chagrin river, and of $20,000 for the improvement of the mouth of Maumee river, Mr. EWING, of Ohio, resisted the striking out; but the amendment was agreed to: Ayes 23, noes not counted.

Some discussion ensued, in which Mr. DAVIS, Mr. CALHOUN, Mr. WEBSTER, and Mr. NILES, took

part, until 3 o'clock, when the Senate took a recess till

5 o'clock.

Mr. KING, of Georgia, said he might be disposed to go somewhat at length into the subject of the bill, had not the most important principles connected with it already been very fully discussed. As we were pressed for time, his principal object was to give to the Senate the history of our legislation upon the subject of harbors, more in detail than had been presented, by which it would be seen that gentlemen were greatly mistaken when they supposed that this system had age to recommend it. He was astonished at the mistake of the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BUCHANAN,] and the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. WEBSTER,] who had stated that we were only pursuing the policy adopted by the Government from the date of the constitution.

Congress had passed an act in 1789, to pay the expenses of keeping in repair such lighthouses, buoys, beacons, public piers, &c., as the States might cede to the General Government. Some cessions were made, and the statute had been executed at a very trifling expense, for the system of jobbing had not been encouraged by the State Governments, which had only constructed such works as were of some utility.

But on the passage of this act did we find States, commercial cities, corporations, villages, and private specu lating companies, pouring in upon Congress to improve their harbors, and make new ones, at the common expense of the nation? Not so. They never dreamed of such a thing. Such works had been constructed at the expense of those who were benefited by them, and it never occurred to any body that such works should be constructed at the national cost. Until recently, a system had been introduced resulting in benefits entirely local, building up cities and enriching individuals at the cost of the Government.

He had drawn off, he said, a statement which would show how far Senators were in error when they supposed this system had commenced with the Government. The first appropriation which he had been able to find for such objects as those contained in the bill was in 1816. Mr. K. then read to the Senate the following statement of appropriations made for harbors by the General Government:

Appropriations for surveys, harbors, and rivers.
$30,000

1816

1817

Here was a little upwards of three hundred thousand dollars appropriated by the Government between 1789 and 1828, and not one dollar had been appropriated for these objects for twenty-seven years after the adoption of the constitution; yet some shrewd patriots had all at once discovered that the commerce of the country would be ruined, unless two or three millions per annum should be appropriated by the Government for these local and partial purposes. Mr. K. continued the statement. He said in 1828 the breakwater was commenced, and $250,000 was appropriated for that purpose, and something for other objects, as follows:

[JULY 2, 1836.

$317,402

10,181

671,000

541,300

457,256

458,056

Thus the history of this harbor-making would be seen. It never commenced till 1816, when a small appropriation of $30,000 was made. Was that a precedent so popular as to be immediately followed up? No; Congress seemed so alarmed at that small transgression, that nothing more was appropriated until 1821, when the small sum of $2,500 only was appropriated, and the ap propriations continued to be trifling, and principally for old works, except the Delaware breakwater, till 1832, a year which would be long remembered by the political economist of this country, as one in which a premium was offered to any one who could suggest the best means of squandering the public money. From that time the appropriations had averaged about half a million, till this year. This year, said he, we had sent to us bills from the House for near three millions, including lighthouses, and upwards of two millions for harbors alone. The bill for new works, then before the Senate as sent from the House, was near a million, and, by an estimate made by the intelligent chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in the House, was the commencement only of an expenditure of at least ten millions on the new works proposed. He thought the expenditure would be much more, and, from past experience in such works, the proposed new works would cost thirty millions; for it was a singular fact, that this local jobbing, once commenced, was almost interminable; and some works had cost annually, for many years, as much as the first estimate, and the estimated cost of completion more than the original estimate. It would always be so, when we undertook to war against nature, and make harbors where God never intended them, or to appropriate money merely to give a job by its expenditure. This vast expenditure was almost entirely confined to one section of the country, and was drawn from the Treasury by local combinations for no national purpose. It could not be borne by the people generally, when understood. If the proceedings of this session were an earnest of what we had to expect in future, he looked upon the subject as one of the most important that had ever agitated the councils of the country. There was nothing national in it, and the tariff was a blessing to the South, when compared with it. The tariff benefited large communities, and however onerous, was national and patriotic in its origin, and the patriotic of every section of the country were disposed to forbear long with those who struggled to maintain interests that had grown up under it. But this was a new system of local bounties and private speculation. Those who had the most modesty got the least money, and those who had the least conscience got the most money. The South had constitutional scruples upon the subject, and asked for nothing, got nothing, wanted nothing. It was, he said, not only internal improvements, but internal improvements in the worst form, and (except for our naval stations) he would like to know how those opposed to internal improvements could vote for cutting out a harbor to aid the approach of vessels to a village, and could not vote for a road between one State or one city and another. They pretended to derive their power from the power to “regu late commerce with foreign nations." Well, did not the same power, in the words, extend to the regulation of commerce among the several States?" If one was unconstitutional, the other was equally so; and the advantage was greatly in favor of the road in every other view;

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