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of allegiance to that government, which they will do, no
doubt, as soon as they shall have a reasonable pretext for so
doing. "
What was the "source entitled to the highest credit" from
which issued so remarkable an oracle ? Who was it that
thus succeeded in casting forward the shadow of coining
events ? Was it the President's correspondent in Arkansas,
the Secretary of State, Ar. Fulton ? Was it Mr Anthony
Butler, who had been in the confidence of the President in
1829, and who succeeded Mr. Poinsett in Mexico ? or the
still more remarkable person who became the instrument
through which conjecture was made reality, General Houston?
We shall not pretend to any ability to answer these questions,
but we shall endeavor to show as briefly as possible the relations
which these persons bore to the history we have in hand.
It is a fact, that this Samuel Houston, a man who had
made himself conspicuous as a friend of General Jackson
prior to the election of 1828, who had been a representative
from Tennessee in Congress, as well as Governor of that
State, and who boasted much of his possessing the confidence
of the President, suddenly left Washington, but not without
leaving behind him some who knew of his intended course,
and that he made his appearance in Texas as an expatriated
citizen, anxious to leave his own country in order that he
might take the benefit of the advantages held out by the superior
moral and social condition of Mexico, by becoming a
settler under its jurisdiction. His example was soon followed
by many of those who boast of belonging to the freest nation
under the sun. Mexico was indiscreet enough to suppose
that they came in earnest. No effort was made, by those
who knew better, to undeceive her, and she therefore was
lavish in her offers of land and all other privileges. But she
would not grant every conceivable demand. The Mexican
constitution by which the territories of Coahuila and Texas
were united abolished slavery. The new settlers insisted upon
separating Texas fiomn Coahuila, and making a new constitution
for the former, which omitted the clause abolishing slavery.
Mexico preferred the old form of government, and the
settlers deemed the moment auspicious for declaring their independence.
And General Houston, not long afterwards,
wrote to his friend Dunlap of Tennessee, for aid in the struggle
that would ensue, because, to use his own wordsThere
is but one feeling in Texas, in my opinion, and that is, to establish
the independence of Texas, and to be attached to the United States.
We make no comment on these facts, because we are confident
that with all reasonable and fair-judging citizens they
