Sam Houston and his white supremacist dreams of Anglo-Saxon Conquest

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Sam Houston -- Ed Sebesta 4/7/2021

Of all the Texas secessionists, it seems to the author that Sam Houston is perceived by the public and historians as being not like the others and having some positive qualities.

Houston was against secession during the Civil War, but many supporters of slavery were against secession since they saw that it could lead to the total destruction of slavery which it did. Houston was believed to be better towards Native Americans than other Texas leaders. However, Anglo-American settlement of Texas, and surely Texas secession from Mexico was going to be the doom of Native Americans in Texas and it was the doom of Native Americans in Texas. Historians may debate whether what happened to Native Americans in Texas was an ethnic cleansing or genocide, but either way it was horrible.1 Houston was a hero to white Texans because he saved the Texas secession effort which resulted in the certain death or expulsion or subjugation of Native Americans from Texas. Different bits and pieces of Houston’s career are sometimes showcased in isolation to give the impressions that Houston was one thing or another. I have yet to find a satisfactory biography of Sam Houston.

There has been this debate about whether Texas seceded because of the tyranny of the dictatorship of Santa Anna or because of slavery or whether the motives were mixed. As will be discussed in this essay this debate falsely frames the historical question as a choice between these two ideas in opposition or a compromise of them. Historical evidence does show that Santa Anna was a dictator and the pro-slavery motives of the Texas secessionists is of historical record. It ought to be considered that Texas secession was for the freedom to own slaves against a dictator that would forbid slave ownership.

The two reasons are then not in opposition, but are working together in alignment.

These motives could exist in a larger context. That is what this essay will discuss. Of course, the irony of slave owners complaining about dictatorship is fairly obvious.

Knowing the historical record is good. Understanding the historical record is another thing. The core issue of Sam Houston’s role in history is his motivation to have Texas secede and what type of nation he thought he was creating.

Mexico had already abolished slavery in 1829 at the time of Texas secession.2 The Texas constitution, adopted on March 17, 1836, in which Samuel Houston was the chairman of

1

Gary Clayton Anderson in his book, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land,” Oklahoma Univ. Press, 2020 argues that it is ethnic cleaning and not genocide. Thomas Richards Jr. in his book, “Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of the Jacksonian United States,” John Hopkins Univ. Press, refers to “Mirabeau Lamar’s genocidal policies.”

2 Valdés, Dennis N., “The Decline of Slavery in Mexico,” The Americas, pub. Cambridge Univ. Press, Vol. 44 No. 2, Oct. 1987, pp. 167-194.

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the committee which drew up the constitution3 for the state of Texas and additionally was a signatory, was pro-slavery. The sections of the Constitution regarding slavery and race are as follows: General Provisions: Sec. 6. All free white persons who shall emigrate to this Republic, and who shall, after a residence of six months, make oath before some competent authority that he intends to reside permanently in the same, and shall swear to support this Constitution, and that he will bear true allegiance to the Republic of Texas, shall be entitled to all the privileges of citizenship.

Sec. 9. All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude, provided the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the persons so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from the United States of America from bringing their slaves into the Republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States; nor shall Congress have power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slave-holder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the consent of Congress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the Republic. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the Republic, without the consent of Congress; and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this Republic, excepting from the United States of America, is forever prohibited, and declared to be piracy.

Sec. 10. All, persons (Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians excepted) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence, shall be considered citizens of the Republic, and entitled to all privileges of such. All citizens now living in Texas, who have not received their portion of land, in like manner as colonists, shall be entitled to their land in the following proportion and manner: Every head of a family shall be entitled to one league and “labor” of land, and every single man of the age of seventeen and upwards, shall be entitled to the third part of one league of land. … [The rest of this article has to deal with allocations of land to others, orphans and other aspects of the ownership of land in the Republic of Texas and doesn’t mention race.]

There was also a section about rights as follows: 3

Footnote 3 on page 276, for a letter to General Andrew Jackson from Sam Houston, dated Feb. 13, 1833, pages 274-276, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” Vol. 1, Editors, Eugene C. Baker and Amelia W. Williams, Univ. of Texas Press, 1938-1943, Austin, Texas. Hathi Trust.

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DECLARATION OF RIGHTS This Declaration of Rights is declared to be a part of this Constitution, and shall never be violated on any pretence whatever. And in order to guard against the transgression of the high powers which we have delegated, we declare that everything in this bill of rights contained, and every other right not hereby delegated, is reserved to the People.

First. All men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive public privileges or emoluments from the community.

Second. All political power is inherent in the People, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times an inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they may think proper.

Third. No preference shall be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship over another, but every person shall be permitted to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.

Fourth. Every citizen shall be at liberty to speak, write, or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege. No law shall ever be passed to curtail the liberty of speech or of the press; and in all prosecutions for libels, the truth may be given in evidence, and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and fact, under the direction of the court.

Fifth. The People shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable searches or seizures and no warrant shall issue to search any place or seize any person or thing, without describing the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized, without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation.

This section of the Constitution has seventeen parts.4 The Constitution defines Africans and Native Americans as not human.

The following are sections from the “Unanimous Declaration of Independence” of March 3, 1836 also signed by Samuel Houston in which oppressions of Santa Anna are mentioned.

4

“Constitution of the Republic of Texas to Which is Prefixed The Declaration of Independence Made in Convention, March 2, 1836,” printed by Gales & Seaton, Washington, D.C., 1836, for presentation by Robert Hamilton and Geo. C. Childress for presentation to the American public in Washington, D.C, May 22, 1936, pages 8-24.

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It opens as follows: When a Government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the People, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression : when the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their Government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted Federative Republic, composed of sovereign States, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood—both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the ever-ready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants: when, long after the spirit of the Constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms them¬ selves of the Constitution discontinued; and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new Government upon them at the point of the bayonet: when, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the Government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements: in such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of selfpreservation, the inherent and inalienable right of the People to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such Government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.

Further in the Declaration: The Mexican Government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness, under the pledged faith of a written Constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and Republican Government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America. In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the Government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, who, having overturned the Constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.

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The Declaration goes on to list other oppressions of the Santa Anna dictatorship.

Further there is a judgement about the “Mexican People” as follows: These and other grievances were patiently borne by the People of Texas, until they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. They then took up arms in defence of the National Constitution. They appealed to their Mexican brethren for assistance. Their appeal has been made in vain: though months have elapsed, -no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the interior. They are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion that the Mexican People have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therefor of a military despotism; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of selfgovernment. 5 The last section quoted above is to answer a question why secession is chosen instead of overthrowing a dictatorship. If you had your nation’s constitution overthrown and a dictatorship established a possible reaction might be is to try to restore the constitution and rid your nation of the dictatorship. This last section is to explain why this isn’t the Texas secessionists’ plan.

What is notable is that the constitution is more than establishing the Republic of Texas as a slave state, it is also establishing it as a white supremacist state. Not only is slavery permitted and protected and slaves can be brought into Texas from the United States of America, but “Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians,” are defined as not being citizens regardless of whether they are slaves or not. Another part of the Texas Constitution states that, “No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the Republic, without the consent of Congress.” The presence of free persons of African descent is intolerable, with only some exceptions, since free Africans would be a menace to slavery and white supremacy.

In delineation of the rights of citizens Texas Republic it refers to “People” with a capitol “P”. These are not rights that persons of African descent will have nor Native American in the newly created Texas state and implicitly it defines persons of African descent and Native Americans as not being people, they are instead non-People, lacking humanity.

The Texas Republic Constitution not only protects slavery, but it defines the Texas Republic as a white supremacist state. It is white people who are invited to be citizens of the state. The Texas “people” are defined as white and the rights are the rights which the Texas secessionists seek to defend are those of white people.

5

“Constitution of the Republic of Texas to Which is Prefixed, The Declaration of Independence Made in Convention, March 2, 1836,” printed by Gales & Seaton, Washington, D.C., 1836, for presentation by Robert Hamilton and Geo. C. Childress for presentation to the American public in Washington, D.C, May 22, 1936, pages 37

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The Declaration talks about “oppression,” “intolerable tyranny” that have been done to “Anglo-Americans” as great crimes, but slavery exists and operates through oppression and intolerable tyranny. The grievance of the Texas secessionists is that what they do to their slaves is being done to them.

Sam Houston’s conception of the Republic of Texas and its purpose is revealed in a public letter by Houston to Santa Anna of March 21, 1842 in the following section: Every citizen of Texas was born a freeman, and he would be a recreant to the principles imbibed from his ancestry, if he would not freely peril his life, in defence of his home, his liberty, and his country. Although you are pleased to characterize our occupation of Texas and defence of our imprescriptible right, as “the most scandalous robbery of the present age,” it is not one-fourth of century since Mexico perpetrated a similar robbery upon the rights of the crown of Spain.

The magnitude of the theft may give dignity to the robbery; in that you have the advantage. That you should thus have characterized a whole nation I can readily account for. Heretofore you entertained the opinion that Mexico could never conquer Texas; that, if it were possible to drive every Texian from the soil, Mexico could not maintain her position on the Sabine; and the retreat of her army would be the signal for the return of the Anglo-Saxon race, who would re-occupy their homes, and pursue the Mexicans as far as the Rio Grande; and that Mexico, in preservation of the integrity of the territory she then possessed would gain an advantage by abandoning all hope of conquering Texas, and directing her attention to the improvement of her internal condition. Your recent opinions, as declared by you, appear to be at variance with these speculations; and are most vehemently avowed. It is an attribute of wisdom to change opinions upon conviction of error; and perhaps for it you are justifiable – at least I discover you have one attribute of a new convert; you are quite zealous and wordy in the promulgation of the doctrine you have espoused.

Sir, from your lenity and power Texas expects nothing – from your humanity less; and when you invade Texas you will not find thorns to wound the foot of the traveler; but you will find opposed to Mexican breasts, arms wielded by freemen, of unerring certainty, and directed for a purpose not to be eluded. Texians are not for gewgaws and titles. They battle not to sustain dictators or despots. They do not march to the field unwillingly; nor are they dragged to the army in chains, with the mock title of volunteers. For a while they lay by the implements of husbandry and seize their rifles. They rally in defense of their rights, and when victory has been achieved, to the cultivation of the soil. They have laws to protect their rights; their property is their own. They do not bow to the will of a despot; but they bow to the majesty of the constitution and laws. They are freemen indeed. It is not so with your nation; from the alcalde to the dictator all are tyrants in Mexico, and the community is held in bondage subject, not to the law, but to the will of a superior and confined in hopeless subjection to usurpation.

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In an individual so intelligent as yourself it does seem to me that you have evinced very bad taste in adverting to the subject of slavery in the internal affairs of this country. Your opinions on this subject while here, were freely and frankly avowed. You then believe that it would be a great advantage to Mexico to introduce slave labor into that country, that it would develop her resources, by enabling her to produce cotton, sugar, and coffee for the purposes of exportation; and that, without it, she would be seriously retarded in her march to greatness and prosperity. Your sympathy and commiseration, at present expressed, are, no doubt, very sincere; and I only regret that they partake so little of consistency. You boast that Mexico gave the noble and illustrious example of emancipating her slaves. The fact that she has the name of having done so, has enabled you to add another flourish to your rhetoric; but, the examination of facts for one moment, will disclose the truth. The slaves of Mexico, you say, are emancipated. Did you elevate them to the condition of freemen, but you reduced the common people to the condition of slaves. It is not uncommon in Mexico for one dignitary, upon his hacienda, to control from one hundred to ten thousand human beings in a state of bondage more abject and intolerable than the negroes on any cotton plantation in this country. If any individual in Mexico owes but twenty-five cents, the creditor, by application to an alcalde, can have him, with his family, decreed to his service, and remain in that state of slavery until he is able to pay the debt from the wagers accruing form his labor after being compelled to subsist his dependent family. This, you call freedom, and graciously bestow your sympathy upon the African race. The abolitionists of the present day will not feel indebted to you for your support of their cause. Had some one else than the dictator of Mexico, the self-styled, “Napoleon of the West,” the subverters of the constitution of 1824, the projector of Centralism, and the man who endeavors to reduce a nation to slavery, become their advocate, they might have been more sensible of their obligations. So far as its increase can be prevented, our constitution and laws have presented every obstacle. They will be maintained to the letter, and on account of slavery, Texas will incur no reproach.

You touchingly invite Texas to “cover herself anew with the Mexican flag.” You certainly intend this as a mockery. You denied use the enjoyment of the laws under which we came to the country. Her flag was never raised in our behalf nor has it been seen in Texas except when displayed in an attempt at our subjugation.

We know your lenity – we know your mercy – we are ready again to test your power. You have threatened to plant your banner on the banks of the Sabine. It is this done to intimidate us? Is it done to alarm us? Or do you deem it the most successful mode of conquest? It the latter, it may do to amuse the people surrounding you. If to alarm us, it will amuse those conversant with the history of your last campaign. If to intimidate us, the threat is idle. We have desired peace.

You have annoyed our frontier; you have harassed our citizens; you have

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incarcerated our traders; after your commissioners have been kindly received, and your citizens allowed the privilege of commerce in Texas without molestation. You continue aggression; you will not accord use peace. We will have it. You threaten to conquer Texas; we will war with Mexico. Your pretentions with ours you have referred to the social world, and to the God of battles. We refer to the same tribunals – the issue involved the fate of nations.

Destiny must determine – its event is only known to the tribunal of heaven. If experience of the past will authorize the speculations of the future, the attitude of Mexico is more problematical than that of Texas.

In the war which will be conducted by Texas against Mexico, our incentive will not be a love of conquest; it will be to disarm tyranny of its power. We will make no war upon Mexicans or their religion. Our efforts shall be made in behalf of the liberties of the people; and directed against the authorities of the country, and against your principles. We will exalt the condition of the people to representative freedom. They shall choose their own rulers – they shall possess their property in peace; and it shall not be taken from them to support an armed soldiery for the purpose of oppression. With these principles we will march across the Rio Grande, and, believe me, Sir, ere the banner of Mexico shall triumphantly float upon the banks of the Sabine, the Texian standard of the single star, borne by the Anglo-Saxon race, shall display its bright folds in Liberty’s triumph, on the isthmus of Darien.

With the most appropriate considerations, I have the honor to present you my salutations.

Sam Houston6 [Italics in the original, boldface added.]

It might be argued that peonage is not as bad as slavery, but to engage, or get entangled, with discussing and comparing the two systems of bondage, misses the point.

Also, there are the sensational aspects of Houston’s racism in his other writings which should be noted, such as when he calls Native Americans in Texas, “savage cannibals”7 or his calling abolitionism “niggerism,”8 but they should not distract from

6

Houston, Sam, Letter, “To Santa Anna,” March 21, 1842, “The Writings of Sam Houston 1813-1863, Vol. 2, (1939), The University of Texas Press, Austin, 1939, pages 513 to 527, extract pages 524 to 527.

7 Houston, Sam, “Annual Presidential Message to the Congress,” Nov. 21, 1837, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp. 152-161, quotes from page 160.

8 Houston, Sam, “Address at the Union Mass Meeting, Austin, Texas,” Sept. 22, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.8 (1943) pp. 145-160, quotes from page 155.

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comprehending Houston’s white supremacist agenda which hoped to subjugate all of Latin America.

NOTE: You can read any of these speeches or writings of Samuel Houston online at the Hathi Trust which has all eight volumes of his writings online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001264404.

The issue of Texas secession, as mentioned before, isn’t whether it was because of oppression of Santa Anna versus to avoid abolition. When Santa Anna brings up the issue that Texas secession is creating a nation with slavery, Houston doesn’t argue that the Texans are motivated for other reasons and not slavery. Houston instead argues that Santa Anna’s moral concern is hypocritical since Mexico has a system of bondage in the form of peonage.

When Houston talks about freedom in his letter to Santa Anna, he talks about AngloSaxon institutions for Anglo-Saxons. For Houston, one of the Anglo-Saxon institutions would be slavery. For Houston secession is about creating an Anglo-Saxon ethnostate with hierarchies, exploitations, and bondage based on race with Anglo-Saxons on top versus being in a political unit with its own hierarchies, exploitations, and bondage not base on a racial hierarchy with Anglo-Saxons on top. Remaining in Mexico would be to remain in a state as a political unit in which Anglo-Saxons would not be dominant and would be a minority among non-Anglo-Saxons who do things like abolish slavery which would undermine Anglo-Saxon racial hierarchy and generally were not driven to have rigid racial codes to assert white supremacy which would also undermine racial hierarchy. Again, when Houston talks about freedom that includes the freedom to own slaves, the freedom to have white supremacy as a political system.

ANGLO-SAXON TRIUMPHALISM Houston is an Anglo-Saxon supremacist with a political program of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and conceiving history as the triumphal narrative of the Anglo-Saxon race.

In Houston’s inaugural address in 1836 as the first president of the Republic of Texas he says, “The civilized world contemplated with proud emotions conduct which reflected so much glory on the Anglo-Saxon race.” He explains how victory has resulted in AngloSaxon solidarity by, “our friends in the land of our origin.”9 In Houston’s annual presidential message to the Texas congress in 1837 in a complaint about Mexican conduct he states, “Since the first invitation of the Anglo Saxon race to this country” and in a 1838 message to the Texas Senate he states, “When the Anglo-Saxon race first commenced their settlement in Texas, …” in both instances clearly defining the settlers 9

Houston, Sam, “Houston’s Inaugural Address,” Oct. 22, 1836, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.1 (1938) pp. 448-452, quotes from page 450.

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racially instead of as American settlers. The history of Texas in Houston’s mind is a racial history.10 In a discussion in 1839 as to why the Texas secessionists negotiated with the Cherokee, Houston states, “They knew a crisis was approaching, and though they might have had all confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Anglo Saxon race, they feared the contest might be long and bloody.”11 At Houston’s 1841 address in Houston, Texas, he states, “Tell the civilized world that a little band of patriots, animated by the daring spirit and unconquerable love of freedom, which distinguished the Anglo-Saxon race, had battled successfully with an empire so powerful, had burst the bonds of tyranny, and sprung full grown into a nation.”12 Houston again makes it clear that freedom is for Anglo-Saxons and not for African Americans and other non-white peoples. Showing again that the history of Texas for Houston is a saga of the Anglo-Saxons, in an 1842 letter from Houston to Gen. Leslie Combs he states, “Mexico has invaded our country, and her Dictator has declared that the Anglo Saxon race shall bow to the will of a despot.”13 It isn’t American immigrants, Texas residents, or immigrants that are subject to a dictator, it is Anglo-Saxons. If there was a despot over Texas it would be despot over all the residents of Texas regardless of race. The implication is that these other races will endure oppression, which white Texans would act to oppress and which would include African slaves. This conception of Texas is repeated in an April 14, 1842 “proclamation by Houston, “We had hoped that her unfounded prejudice and national animosity towards the Anglo-American race would have died away.”14 Given, as will be detailed later in this essay, that Houston would later make different proposals to either seize large sections of Mexico, establish a protectorate over Mexico and other Central American nations in North America and in one case have Americans occupy all of Latin America it seems that these sentiments weren’t “unfounded” at all.

10

Houston, Sam, “Annual Presidential Message to the Congress,” Nov. 21, 1837, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp. 152-161, quotes from page 160; “To the Texas Senate,” May 21, 1838, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 55-60, quote pp. 55. NOTE: In the records of Houston’s writings sometimes there was a hyphen in Anglo-Saxon and sometimes not. In the quotes it is hyphenated or not as it was in the original eight volumes edited by Williams and Barker.

11 Houston, Sam, “On Behalf of the Cherokee Land Bill,” Dec. 22, 1839, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp. 323-348, quotes from page 326.

12 Houston, Sam, “Address of General Sam Houston, President Elect, at Houston,” Nov. 25, 1841, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp. 301-397, quotes from page 392.

13 Houston, Sam, “To General Leslie Combs,” March 16, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited

by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp.

504-505, quotes from page 505.

14 Houston, Sam, “A Proclamation to All Texans,” April 14, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.3 (1940) pp. 26-32, quotes from page 26.

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Earlier, in a Feb. 1, 1842 veto message to the Texas House of Representatives Houston states: To extend our limits according to the provisions of the bill, would embrace a region of country larger than the United States of the North, and include two thirds of the territory of the Republic of Mexico. It would take in portions of the States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa, and all of Chihuahua, New Mexico, Sonora, and Upper and Lower California.”

Houston points out that this would alienate nations from which they hoped to get recognition as a state. Also, Houston points out: We may regard Mexicans as we may think proper; but still they are men and entertain ideas of nationality and some sense of shame and injury. If then they do, the present project must have a powerful influence upon them. Indignity always inspires feelings of revenge. The very thought of suffering a portion of their country, will give them adhesion—and union may render them more formidable than we have found them in times past.15 It seems that Mexican fears were very well founded, that the Texans seriously were considering to seize large sections of Mexico, and certainly when Houston was claiming in less than three months later that it was “unfounded” he certainly would have been aware of his own message to the Texas congress to why he vetoed their bill.

In this same, “Proclamation to All Texans,” of April 14, 1842 Houston also states: The Mexican despot should be admonished by the truth that we have sprung from a race who, since their landing at Jamestown and upon the rock of Plymouth, have never quailed before privations or been appalled by dangers. Our march to greatness cannot be impeded.16 In a letter to Ashbel Smith, Dec. 9, 1842, Houston writes: I demand, has the Anglo-Saxon race, been beaten back; or when have they bowed to a foreign yoke? A continuance of War, is only laying a foundation of Mexico, by our race! I may not see it. I do not expect to do so, but the second generation from this day, will not pass away, until it will be accomplished, and if it were 15

Houston, Sam, “To the House of Representatives,” Feb. 1, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.2 (1939) pp. 462-464, quotes, pp. 463 for the extent of proposed territorial annexation, pp. 464-465 for the potential for Mexican national unity.

16 Houston, Sam, “A Proclamation to All Texans,” April 14, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.3 (1940) pp. 26-32, quote from page 32.

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possible for Mexico to subdue Texas, it wou’d only precipitate the result. The sympathy—for the suffering inhabitants of the country—the alarm to certain portions of the U. States,-- the hope of spoil,--the love of Territory, and the redundancy of population, would all have a tendency to create a press upon Mexico, which she could not resist! Northern Mexico would be in the hands of Missourians in less than a hundred days from such a result!17 In an 1843 speech Houston rejects being a British territory says: But take the race of North America, and their progeny who have removed to Texas. Can you place scepters before them that they will not break, or crowns that they will not trample in the dust? The Anglo-Saxon cannot stoop beneath equality with the world.18 In an 1844 letter to J.P. Henderson and Issac Van Zandt, Houston’s ideas about the relationship of race, freedom, and slavery are expressed clearly. Houston writes: It is a palpable scandal to the 19th century, that Statesmen should be prating about the emancipation of persons born, and their race held in slavery, by the custom and consent of nations for centuries, while they permit Santa Anna to forge, and rivet chains, upon eight millions of people who were born free. Thus will the horrors of slavery be increased, with design to render his success subservient to the subversion of the Liberties of Texas, and form a new era in history, by degrading to slavery, a portion of the Anglo Saxon race. This ought not, and cannot be. It argues on the part of statesmen a want of perception, as well as self-respect.19 It simply enrages Houston that the freedom of Africans be considered at all and, worse yet, be weighed as important as the freedom of Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons not be given primacy. Here we see that the cause of secession was that the tyranny of Santa Anna would be applied to Anglo-Saxons, Houston’s master race, not some general concern about freedom.

In an 1844 letter to William S. Murphy and others, Houston speculates on what avenues of conquest might be taken if the United States government doesn’t admit Texas into its 17

Houston, Sam, “To Ashbel Smith” Dec. 9, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.3 (1940) pp. 222-225, quote from page 224.

18 Houston, Sam, “A Speech Delivered at the Presbyterian Church (Huntsville)” Nov. 8, 1843, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.3 (1940) pp. 442-455, quote from page 444.

19 Houston, Sam, “To J.P. Henderson, and Isaac Van Zandt,” Apr. 16, 1844, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 298-301, quote pp. 300.

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nation. Houston imagines that a nation with a vast territory including the Oregon region and sections of Mexico would be merged with Texas to form a vast state. In this letter Houston writes: I am free to admit that most of the Provinces, of Chihuahua, Sonora, and the upper and lower California, as well as Santa Fe, which we now claim will have to be into the connexion, of Texas and Oregon. This you will see by the Map is no bug-bear to those who will reflect upon the achievements of the Anglo Saxon people. What have they ever attempted, and recoiled, in submission to defeat?

Nothing. I would answer!20 In a message to the Texas Congress, Dec. 9, 1844, in talking about the advantages of remaining an independent nation, Houston states: If we remain an independent nation, our territory will be extensive—unlimited.

The Pacific alone will bound the mighty march of our race and our empire. From Europe and America her soil is to be peopled. In regions where the savage and the buffalo now roam uncontrolled, the enterprise and industry of the AngloAmerican are yet to find an extensive field of development.21 After Texas is admitted to the United States, and there is the potential of employing the power of the United States for the expansion of the United States into an Anglo-Saxon empire to the south, Houston interweaves his Anglo-Saxon narratives with his advocacy of United States expansion into Latin American. These Anglo-Saxon narratives serve as a justification with the assertion that Anglo-Saxon rule would be beneficial to Latin America and encouragement to attempt this expansion on the basis that Anglo-Saxons are invincible and so it can be done, perhaps easily, without fear of failure.

One of the earliest actions of Houston as a U.S. Senator, shortly after Texas was admitted to the United States as a state on Dec. 29, 1845 was to express the Anglo-Saxon desire for empire in a speech in the U.S. Senate on April 15, 1846, a few months after Texas admission, regarding the Oregon question. Houston states: Extension of territory seems to be the ruling passion of the present race. The inhabitants adjoining the lakes and the British territories on the northeast have for many years kept a longing eye on Canada, and only bide their time. In the South aggression is the order of the day, because the Mexicans can’t defend 20

Houston, Sam, “To William S. Murphy,” May 6., 1844, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 320325, quote pp. 323.

21 Houston, Sam, “Valedictory to the Texas Congress,” Dec. 9, 1844, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 401-405, quote pp. 403.

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themselves. The tide is flowing in that quarter with fearful rapidity, and nothing but the enterference of European powers, so abominated by Mr. Polk, can prevent the whole of that rich country from being swallowed up by the AngloSaxon race. In the West the same spirit prevails, and California and Oregon are considered absolutely necessary to make the Union complete.22 [Boldface added.]

With Texas being in the United States, it is no longer a small frontier republic, being exposed to the shifting geopolitics of great global imperial powers. It no longer is needing the support or having to consider avoiding the hostility of great global imperial powers, which might be hostile to Texas desiring to devour Latin America. Houston in his expression of wanting to imperially devour Latin America no longer has to fear the consequences to a small frontier republic, being a part of a great rising power, the United States.

After the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Texas from the non-Anglo-Saxon Mexicans, Houston is ready for the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Latin America and can freely express his desire to do so. It is instructive to compare this March 15, 1846 speech in the in which he confidently expresses the inevitable conquest of Mexico by Anglo-Saxon to an earlier speech Dec. 9, 1844 to the Texas congress when it is not certain that the United States will admit Texas. Then, as previously quoted, he states, “The Pacific alone will bound the mighty march of our race and our empire.”23 Talk of devouring Latin America will not go well with European powers. After admission, Houston’s publicly declared desires for Anglo-Saxon expansion isn’t just confined to expansion to the west to the Pacific, taking in parts of peripheral Mexico, but now includes Houston’s desires to expand to the south, to consume the whole of Mexico, and as time goes on to consume Latin America.

In an 1847 speech in the U.S. Senate, Houston states that the Mexicans weren’t capable of securing Texas from the Native Americans (He never used that term), and so they brought in colonists from the United States, because they were, “aware of the hardy and enterprising character of the Anglo-American race.”24 In an 1848 speech to Democrats in New York state, in one section the intent of the Mexican government was in the past to “to annihilate the whole race of us, and not to suffer on of Saxon blood to leave the impress of his foot upon the soil which we inhabited,” showing that he conceived the secession struggle as a race war. Later in the 22

Houston, Sam, “Speech on the Oregon Question in the Senate of the United States,” April 15, 1846, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 451-471, quote pp. 460.

23 Houston, Sam, “Valedictory to the Texas Congress,” Dec. 9, 1844, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 401-405, quote pp. 403.

24 Houston, Sam, “Speech in the United States Senate February 19, 1847 on the ‘Three Million Bill,’” Feb. 19, 1847, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 523-536, quote pp. 526.

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speech his Anglo-Saxon supremacy and desire for conquest of non-Anglo-Saxons is expressed spectacularly when Houston states: I say that you have a good bargain in getting Texas, and I who say this, think I can prove it and make you believe it. As surely as to-morrow’s sun will rise and pursue its bright course along the firmament of heaven, so certain, it appears to my mind, must the Anglo-Saxon race pervade the whole southern extremity of this vast continent, and the people whom God has place here in this land, spread, prevail, and pervade throughout the whole rich empire of this great hemisphere— The manner of the consummation of this grand result.

Now Houston hungers to devour all of Latin America.

Later in his speech he argues that the occupation of Mexico would be a humanitarian action, and as to who needs to do it, he states, “Let the white man-let the American interpose,” and stop what he claims are the depravations of the Native Americans on the Mexicans. He feels that this would be the Christian god’s will stating, “Then, I say, the Divine Being has been evidently carrying out the destiny of the American race,” and making white people the race chosen by the Christian god to rule over Mexico.25 In an 1851 letter to John Letcher describing victory in a battle against Santa Anna Houston comments, “The achievement was in behalf of liberty, and the Anglo-Saxon race, branded with every crime, redeemed themselves, and left no spoil upon their ancestral escutcheons, but showed at least that they were worthy of their sires.”26 The secession of Texas is about the continuing triumphal story of Anglo-Saxons in history, the triumphal story of a master race.

In an 1853 speech in the U.S. Senate, Sam Houston reaffirms that Texans are AngloSaxons in discussing the settlement of the debt of Texas where speculators had bought it cheaply, stating: No doubt gentlemen in the United States thought the prospect was very fine; they knew that the Texans were descended from the Anglos-Saxon stock, and that they would maintain their liberty in defiance of every difficulty; for the American race

25

Houston, Sam, “Speech on the Boundary of Texas,” February 1848?, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 29-34, quotes; Saxon blood, pp. 30; Anglo-Saxons conquer Latin America, pp. 34; white man, pp. 35; Divine Being, pp. 35.

26 Houston, Sam, “A Lecture on Trials and Dangers of Frontier Life,” Jan. 28, 1851, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 267-281, quote page 274.

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never retreated never took one step backwards; and that from the day they had impressed their footsteps upon a perilous soil, they would go on.27 However, Houston’s imperial program of territorial expansion isn’t just blustering and involves elements of cunning and stealth. In an 1853 speech in the U.S. Senate, “Opposing Reaffirmation of the Principles of the Monroe Doctrine,” he is concerned about antagonizing European powers. Houston is also concerned about prematurely revealing American imperial ambitions stating: I would like to talk about Nicaragua and Cuba and the Sandwich Islands; about there being natural accretions to the power here to be built if we remain a united and just people, just to ourselves and to other nations; maintaining the good faither of treaties; interfering with no one; permitting no interference with use.

But there is not time for that. It is not necessary that we should proclaim to the whole world that we are going to do this or that. Let us be staid, quiet, industrious, and reflective. When subjects are presented requiring action, let us act. Sir, this nation is destined to fill a vast space among the nations of the earth.

Already in its youth it is great and might; majestic in its renown and most infinite are its resources; but those resources must be husbanded and they must be cared for, for a while. It is in vain to extend speculations beyond the necessity of the times, and involve ourselves in fruitless troubles by anticipation.28 [The Sandwich Islands are now known as the Hawaiian Islands.]

It also shows that Houston has a vision of great imperial expansions of the United States, he just believes that they need to be pursued cautiously with out causing “fruitless troubles.”

The narrative of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and triumphalism is part of Houston’s speech in 1858 in the U.S. Senate advocating a resolution of his that the United States should establish a protectorate over Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and San Salvador in 1858. These would made slave states or in the case of Mexico many slave states. Houston advocates the passage of his resolution as a humanitarian effort.

Anglo-Saxon supremacy and triumphalism is part of this speech when he says: The day is coming when an influence, which is now in the East, must pass off to the West and South, and control and enlighten these people. It is inevitable as that the Indian tribes have faded before the majesty of the Anglo-American morale. When they have all faded away, the natural consequences will be, that a 27

Houston, Sam, “Speech on the Bill Providing for the Texas Debt,” Feb. 11, 1853, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 375-388, quote page 377.

28 Houston, Sam, “Opposing Reaffirmation of the Principles of the Monroe Doctrine,” March 2, 1853, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 411-428, quote on pages 427.

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weaker race will be brought in contact with us, and the stronger must prevail.

These people will have to yield to the dominant spirit of the American people. The structure of our institutions, their moral, their physical, and all their powers, indicate a controlling influence that at some day will not even stop at Central America, but go beyond it. We are an increasing people. We have continual accessions, from other nations, and they become imbued with our spirit, and commingle with us and our enterprises. This mixture of races causes an irresistible impetus, that must overshadow and overrule that whole region. 29 [Italics in the original.]

To clarify, when Houston here talks of other races, he means other white ethnic groups immigrating into the United States. The people who Houston claims will be enlightened are Latin Americans.

As stated before, as shown with this lengthy series of quotes by Houston over time, Houston is an Anglo-Saxon supremacist with a political program of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and conceiving history as the triumphal narrative of the Anglo-Saxon master race. Clearly from Houston’s use of Anglo-Saxon in describing Texans and Americans as well as their history, he defines being Texan as white as well as well as Americans.

Houston asserts that Mexicans are an inferior race to Anglo-Saxons. In his 1833 letter to Andrew Jackson he states, “The rulers have not honesty, and the people have not intelligence.” [Italics in the original.]30 In an 1842 letter to George William Brown and others, Houston states, “If the Mexicans are an imbecile and ignorant people, it is equally true that they are vain and think themselves as a nation invincible.” 31 In his speech to Democrats in New York in 1848 Houston in which argues that AngloSaxons must conquer all of Latin America, he declares, “Now the Mexicans are no better than Indians, and I see no reason why we should not go on in the same course now, and take their land.”

The “same course” that Houston is referring to is explained in the same speech as the taking of the lands of North America from Native Americans, as Houston states:

29

Houston, Sam, “Remarks Concerning His Resolution Authoring a Protectorate over Certain Latin-American States,” Feb. 16, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 508--512, quote pages 511-512.

30 Houston, Sam, “To Andrew Jackson,” Feb. 13, 1833, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 1 (1938), pp. 274276, quote pages 274.

31 Houston, Sam, “To George William Brown and Others,” March 3, 1842, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 72-76, quote pages 74.

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There is not an American upon earth but who loves land… Your ancestors, when they landed in Plymouth upon that famous rock, were not long contented with that barren spot, but proceeded in their might, and went on progressing at Jamestown, as well as at Plymouth, till all the country was possessed by them.

From the first moment they landed, they went on trading with the Indians, and cheating them out of their lands.32 So, by saying Mexicans are Native Americans Houston is asserting that the lands of the Mexicans, and ultimately of all Latin Americans can and should be taken from them as the lands of North America were taken from the Native Americans.

If Houston thought “Mexicans are no better than Indians” it would be instructive to understand what Houston thought of Native Americans and how they should be treated.

In Houston’s 1837, “Annual Presidential Message to the Congress,” the Texas Congress, he refers to Native Americans as “savage cannibals.”33 When Houston in an 1848 speech in the U.S. Senate is urging that the U.S. government support the efforts of the Yucatan to break away from Mexico, one of the claims he brings up is that the ruling whites are a small percentage, 10%, and the majority is Indigenous which he claims are cannibals. Houston states that the rebels in the Yucatan have, “offered to us in return her ‘dominion and sovereignty,” in return for assistance in their rebellion against the Mexican government, that is to become a territory of the United States. In the same address he discusses the Indigenous reveals Houston’s views on racial domination, racial hierarchy and democracy. Houston in his speech states: Are the evidences before us sufficient to induce a belief that the people of Yucatan are borne down by superior numbers, by a “majority,” as the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] has said? “Are the savages the majority?” Yes; perhaps ten to one. And is that any reason why the white inhabitants, “who have occupied the country for three hundred years,” should be given up to slaughter and indiscriminate butchery? No, sir. It a reason why they should be assisted. It is a reason why those savages should have their bloody hands stayed from slaughter.

It is a reason why we should interpose in defence of the whites, who bear upon them the impress of civilization and brotherhood with ourselves.

The geopolitics of Houston is white racial solidarity.

32

Houston, Sam, “Speech on the Boundary of Texas,” Feb. 1848?, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 29-34, quotes pages 34-35.

33 Houston, Sam, “Annual Presidential Message to Congress,” Nov. 21, 1937, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 2 (1939), pp. 152-161, quote page 160.

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Later in the same address Houston states: In portions of Mexico the Indians are not savages. The Indians that Cortez met were not like the aboriginal inhabitants of Yucatan. The Indians on the south of the Gulf of Mexico are cannibals, who live upon fish, and feed upon their captive enemies, and when assailed, fly to their mountain fastness for safety. Such people inhabited the southern portion of Texas. They were of gigantic size, ferocious in their disposition, loathsome in their habits, and rioted on human flesh. Such are the natives against whom the people of Yucatan appeal to you for protection.

Further in Houston’s speech he justifies intervention stating, “But unless we interpose on this occasion, I am led to believe that the white race of Yucatan will be exterminated …”34 Supporting the breakup and acquisition of the Yucatan is also a step in the direction of Houston’s desires for the white imperial acquisition of Latin America.

Assertions of the savagery of the Indigenous in Yucatan is the basis of Houston rejecting a multi-racial democracy, advocating the establishment of a white supremacist state, and dismembering the Yucatan from Mexico to be specifically an American white supremacist state.

Houston repeatedly refers to Native Americans as being savage and calls them savages in his writing and addresses over decades. The earliest reference is the 1837 address to the Texas Congress previously mentioned. The last reference is his March 18, 1861 “Message to the Texas Legislature,” relaying a message from South Carolina asking Texas to secede in which he uses the term “savage” in reference to Native Americans three times.35 In the, “Writings of Sam Houston,” eight volume set the specific use of “savage” or “savages” to refer to Native Americans, not counting the use of the word “savage” to describe their actions, is in thirty-one (31) speeches, communications, or letters, one or more times.36 34

Houston, Sam, “Speech in the United States Senate, May 8, 1848, On the Yucatan Bill and the Davis Amendment Thereto,” May 8, 1848, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 37-52, quotes, offer of sovereignty, page 40; statements about majorities, page 43; cannibals page 44; extermination, page 48.

35 Houston, Sam, “Message to the Texas Legislature,” March 8, 1861, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 8 (1941), pp. 278-284, “savage” on pages 283, 284 36 Houston, Sam, “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43: Vol. 2, 1939, “Annual Presidential Message to Congress,” Nov. 21, 1837, pp. 152-161, savage, page 160; “To Santa Anna,” March 21, 1842, pp. 513-527, “savages” pp.515; Vol. 3, 1940, “To the Texas Congress,” Dec. 22, 1842, pp. 241-249, “savages” pp. 248; Vol. 4, 1941, “Notes for the Secretary of State,” June 10, 1843, pages 210-211 , “savages” pp.210;“To William S. Murphy,” May 6, 1844, pp.

320-325, “savage” page 324; “To Thomas G. Western,” July 29, 1844, pp. 345-346, “savages,” pp. 345;“Valedictory to the Texas Congress,” Dec. 9, 1844, pp. 401- 405, “savage” pp. 402, 403; “Speech in the United States Senate in Favor of Volunteer Force,” Jan. 22, Feb. 1, 1847, pp. 504-522, “savage” page 513; “Speech in the United States Senate on the ‘Three Million Bill,’” Feb. 19, 1847, pp. 523-536 , “savage” page 526; Vol. 5, 1941, “Speech on the Boundary of Texas, Feb. 1848?, pp. 29-36 , “savage,” page 35; “Speech in the United States Senate on the Yucatan

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Houston does not think all Native Americans or Indigenous37 are savages, as in his mention of “Indians” in Mexico, that there are some who are civilized and not savage, as when discussing the Yucatan secessionists quoted earlier in this essay. It is revealing as to how Houston sees Native Americans led from being savage.

Houston has three speeches in the U.S. Senate in which he describes Native Americans in the United States who he considers not savage, and civilized. Again, it is instructive to understand what Houston considers the meaning of “civilized” is for Native Americans and who civilizes them.

On Feb. 15, 1854 Houston in a speech in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill at length explains how Native Americans are unjustly treated and then explains what he things just treatment can accomplish: But sire, I will speak in reference to the Indians, and the advantage which arises when they are justly treated. …

I was familiar with them then. They were in a savage state; they had no refinement. I recollect when the first farmer was sent there to teach them agriculture; and even, perhaps, at a later period, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, and the Creeks had the first germ of civilization placed among them. What are they now? They are a civilized people. They have all the comforts of life. They are agriculturalists, mechanics, they are educated, a refined, enlightened, and religious people, with their own native ministers of the Gospel, educated in the seminaries of the United States. Schools and every evidence of civilization and Bill and the Davis Amendment Thereto,” May 8, 1848, pp. 37-52, “savages,” pages 42,43,44; “On the Compromise of 1850,” Feb. 8, 1850, pages 119-144, “savage,“ page 143; “A Speech on the Texas Boundary Question,” June 13, 1850, pp. 161-164, “savages,” page 164; “A Lecture on Trials and Dangers of Frontier Life,” Jan. 28, 1851, pp. 267281, “savage,” page 269;”On the Appropriation For Indians in California,” Aug. 11, 1852, pp. 349-354, “savage,” page 351; “Opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,” Feb. 14-15, 1854, pp. 469-502, “savage” page 487; “Opposing the Nebraska-Kansas,” March 3, 1854, pp. 504-522, “savage,” page 519; Vol. 6 1942, “Concerning the Best Method of Controlling Indians,” pp. 410-418, “savage,” page 411; “Against Increasing the Regular Army,” Feb. 1, 1858, pp.

466-486 , “savage,” page 481; “Against Increase of the Regular Army,” Feb. 11, 1858, pp. 493-507, “savage,” page 500; Vol. 7, 1942, “Remarks on the Admission of Kansas,” March 19, 1858, pp. 37- 41, “savage,” page 41; “Remarks Concerning the New Regiments Bill,” April 1, 1848, pp. 54-61, “savages,” page 58; “Favoring a Protectorate over Mexico,” April 20, 1858, pp. 84-99, “savages,” pp. 84, 85; “An Amendment Offered to Pay Texas for Ranging Service,” June 8, 1858, pp. 148-150, “savages,” pp. 149; “Concerning the Pacific Railroad and Other Matters,” Jan. 12,13, 1859, pp. 194-216, “savage,” page 205; “Speech at Nacogdoches,” pp. 343-367, “savage,” page 362; “Message to the Texas Legislature,” Jan. 13, 1860, pp. 407-421, “savages,” pp. 416; “The John B. Floyd,“, pp.519522, “savages,” pp. 521; Vol. 8, 1943, “To John B. Floyd,” April 14, 1860, pp.13-21, “savage,” “savages,” page 15; “To John M. Costley and Augustus Fore,” April 23, 1860, pp. 28, “savage,” pp. 28; “Message to the Texas Legislature,” March 18, 1861, pp. 278-284, “savage,” pp. 283, 284.

37 In using the terms “Native American” and “Indigenous,” I am going to be using “Native American,” for Indigenous in the United States and “Indigenous,” for Indigenous outside of the United States. I have noticed that this is generally how these terms are used and I am going to follow this practice. I am not taking a position on how these terms should be used nor is my usage in this essay a recommendation of my use of the terms in this essay.

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christianization also are manifested in those nations. The Sabbath is regarded as a holy day. They are imitating all your civil and political institutions; they have their country laid off in judicial districts; and have delegated powers to their principal chiefs similar to those confided in our President; and in every respect they are forming their institutions on the basis of our own, imitating them to the very letter. … Are they to remain separate and distinct? Do you wish to encourage that spirit which has called them from a state of savage existence to a civilized and improved condition? [Boldface added.] ….

They are not inferior in intellect, sagacity, or moral excellence to any people who are born upon the earth…38 Houston in few years in 1857 will argue that they are inferior in intellect as will be shown later in this essay.

Next month in a March 3, 1854 speech opposing the Nebraska-Bill, Houston in rebuttal in the U.S. Senate to another Senator claiming that Native Americans can’t be civilized and are an inferior race, states: He says they are not civilized, and they are not homogenous and can not be so, with the white race. They can not be civilized! No! Sir, it is idle to tell me that. We have Indians on our western borders whose civilization is not inferior to our own.

It is withing the recollection of gentlemen here that, more than twenty years ago, President Ross, one of them, held correspondence upon the rights of the Indians to the Cherokee country, which they possessed east of the Mississippi, and maintained himself in the controversy with great credit and ability ….

The Senator from Indiana says that, in ancient times, Moses received a command to go and drive out the Canaanites and Moabites out of the land of Canaan, and that Joshua subsequently made the experiment of incorporating one tribe of the heathen with the Israelites, but it finally had to be killed off. Therefore, the Senator concludes the Cherokees can not be civilized. … The people of Judea who were killed, or exterminated, were idolators, and the object was to keep the people of Israel free form the taint of idols and idolatry … But the Cherokees never have been idolaters, neither have the Creeks, nor the Choctaws, nor the Chickasaws. They believe in one Great Spirit-in God-the white man’s God. They believe in His Son Jesus Christ, and His atonement, and propitiation for the sins of men, … They have well organized societies; they have villages and towns; they 38

Houston, Sam, “Opposing the Nebraska-Kansas Bill,” March 3, 1854, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 469-502, quotes, pages 486,487.

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have their statehouses and their capitols; they have females and men who would grace the drawing-rooms and saloons of Washington; they have a well-organized judiciary … They have more than one hundred native preachers in those tribes, as I have heard … These Indians are not inferior, intellectually, to white men. John Ridge was not inferior in point of genius to John Randolph. His father, in point of native intellect, was not inferior to any man.39 However, in a few years Houston in a speech, “Concerning the Best Method of Controlling Indians,” in 1857, is arguing that Native Americans are not as “intelligent as the white man.” Houston is still calling Native Americans “savages” in this speech despite describing savage violence committed by white people against them in the very same speech. Houston states: If an isolated Indian commits an act of depredation, it is bruited about through the community. The cry is raised, “the Indians have made war upon us.” Then the whites congregate together; they pass to the Indian border; the poor Indians, unconscious of the injury that has been done, unaware of any agitation among the whites, or of any impending conflict, are set upon by these men, who are thirsty for blood, and the women and children are massacred to appease the wrath of this vagabond crew. … It is a part of a history of fifty years back.

In another part of the same speech Houston tells of a West Point graduate military officer deceiving some Native Americans with a “flag of truce,” and then committing atrocities including scalping. Other examples are given of savagery against Native Americans by whites. Yet the Native Americans in Houston’s vocabulary are always “savages.”

Houston in this speech has a plan to “tranquilize” the Native American as follows: If you wish to conciliate the Indian, the way is open for it. He is really in a state of tutelage. He is not as intelligent as the white man. He has not the arts of civilization around him. He has his savage nature. He has associations and influences which operate on him, and lead to state of war by way or excitement or employment.

Houston then explains that to civilize Native Americans strict justice needs to be given them, which will thus result:

39

Houston, Sam, “Opposing the Nebraska-Kansas Bill,” March 3, 1854, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 504-522, quotes on pages 518-520.

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Do this, and you will make the Indian your friend. When you have once inspired him with confidence and secured his friendship, it is easy to lead him in the paths of civilization.

Agriculture is an unnatural condition for the Indian; but it is not a condition at war with his inclinations, if you will show him inducements to pursue it.

There follows then in Houston’s speech how to convince Native Americans to pursue agriculture. Houston makes reference to a factory system which he says, “induce him to embrace civilization, agriculture, and the useful arts.” After some further suggestions to manage Native Americans Houston concludes with: You would thus, after a while, tranquilize the Indian, deprive him of the excitement of war, and then he would be docile and tractable as you could desire him to be. You may then direct him in the pathway of peace, and lead him to agriculture. Show him the comfort of having domestic animals around him and their utility; show him a habitation for his family to protect it against the storm of inclement mountains, and you will make that Indian bless the epoch in which he has lived. You will do honor to the American people when you civilize and interpose in behalf of the Indians to redeem an almost extinguished race, and you will render not only to society and to earth a blessing, but you will bespeak some consciousness that there is a divinity that stirs within us.40 It should be noted that the Native American nations that were called “civilized,” were slaveowners and chose to fight for the Confederacy. Being civilized and adopting the Anglo-Saxon culture of Houston meant adopting slavery and the idea of racial hierarchy.

The racism inherent in slavery is a problem for these “civilized” Native Americans is still present in our time as currently Federal Court orders strike down discrimination against African American descendants of their slaves.41 Besides this specific issue of slavery it needs to be considered more generally what being “civilized” Native Americans means to Houston.

40

Houston, Sam, “Concerning the Best Method of Controlling Indians,” Jan. 31, 1857, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 410-418, quotes, “intelligent,” pages 410-411, “agriculture” page 411, the atrocities are described on pages 412, 412-413, conclusion, “tranquilize,” on page 418.

41 Any number of credible news organizations have reported on this: “Black, Native American and Fighting for Recognition in Indian Country,” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/us/enslaved-people-native-americansoklahoma.html, pdf saved 6/11/2021; “Second-largest U.S. Indian tribe expels slave descendants,” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oklahoma-cherokee/second-largest-u-s-indian-tribe-expels-slavedescendants-idUSTRE77N08F20110824, pdf saved 6/11/2021; “Judge Rules That Cherokee Freedmen Have Right to Tribal Citizenship,” https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/31/547705829/judge-rules-thatcherokee-freedmen-have-right-to-tribal-citizenship, pdf saved 6/11/2021.

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Also, the point of these quotes is not to show that one side or another was savage, or more savage than the other, though the hypocrisy of accusations of savagery is meant to be shown, however, that isn’t the point of these quotes either. It is how Houston recommends the management of non-whites by having them conform to a white man’s civilization, which for him would be an Anglo-Saxon civilization from a state of social existence which he considers inferior. Houston is advocating a colonial system as an alternative to extermination. Since Houston, mentioned earlier in this essay, stated that, “Mexicans are no better than Indians” how Houston sees Native Americans and Native Americans as far as they haven’t assimilated to Anglo-Saxon norms, that is “civilization” as Houston comprehends it, with obliteration of their religion, and what program he advocates for Native Americans is instructive as to his plans for the domination of Latin America, who aren’t Anglo-Saxons, and his justifications to dominate Latin Americans.

Mexicans, as well as others in Latin America, are to be dominated because they have social unrest and revolutions. The original justification for Texas secession, the failure of governance in Mexico, and later as manifested elsewhere in Latin America, is the justification for Houston’s imperial domination over them. As Native Americans were to be “civilized” by instruction of white men, Houston sees Latin Americans being instructed by Anglo-Saxons under political domination of Anglo-Saxons. Mexicans also can’t manage Native Americans like Anglo-Saxons can. With Houston in regards to both Native Americans and Latin Americans hides his imperial avariciousness under a cloak of it being a civilizing mission like other imperial powers.

In the previously mentioned letter to Murphy about acquiring sections of Mexico, Houston justifies it as a humanitarian measure stating: As to the proposition, that the provinces of Mexico would have to be over run, there is nothing in this, for you may rely upon the fact that the Mexicans only require, kind, and humaine masters to make them a happy people, and secure them, against the savage hordes who harass, them constantly, and bear their women and children into bondage, secure them from these calamities, and they would bless any power, that would grant them such a boon. [“humaine” as spelled in the original.]42 In advocating the invasion of Mexico and the acquisition of the Yucatan, in his 1847 speech in the U.S. Senate, the governmental incompetence of non-Anglo-Saxon Mexican government over the white government is brought up by Houston. Houston’s speech narrates a history where the Yucatan struggle to secede is compared to the secession of Texas and where whites are being oppressed by non-white Mexico. The discussion of the Yucatan starts out with a summary of the immigration to Texas by Americans and the 42

Houston, Sam, “To William S. Murphy,” May 6., 1844, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 320325, quote pp. 324.

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subsequent secession of Texas in response to what Houston asserts is Mexican despotism. Houston recounts a history of Zacatecas who were a, “… a few faithful votaries now remaining among the degenerate Mexicans,” that is devoted to freedom, and how they were subjugated by the Mexican government.

Houston justifies the dismemberment of the Yucatan from Mexico as follows: Where is Yucatan now? Talk of the integrity of the Mexican Republic! Why it is a stain, a blot on constitutional liberty, to call Mexico a republic. She presented a country distracted and severed, divided into numerous factions. Was there not here but the other day a Minister from Yucatan to negotiate with this Government? Has not California declared her independence? And had not other States done the same? And yet they were to regard Mexico as an organized government, and as a nation of intelligent men who were worthy to follow the example of this Government. He protested against such representations.

When defending the invasion of Mexico Houston states: Should we not raise our hand against Mexico because it is a republic? Why, what kind of republican institutions were those of Mexico? Whilst feeble Texas had maintained a Government for ten years without a single convulsion, how many had Mexico endured? In the last twelve months, Mexico had had three revolutions, he believed.

A Senator Benton interjects in Houston’s speech in the Senate, “She has had seventeen in twenty-five years.”

Houston then continues: And yes we are to regard her as an organized Government entitled to our sympathies, and we are to withhold the infliction of necessary and well-deserved chastisement? He could not so regard her. If Mexico had an established government—if her usurpations were not now almost daily, and her acts of despotism glaring and flagitious, he might feel for her some sympathy. But when he saw her citizens deprived of their liberties—when he saw her people in a more abject condition than southern slaves on plantation—he could not feel for her any sympathy. He should rather endeavor to relive that people from such a thraldom, and give them liberty while he chastised their despots.

Houston isn’t however, really concerned with the human rights of the Mexican people or the Mexican Republic. If there was real concern with despotism over the Mexican people it would be a matter of perhaps assistance to those forces seeking to re-establish the republic of that nation, and not the dismemberment and seizure of territory from that nation. Houston’s pretext of his actions as liberating Mexico only makes sense in the

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context of a belief that Mexicans inherently as an ethnic group were incapable of sustaining a Republican form of government. If the United States was under despotism, those who took advantage of misrule to break up the United States and perhaps to seize territory would not be considered by us as liberators.

Houston side steps the question of slavery and the invasion of Mexico. Houston states: And as to the subject of slavery, which had been brought into this discussion, for one, he had to say, that he anticipated nothing but evil from this premature discussion on that subject. It was not a question which necessarily grew out of the war, or the general policy of the war. He regarded it as a calamity under which the nation labored; but it was not brought on by ourselves, but by our ancestors.

Houston further argues in his speech that discussion of the question is against the American union of states. Of course, it is the controversy over whether the new states in the territories dismembered from Mexico that plunged the United States into civil war and brought down the system of slavery, so it is amusing to see Houston’s rationalizations later result in the destruction of the system of slavery in the United States and his imperial visions of territorial conquest. 43 As for Houston sincerely believing that slavery was a “calamity” to the United States, as it will be shown later in this essay that it didn’t prevent Houston arguing in his later communications that it was something to be brought to Mexico under his proposed protectorate or be brought to Latin America to make enough new slave states in the United States to balance non-slave states.

In Houston’s New York speech in Feb. 1848, in which he advocates seizing all of Mexico as a humanitarian effort stating: Now the Mexicans are no better than Indians, and I see no reason why we should not go on in the same course now, and take their land. But these countries will be benefited by our occupation. Look at the Californias, Sonora, Western Mexico, New Mexico, etc. All these vast regions, where only a few hundred thousand souls are living in such wide dominions—where the wild Indians extend with impunity his ravages, and, unchecked he penetrates into the heart of Mexico, even as far as Potosi, spoiling and destroying as he goes along; seizing upon the women with malicious minds, and incorporating them into their tribes as wives! Let the white man—let the American interpose; let him say to the Indian, “Stay, savage, we will

43

Houston, Sam, “Speech in the United States Senate, on the ‘Three Million’ Bill,” Feb. 19, 1847, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 4 (1941), pp. 523-547, Zacatecas, pp. 529-530, ”blot,” failing of Mexican republic, pp.

530-531, attacking another republic frequent revolutions, pp. 541-542, calamity of slavery and the union pp. 544545.

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protect these helpless people. We will do it.” We are the majority, and it must be done for the sake of humanity. I am not one of those who delight to riot in the spoils of the poor, and keep the people in abject poverty and subjection—Such, is however, is the condition of the Mexican people, exposed to a constant succession of revolutions. In 25 years Mexico has undergone 23 different revolutions. They are a people incapable of self-government. We are now in this war, engaged in giving peace, security and happiness to this oppressed people.44 On Feb. 15, 1858 in his remarks in the U.S. Senate advocating establishing a protectorate, a form of colonial domination, over Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador, he justifies this conquest as humanitarian since he asserts these nations are incapable of establishing effective and non-despotic governments. Houston states: But, sir, we are aware that these people, for a quarter of a century, I think, or near that time, have been making experiments to establish a Government similar to our own. They have invariably failed. It has brought wretchedness on the community. If they had great grievances to endure under the despotism of Spain, they are certainly more intolerant now than they were then. Every description of crime runs riot there; they have no stable government; there is no foundation, on which to build up human happiness on rational institutions, yet laid, after all the experiments that have been made; and it does seem to me that it is of the present day that this subject should claim the attention of the civilized world.

This resolution is not offered with a view to extending our dominion, but with a view of improving our neighborhood.

Houston then argues that this disorder would invite foreign powers to be aggressors against these nations.45 The idea of imperial conquest being a solution to bad government is somewhat like shooting to death a sick patient. The disease is over but the patient is not alive. As a conquered state, the state still doesn’t have good self-government or even poor or bad self-government, instead it has imperial occupation. Also, these nations are no longer extant to continue to learn from their past history to seek better government in the future.

44

Houston, Sam, “Speech on the Boundary of Texas,” Feb. 1848?, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp. 29-36, quote, pages 34-35.

45 Houston, Sam, “Remarks Concerning His Resolutions Authorizing a Protectorate over Certain Latin-American States,” Feb. 16, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 508-512, quotes, page 509.

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If there is disorder in some of these states as Houston claims, is not an invasion by a foreign power a disorder also? If the United States has disorder, say a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and terrorized the legislature, would that be a valid pretext for some foreign power to occupy the United States? Perhaps some power might point to the neverending racial troubles in the United States as a pretext of an inability to govern.

Also, Houston doesn’t propose any foreign policy of the United States to assist the formation of stable governments with aid or student exchange or some other program or policy. As will be shown later when the opportunity arises to work with these nations at the Congress of Panama in 1826 he speaks out in the U.S. House of Representatives against doing so. Houston also doesn’t believe that these states can change on their own.

Again, on April 20, 1858, in the U.S. Senate, Houston uses the same justification for a protectorate. The disorder in Mexico is a menace to Texas since Mexico can’t control the depredations of Native Americans into Texas. The solution isn’t to offer assistance or increase border security, but as always with Houston invasion and conquest is the only solution.

In this speech Houston’s hopes for the extraction of wealth from Mexico, the desire for the looting of Mexico, is revealed. Houston goes into detail how the occupation of Mexico would pay for itself and cover the costs of colonial domination of navy ships and troops stationed in Mexico with revenue from customs. He further sees opportunities to extract money to pay for American claims against Mexico. The desire for imperial spoils is revealed when Houston in the speech states: The unlocking of the rich, varied, natural stores of Mexico, would redound not only to an enlarged welfare of that country, but to the good of every country interested in commerce and in enlighten civilization. She is, literally the thriftless “talent tied up in a napkin.” She can never be otherwise until we exercise a controlling influence over her. We must make her respectable and respected. She has been going down so long that she is incapable of rising. With life and property secure, it is estimated that she could produce $100,000,000 of silver annually.

At the conclusion of his speech in the U.S. Senate he has his resolution for a protectorate read by the clerk of the Senate. It is as follows: Whereas, the events connected with the numerous efforts of the people of Mexico to establish upon a reliable basis an orderly system of self-government have invariably resulted in complete failure; and whereas, the condition of Mexico is such as to excite alarming apprehension that she may precipitate herself into a wild condition of anarchy, and the more so as she has demonstrated, from time to time, her utter inability to suppress intestine commotions, and to conquer the hordes of bandits by which she is infested; and whereas, the United States of

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America, on account of the continental policy which they cherish and desire to enforce, can never permit Mexico to be resubjugated by Spain, or placed under the dominion of any foreign Power; and whereas, one of the most important duties devolving upon civilized Governments is to exact from adjoining nations the observance of good neighborhood, thus shielding themselves against impending or even remote injury to their border security; Therefore, Resolved, That a select committee of seven be raised, to inquire into, and report to the Senate, whether or not it is expedient for the Government of the United States of America to declare and maintain a protectorate over the so-called Republic of Mexico, in such form, and to such an extent, as shall be necessary to secure to this Union good neighborhood, and to the people of said country the benefits of orderly and well-regulated republican government.46 An amended resolution for a Mexican protectorate was presented to the U.S. Senate by Houston on April 30, 1858 as follows: Whereas, the events connected with the numerous efforts of the people of Mexico to establish upon a reliable basis, an orderly system of self-government have invariably resulted in complete failure; and whereas, the condition of Mexico is such as to excite alarming apprehension that she may precipitate herself into a wild condition of anarchy, and the more so as she has demonstrated, from time to time, her utter inability to suppress intestine commotions, and to conquer the hordes of bandits by which she is infested; and whereas, the United States of America, on account of the continental policy which they cherish and desire to enforce, can never permit Mexico to be subjugated by Spain, or placed under the dominion of any foreign Power; and whereas, one of the most important duties devolving upon civilized Governments is to exact from adjoining nations the observance of good neighborhood, thus shielding themselves against impending or even remote injury to their border security; Therefore, Resolved, That a select committee of seven be raised, to inquire into and report to the Senate, whether or not it is expedient for the Government of the United States of America to declare and maintain a protectorate over the so-called Republic of Mexico, in such form and to such an extent, as shall be necessary to secure to this Union good neighborhood, and to the people of said country the benefits of orderly and well-regulated republican government. 47 46

Houston, Sam, “Favoring a Protectorate over Mexico,” April 20, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 84-99, quotes, disorder on boarder, 84-85, customs revenue page 86, exploitation of riches and silver, pages 95-96, resolution on pages 97-98.

47 Houston, Sam, “Remarks on a Mexican Protectorate,” April 30, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 104.

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The amendments seem to be minor changes in terms of removing commas and changing “resubjugation” to just “subjugation.”

On June 1, 1858, when the U.S. Senate was considering legislation to respond to reported outrages against American citizens in Latin American nations. Houston brought up his resolution for a protectorate over Mexico and Central America both arguing that Mexico, as he had before, was incapable of self-government and becoming “wretched and more anarchical.” Houston argues that there is a danger that some European power will take over some of these nations. Also, that it is a matter of national honor to take over these nations as a response to these claimed outrages against America.48 Houston continued to promote the idea of a protectorate over Mexico and Central America in his speeches in 1858. In a speech Aug. 17, 1858, summarized by the Galveston News, he advocates a Mexican protectorate. The summary reports: He spoke of the Mexican protectorate which he had advocated—regretted the defeat of his bill—said that if he were a younger man and could get the approval of his conscious to the measure, he might be willing to lead a filibuster expedition into Mexico.49 The defense and expansion of slavery is another motive the conquest of Mexico and Central America was expressed locally in speeches in Texas, though not on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

In another speech on Sept. 11, 1858, a synopsis in the Intelligencer, reports that Houston advocates a Mexican protectorate. One reason in Houston’s speech which he hadn’t stated elsewhere was that this protectorate would be important to create new slave states to balance new free-soil states that were being created. In Houston’s discussion of a Mexican protectorate the synopsis reports: That the encroachments of free soil territory on our borders render the policy necessary to the integrity of our institutions, extending as it would, the area of slavery in a southern direction.50 48

Houston, Sam, “Remarks on the Bill to Redress Outrages on the American Flag,” June 1, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 127-130.

49 Houston, Sam, “Extracts from a Speech at Hempstead,” Aug. 17, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 181-182.

50 Houston, Sam, “Synopsis of a Speech at Danville,” Sept. 11, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 183-186, protectorate and slavery on page 184.

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In his speech in Nacogdoches on July 9, 1859 he discusses his proposal to make Mexico a protectorate of the United States. The justification is the same as always in his advocacy of a protectorate. Houston states: The object in view in establishing a protectorate over that unhappy country, needs but little explanation to convince all of its utility. Mexico has been for near half a century torn by distracting elements. Her situation appeals to us as her near neighbor to interpose in the name of humanity and good government. The crisis in her affairs has been approaching, it is even now at hand, when her people made with anarchy and misrule, will disgrace the character of this century, by bloodshed, debauchery, and riot. Unable to maintain a stable government for herself, she is powerless to protect the rights of our citizens in her limits.

The looting of Mexico then comes up, which leads into Houston’s hope to incorporate Mexico into the United States with the creation of new slave states. Houston states: My object was to create a protectorate which would be self-supporting. Establish peace within her limits, protect her people in their homes, rid them of ruinous exactions, and no country upon God’s earth would smile more bounteously to reward industry. The infusion of American energy would develop her incalculable stores of wealth. Her mines would pour out untold millions, and gradually under the influence of our institutions, the country would become Americanized and prepared for incorporation into our Union. Avoid the result as we may, it is bound to come. Would it not be wisdom to exercise the sagacity of statesmen and before the land is destroyed amid the flames of civil war, stretch forth our hand to save it. Those who prate about free-soil, with reference to Mexico, know nothing of the character of the institution of slavery. The institution too has its destiny.

Wherever it may be profitable, there it will go, and who will pretend to say the great valley of Mexico is not fitted for slave labor.

Another advantage he sees is the prevention of slaves escaping to Mexico, he states: It was to provide for the reclamation of our slaves who escape into her territory.51 In his gubernatorial inaugural address of Dec. 21, 1859 Houston again advocates a protectorate. He argues:

51

Houston, Sam, “Speech at Nacogdoches,” July 9, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 343367, quotes, disorder in Mexico, page 360-361, extraction of wealth, page 361“slavery in Mexico,” page 361, reclaim slaves, page 362.

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Aware of the State of Mexican Affairs, I believed the Mexican people utterly incapable of framing a government and maintaining a nationality. This has been demonstrated since their separation from old Spain. Their history is a catalogue of revolutions, of usurpation and oppression. As a neighboring people to us, it is important for the maintenance of good neighborhood, that law and order should exist in that country. The Mexicans are a mild, pastoral and gentle people; and it is only by demagogues and lawless chieftains, who with armed bands have robbed and plundered the people, that the disorders in that country are continued. A guarantee given to these people, for the protection of their lives and property against such, would cause them to rejoice and they would hail with pleasure any measure which might be adopted by any foreign government that would that would give them peace and security.52 In a March 25, 1860 letter written in response to a letter from persons asking him if he would permit them to submit his name to be a presidential candidate at the Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina, Houston states some of his positions including that he believes the United States should form a protectorate over Mexico.

Houston writes: Who that regards the true policy of our nation can fail to see, that humanity, liberty, American interests and security alike demand that our government should extend a Protectorate over Mexico? Politicians may shirk the issue; but destiny will force it on our people.—It cannot be averted. It is our duty to civilization, to stay the hand of rapine and murder in that country and to establish regulated government there. It is our interest to put its resources in process of development and open the country to trade and commerce. Cursed by anarchy, its vast wealth lies dormant. Establish order and its beautiful vallies, will give forth abundance, its hidden mineral wealth be revealed.

Houston then argues that national security requires this annexation and if it is not done, individuals will affection seizure of Mexico “that which timid politicians dare not achieve.” Of course, the looting is ever present in Houston’s thoughts.53 Then the American Civil War came and the possibilities of American conquest of Latin America came to a halt. Maximilian, a puppet emperor installed over Mexico by the French during the American Civil War, did not find that Mexicans “rejoiced” over his presence or the French occupation, instead there was armed resistance ultimately resulting in Maximilian being executed.

52

Houston, Sam, “Inaugural Address,” Dec. 21, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 379385, protectorate and slavery on page 382-383.

53 Houston, Sam, “To John W. Harris and Others,” March 25, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 545-554, protectorate, pages 551-552.

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Houston’s criticism of the advocacy of secession prior to the American Civil War is that Anglo-Saxons are acting like Mexicans. In a speech in 1859 in Nacogdoches he criticizes discussion of secession. Houston states: So long as we confine ourselves to the Constitution and the Union, we need fear no danger to our institutions. Abandon these—let dissolution come, and anarchy awaits us. Look at the condition of Mexico, read the pronunciamentos of her rival Chieftans. The plan of Tucabyo was the proclamation of anarchy. It overthrew the constitution of 1824, and since, pronuciamentos have followed each other in rapid succession, each bearing its train of pillage, murder and oppression. ….

God when he intends to destroy men first makes them mad. He has maddened Mexico. She has not the terrible element we have in a servile population and yet she suffers untold miseries. He has maddened these me. Mark me, the day that produces a dissolution of this Confederacy will be written in the history in the blood of humanity.54 Note that Houston is terrified of the breakdown of the control of Africans by the institution of slavery, who are a “terrible element.”

Again, when Houston is transmitting to the Texas legislature the South Carolina resolutions advocating secession he again likens secession as acting like Mexicans stating: Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.

Which such teachings and such lights from those of the past and of modern times, can Texas forget her duty to herself? These were the men who formed the first structure of perfect liberty and self-government in the world. We have the exposition of the principles upon which this sublime structure of self-government was based. Are we to cast them all away? Are we to quit our haven of safety, in which we are secure, happy, and prosperous, and risk our all upon the uncertainty of an untried experiment, which seems only to open the door to revolution and anarchy? Could we for a moment entertain such a maddened thought, we need only extend our imagination across the Rio Grade, and there, exemplified to a small extent, behold the effects of secession and disunion. A disregard for constitutional government has involved Mexico in all the horrors of 54

Houston, Sam, “Speech at Nacogdoches,” July 9, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 343367, quotes, page 354,355.

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civil war, with robbery, murder, rapine, unrestrained. There is it is simply civil war, brother armed against brother, partisan against partisan; but to us it would be all these, added to the combined efforts the powers of tyranny to crush out liberty.55 Sam Houston tends to be portrayed as wise and sensible for his opposition to secession, that it would lead to a dreadful civil war, but the full story is that in the approaching civil war, he was seeing his white supremacist dreams of conquest and dominion over Latin America crumble and all his conceits over Native Americans and Latin Americans smashed.

A few months before his death July 26, 1863, Houston would lament the loss of these dreams of empire over Latin America in a speech in the City of Houston on March 18, 1863 during the American Civil War in which he comments on the French seizure of Mexico and its puppet regime. Houston states: Once, actuated by a desire for the glory of my country as it then was, I presented to the American a scheme for the regeneration of Mexico under American auspices. Then, I hoped for a mighty nation, whose bounds alone would be the oceans that washed its shores. It seemed to me statesmanship to pluck the golden apple, ere other hands were stretched to reach it. The Protectorate over Mexico was rejected by the American Senate. Napoleon steps forward to grasp the prize which is beyond our reach, and we who are most interested have but to make the best of it. It seems to me, that if there is sagacity and diplomacy in our councils, the near neighborhood of French interests in Mexico will be the key to the problem whose solution will be the recognition, by part at least of Europe, as one of the family of nations.

Houston goes on in his speech how advantageous an alliance with France and the proximity of the French Empire would be. In the end Houston is still seeing opportunities in the imperial domination of Mexico, in this case to support the emergence of a slave power, the Confederacy.

Houston expressed concern over Mexico and the Central American nations in his proposals to occupy them as a humanitarian effort is hypocritical considering his speech against the United States participating in the 1826 Panama Congress. Simón Bolívar called for a Congress of American Republics in Panama in 1826 and three nations in Latin America called upon the United States to send a delegation. President John

55

Houston, Sam, “Message to the Texas Legislature Transmitting Resolutions of the State of South Carolina,” Jan. 21, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp.429-441, quote, page 440.

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Quincy Adams in 1825 decided to send a delegation to attend and announced his intention to do so in his first inaugural address to the U.S. Congress.56 The book, “Our Sister Republics: The United States in the Age of American Revolutions,” by Caitlin Fitz has an excellent chapter on the opposition to the United States attending the Panama Congress. Opposition arose to participating in the Panama Congress by representatives of Southern slave holding states. The Latin American republics were racially mixed. U.S. Senator Hart Benton denounced participating in the Congress stating, “Who are to advise and sit in judgment…?” and answering the question, “Five nations who have already put the black man upon equality with the white, not only in their constitutions but in real life; five nations who have at this moment (at least some of them) black Generals in their armies and mulatto Senators in their Congresses!” Additionally, Benton stated, “I would not debate whether my slave is my property,” further, “… and I would not go to Panama to ‘determine the rights of …

Africans’ in these United States.”

The speech was printed in the opposition newspaper to John Quincy Adams and ran through two editions as a pamphlet.

Other Southerners similarly denounced the United States going to the Panama Congress. South Carolina’s Robert Haynes complained, “Those Governments have proclaimed the principles of ‘liberty and equality,’ and have marched to victory under the banner of ‘universal emancipation.’ You find men of color at the head of their armies, in their Legislative halls, and in their Executive Departments.”

There was concern that the Panama Congress might extend recognition to Haiti, a republic founded by slaves who had successfully revolted. Benton had also denounced the Panama Congress that it might pressure the United States to “permit black Consuls and Ambassadors [from Haiti] to establish themselves in our cities, and to parade through our country, and give their fellow blacks in the United States, proof in hand of the honors which await them, for a like successful effort on their part.” That is serve as an example for the slaves as to what could be accomplished if they had a successful revolt.

The racial equality in the Latin American republics were felt to be a deadly threat to American slavery. A U.S. delegation was finally sent, but so delayed by opposition that it arrived after the Congress concluded.

56

Malanson, Jeffrey J., “The Congressional Debate over U.S. Participation in the Congress of Panama, 1825-1826: Washington’s Farewell Address, Monroe’s Doctrine, and the Fundamental Principles of U.S. Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History, History Faculty Publications, Indiana University – Perdue University Fort Wayne, Nov. 2006, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47214732.pdf, pdf saved 6/19/2021.

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As Fitz points out, the opposition to attending this Congress in Panama was presented to different sections of the United States in different ways. A slave holder’s opposition to attending would hardly be popular in a local where slavery had been abolished or slavery wasn’t so widely supported. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, opposed participation at the Congress of Panama, but didn’t employ the issues of race and slavery in his opposition.57 Houston spoke against going to the Panama Congress in the U.S. House when he was a representative from Tennessee. He argued against it on some grounds of the constitution and claims that attending it wasn’t necessary and sort of grasping for reasons. He didn’t talk about race and slavery.

In contrast to his later assertions how American occupation of Latin America would be improving, Houston also argued that the United States presence would not benefit Latin America in learning about the political practices and institutions of the United States.

Some extracts from Houston’s speech (He is referred to as “Mr. H.”: Mr. H. said, if he understood the subject rightly, (though it might be his misfortune not to do so,) the appropriations referred to were made to send Commissioners to South America, to ascertain what the state of the Continent; to inquire into the capacity of the People of that country to receive freedom and cherish it; and to determine how far it was expedient for this Government to recognize their Independence, and to form treaties of amity, commerce, and navigation with them.

Houston argues that the United States can meet with these nations individually and that going to this Congress is not needed. He makes these two choices oppositional, when it is fairly obvious that both can be done, and one activity would support the other.

Houston recognizes that the Congress of Panama would be the basis of a friendly relations with these Latin American republics, but also very importantly the United States might identify with being a member of a group of Western Hemisphere republics and be in sympathy with these republics. As a slave state U.S. Representative of Tennessee, it wouldn’t take much to realize that in respecting these Latin American republics it might lead to respecting some of their ideas and beliefs such as racial equality and abolition. Further, Houston would surely realize that recognizing these Latin American republics as sister republics would be contrary to a desire to conquer them and exploit them.

Later in the speech Houston states:

57

Fitz, Caitlin, “Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions,” W.W. Norton & Co., 2016, New York, pp. 194-239.

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The House had been told that Ministers were sent to Panama for the purpose of disseminating our principles amongst the people of the Southern Republics and making them acquainted with our institutions; that we are to go there to infuse into them certain principles, and that we are to be the model by which they are to act. Could gentlemen suppose, Mr. H. said, that the deputies of the different Republic of South America would take it as a compliment to be told they were incapable of self-government; that they had not sufficient capacity; that they were not sufficiently enlightened; and that, therefore, the United States had sent their Ministers as special teachers of their doctrines, to give them light on the subject of self-government? Were our Ministers, Mr. H. asked, to be teachers of politics to them? Did we send them there to enlighten the South Americans—that People who had been lauded and justly lauded, throughout the world, for throwing off the galling yoke of a despicable tyranny, and proclaiming to the world that they would be free, in imitation of the United States? Shall we send teachers amongst them to infuse our doctrines, and inculcate our political principles, amongst them? This, Mr. H. said, was not the way for South America to be free. Unless she wills to be free she never can be so. We might send our teachers to every city, and every village, and establish political colleges throughout South America; but, she cannot be free unless she wills it. If she can derive any advantage from the example we set her let her do so; our ports are open, our houses our towns, and our assemblies, are all open. Let her citizens come here, and if we disseminate amongst them, let them return to their fellow-citizens – let them describe the institutions we have in this country and tell them, “Go, ye, and do likewise.” This is the way, Mr. H. said that South America is to be benefitted by the United States. This will benefit her institutions; if she sends here enlightened citizens amongst us, if she will have our Constitution and our laws translated into her own language, this will infuse energy into her Government, and sustain her politics and her arms, so far as is necessary for her service. This is the way South America is to be benefitted, and in which our principles are to operate on her People. It is not by physical influence that we can benefit them; but it is the moral influence that pervades this country which they must become acquainted with.

They must learn it amongst us and carry to their own country the knowledge of it.

[Italics in the original.]

What a contrast with Houston’s later urgings of the United States to be physically there in Mexico and the rest of Latin America to give these peoples the benefits of AngloSaxon domination. The essential difference is that attending of the Congress of Panama would not involve the looting of Latin America, to get the wealth that might come from the mines, grab a lot of silver, or expand slavery southward. Instead it might result in sympathetic feelings which be an obstacle to imperial conquest and destruction of Latin American republics and undermine racial hierarchy at home, including slavery.

Lest the careless reader think that Houston was really speaking against paternalism, which Houston was trying to pose as, as a speaker against paternalism, this is setting up

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a false opposite. Sending representatives to a congress doesn’t mean the other representatives at the congress are going to be locked into a room to be condescendingly lectured. The U.S. was invited to this conference to discuss common concerns. At conferences there is an exchange of ideas. If Houston was really concerned about paternalism, he would have raised the issue why the proponents of going to the congress hadn’t advanced the idea of learning from them.

Another reason for the popularity of conferences is that it allows a face-to-face discussion. In the 19th century, given the limits of travel, meeting people at a central location would likely be a significant gesture of respecting the others at a conference. It would be an opportunity to suggest that they might send representatives to the United States to observe the government there or propose an exchange.

Also, obviously snubbing the Latin American republics would hardly make the United States appealing and would repel interest in the institutions of a government that had snubbed them.

Again, later Houston rejects going to the Panama Congress on the basis of disseminating American ideas of government, but also injects the issue of race and slavery indirectly, stating: We are told, Mr. H. said that the institutions of the South American Republics are similar to our own. Yet we are to send men to enlighten them in this particular, and give them instruction. The facilities afforded by translation are great, and it was easy for them to be benefitted by all our institutions, and they might also learn the progress by which we had exalted ourselves as a nation. But, was it true that their institutions resembled ours? They declare that their governments are founded on principles of equality. Admit this. But are the principles of their government as pure as ours? Are they as little objectionable as ours? If this is the case, with this start they can progress and attain any degree of eminence to which their merits entitle them.58 The Latin American republics, as Houston points out, perhaps aren’t the same, as since the Latin American republics are, “founded on principles of equality,” that is not on the principles of white supremacy and slavery. These would be principles that would stand in the way of Anglo-Saxon domination and the creation of slave states and again would undermine the American system of racial hierarchy.

58

Houston, Sam, “Speech On The Congress of Panama,” Feb. 2, 1826, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol.1 (1938) pp. 28-40, quotes from page 31, proposal to send representatives, dissemination of ideas of American government, pages 32-33, where the issue of equality is raised, page 35.

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What future there might have been for the Western Hemisphere if the United States had gone to the Congress of Panama with friendly feelings we will never know. Houston was one of those who helped close off those possible futures.

This speech in 1826 shows that the supposed humanitarian concerns of Houston later expressed were a cover for a fervent desire for imperial conquest to establish an AngloSaxon supremacist empire and Houston started his imperial dreams with Texas.

Texas seceded to create a white supremacist state in which African slavery would be an integral part escaping from a multiracial state which in comparison was largely lacking racial hierarchy and was not a white supremacist state. The fact that non-Anglo-Saxon Santa Anna attempted to be a dictator over Anglo-Saxons would make the multiracial nation of Mexico even more intolerable to Anglo-Saxon Texans and prove useful to justify secession.

Texas seceded for Anglo-Saxon white supremacy of which African slavery was a part.

That Santa Anna was a dictator was merely a fortuitous development to justify secession to some and deflect the issue of slavery. Houston's desire to subjugate all of Latin America shows that his complaint wasn’t so much that Santa Anna was a tyrant, but that Santa Anna, a non-Anglo-Saxon was trying to be a tyrant over Anglo-Saxons, instead of Anglo-Saxons being tyrants over all of Latin America.

“Was Texas succeeding to form a slave state or rebelling against tyranny?” is the question often asked. The answer is that Texas rebelled against a tyranny that forbade slavery and wasn’t constructed on the principles of Anglo-Saxon racial domination which would be the freedom for Anglo-Saxons to have their Anglo-Saxon institution of slavery.

AFRICANS, SLAVERY AND ABOLITIONISM To Sam Houston those who wanted to abolish slavery were fanatics and driven by fanaticism and abolitionism was a fanatical idea.

In a speech delivered at a Presbyterian church in Huntsville on Nov. 8, 1843, Houston refers to abolitionists as fanatics. In discussing the foreign policy of English and as why they support abolition, Houston states: I question very much, my friends, whether England would have us, if she could get us. To my mind it is clear that England does not care about the abolition of slavery. She has destroyed her West India possessions by its abolition there: and she knows very well that a slave population will develop the resources of a new country in one-eighth the time it would it would take by free labor. The superior quality of our productions, and the advantages that England might derive from

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use in various ways, are strong inducements to her to lend us her aid at this juncture; notwithstanding the opposition of fanatics who clamor for the universal abolition of slavery. Men who have accumulated one half their fortunes in the African slave trade—who sinned against high heaven until they feared to call down its just vengeance upon their heads; and then bethought themselves that some atonement must be made to appease the Great Author of religion and virtue. Hence it was that they became fanatics, and “all the world must be free.”

Houston is actively engaged in thinking about arguments to discredit abolitionists and their goals.

Later in the speech, Houston in discussing agreements with the English and French, states, “Abolition, thank God, has never been named in a British, nor a French or Texian document.”59 In an address to constituents about his actions in the U.S. Senate, given on March 2, 1849, Houston makes reference labeling abolitionism as fanaticism. He states: While these passages and the parallel ones in the late address of Mr. Calhoun, unmask his long cherished and ill-concealed designs against the Union, I feel some pride in the conviction that it unmasks also his motive for the denunciation aimed at me.—If the advocacy of a measure which removed one of the causes of contention, tending to produce an ill-feeling, if not a rupture between the members of the confederacy—if opposition to all the schemes of mad fanaticism at the north, and mad ambition at the south, which would embroil the country in civil war, provoke assaults on me, there is no man living who will give them a heartier welcome. [“confederacy” prior to the civil war referred to the United States, only later did it mean the Confederacy as we know it today.]

There is a tendency to consider Houston a hero for working to avoid forces that ultimately led to the American Civil War. However, looking at Houston’s speeches you can see that he is hoping to preserve slavery and his ambitions of conquest by preserving the United States. As Houston correctly saw, a civil war would lead to the abandonment of the dreams of conquest of Latin America by a slave state United States, and the destruction of slavery in the United States. With the Compromise of 1850 slavery was given an extension in American life.60

59

Houston, Sam, “A Speech Delivered at the Presbyterian Church (Huntsville),” Nov. 8, 1843, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 3 (1940), pp. 442-445, quote, page 448.

60 Houston, Sam, “Address to Constituents” March 2, 1849, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited

by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp.78-106, quote, page 87.

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In a letter to James Gadsden, Sept. 20, 1849, Houston pairs abolitionists as equally bad with ultra pro-slavery forces in the slave sates. Houston writes: In the resolutions adopted by your convention, reference is made to the proposition introduced into Congress “for slaves to vote in the District of Columbia,” and this seems to be considered a direct attack upon the institutions of the slave-holding States. Can any reasonable man regard this in any other light, than an act of a fanatic abolitionist, or one made for the purpose of retaliating u[i]nsults heaped upon the whole North, by intemperate and sweeping denunciations, too often uttered by a few ultra’s of the South. … Sweeping assertions and declarations—imputations cast upon all, and bearing down on both friend and foe, must be regarded by every reasonable man, as unjust and irritating, which made with reference to the vast communities of the North among whose individual members, so small a proportion are deserving of the censure.—Were there any cause (as, in fact, there is none) to apprehend a combination of majorities in the Northern States, against the institutions of the South, the course adopted by our Ultra Nullifiers, would hasten the crisis and accelerate the result, more rapidly and certainly than all the abolitionists of the North, that ever raved in the impotence of their fanaticism. [Italics in the original. [i] is a spelling correction.)61 It isn’t just that the proposal to allow slaves to vote is “fanatic,” or that abolitionism is “fanaticism,” those who are advocating giving these African slaves the vote, who believe in the end of slavery, are made equivalent to angry raging slaveholders.

In a speech on the Compromise of 1850, on Feb. 8, 1850, in the U.S. Senate, Houston has this to say: If the compromise line of 36° 30´ is continued, inhibiting slavery north of that line, and the States which may be formed south of it be authorized to claim admission into the United States with such municipal regulations as they may choose to form, according to the nature of their social and domestic institutions, the whole matter is at an end. How trifling must the sacrifice be? Would it be the sacrifice of fanaticism? Would it be the sacrifice of a disposition to carry on a crusade against the rights of their brethren of the South? Would it be too much concession to the spirit of conciliation, to discountenance a few fanatics at the North who are rabid on the subject of abolition?

61

Houston, Sam, “To James Gadsden,” Sept. 20, 1849, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp.95106, quote, page 101.

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Later in the speech Houston calls abolitionists, “bastards,” and their views “pernicious.”62 In a letter to John Letcher, Jan. 24, 1851, Houston explains that he doesn’t think abolitionists are effectively endangered slavery, in rebuttal to the claims of a pro-slavery disunionists. Houston writes: The first point to be noticed is the alleged fact that the demagogues and abolitionist fanatics of the North are pressing on the contest with fearful velocity—that Vermont has nullified the fugitive slave law, and that Massachusetts had de facto annulled it—that the casus foederis63 has arisen; and he appeals to Virginia to move forward. Now, it must be very obvious that the sources of General Hamilton’s intelligence are not very trustworthy; for nothing is clearer to those who are on the spot, and can judge for themselves than that the anti-slavery agitation in the free States is in a great measure subsiding; that the demagogues who were participating in it are deserting its ranks, and that it is fast falling into the exclusive hands of the thread bare white fanatics like Garrison and Gerritt Smith, and those of the negroes who belong to the Fred Douglass order of runaway patriots. The unwarranted agitation that prevailed has been productive of one of most salutary result; and that is, to arouse the popular attention of the sober, quiet, patriotic masses of the free States to the character and danger of these abolitionists machinations. The moment they arrested public notice, that moment they were destined to be crushed.—We see the process daily going on; the Union movement is heaving up society from its greatest depth of feeling, and abolition fanaticism is vanishing before its mighty power as chaff is driven before the whirlwind.—The action of Vermont took place during the extreme violence of the fanatical fever in her legislative bodies; and even as it was, the act passed by a fraudulent trick, and, since its exposure, has excited in the breasts of the people the most determined hostility. It is believed they will hasten to repeal it, and to wipeout the disgrace it has entailed on the States.64 Houston not only sees abolitionism as fanaticism, but exults in the defeat of abolitionism.

In opposing the Nebraska-Kansas Bill, in 1854 in the U.S. Senate he states that he thinks abolitionism is “fanatical.” He asks the Southern slaveholders to support Northern 62

Houston, Sam, “On the Compromise of 1850,” Feb. 8,1850, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited

by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp.119-144, quote, page 123.

63 “casus foederis” refers to an event in which the terms of an alliance come into play, often treaties in which different states agree to take action to defend each other such as the attack on one of them.

64 Houston, Sam, “To John Letcher,” Jan. 24, 1851, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp.261-267, quote, pages 262-263.

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Democrats who he says, “have fought gallantly for our rights,” and who “have stood by you of the South in opposition to those whose fanaticism, and prejudice, and misguided feeling would have wrested your rights from you.” He opposes this bill because he thinks that it will result in agitation which will ultimately disrupt the United States. 65 Houston’s dreams of devouring Latin American will come to nothing without a powerful United States to conquer Latin America.

In a speech at the Maryland Institute on April 7, 1856 Houston again refers to abolitionism as fanaticism. An abstract of his speech reports, “In relation to fanaticism, he characterized the Abolitionists of the North, and the Disunionists of the South as coming under that head. He defended the institution of slavery in the South and incidently spoke of slavery in Mexico, where the peons were worse off than slaves.”66 In the synopsis of a Houston speech given at Danville on Sept. 11, 1858, is the summary, “however much sensible men might lament the course pursued by such fanatics in the North as Abby Kellys, Garrison, and Phillips, …”67 Houston’s inaugural address as Texas governor, Dec. 21, 1859, admonishes his listeners “When our rights are aggressed upon, let us be behind none in repelling attack; but be careful to distinguish between the acts of individuals and those of a people, between the wild ravings of fanatics and that public sentiment which truly represents the masses of the people.”68 In his message to the Texas Legislature as Governor Jan. 13, 1860 abolitionists are repeatedly referred to as fanatical. Houston expects that there will be an effort people in the “North” to “put down the fanatical efforts of misguided abolitionists,” and that despite “the impious threats of fanatical disunionists, the love of our common country still burns with the fire of the olden time in the hearts of the American people.” 69

65

Houston, Sam, “Opposing the Nebraska-Kansas Bill,” March 3, 1854, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 5 (1941), pp.504-522, quote, page 514.

66 Houston, Sam, “Report of a Speech at Baltimore,” April 7, 1856, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp.305, quote, page 305. The author hasn’t been able to find a copy either looking for it in June 2021, but he only searched a few databases, it might still be something that could be found.

67 Houston, Sam, “Synopsis of a Speech at Danville,” Sept. 11, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp.183-186, quote, page 185.

68 Houston, Sam, “Inaugural Address,” Dec. 21, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp.379385, quote, page 383-384.

69 Houston, Sam, “Message to the Texas Legislature,” Jan. 13, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 407-421, quotes, page 421

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When Houston transmits the message of the State of South Carolina to the Texas legislature Jan. 21, 1860, abolitionists he dismisses as follows, “It is not to be supposed that the people of the South regard the institution as possessing so little moral strength as to be injured by the ‘assaults’ made upon it by a fanatical element of Northern population…” In regards to the Harper’s Ferry Raid by John Brown, Houston states, “The fanatical outrage was rebuked and the offenders punished.” 70 In a Sept. 22, 1860 speech in Austin, Texas Houston again asserts that abolitionism is fanaticism but also that it is a conspiracy funded by British money. Houston when attacking secessionist plans to seek treaties of support from Britain states: And yet, after picturing the rise and progress of Abolitionism, tracing it to the Wilberforce movement in England, and British influence in the North, showing that British Gold has sustained and encouraged Northern fanaticism, we are told to be heedless of the consequences of disunion, for the advantages of British alliance would far over estimate the loss of the Union!

Later in this same speech, further discussing the dangers of having a British ally for a seceding slave.

When we are rent in twain, British Abolition, which in fanaticism and sacrificial spirit, far exceeds that of the of the North (for it has been willing to pay for its fanaticism, a thing the North never will do), will have none of the impediments in its path, now to be found. England will no longer fear the power of the mighty nation which twice has humbled her, and whose giant arm would, so long as we are united, be stretched forth to protect the weakest State, or the most obscure citizens. The State that secedes, when pressed by insidious arts of abolition emissaries, supported by foreign powers, when cursed by internal disorders and insurrections, can lay no claim to that national flag, which when now unfurled, ensures the respect of all nations and strikes terror to the hears of those who would invade our rights.

The following is the speech where Houston refers to abolitionism as “niggerism,” as destructive to the United States and the Constitution. Houston states: If the wisdom of the past century combined has not sufficed to perfect this Government, what hope can we have for another? You realize this blessing you have; give them up and all is uncertainty. Will you have more protection to your property—more rights, and have them better protected? We now have all that we ever could have under any government, and notwithstanding all the complaints 70

Houston, Sam, “Message to the Texas Legislature Transmitting Resolutions of the State of South Carolina,” Jan. 21, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 429-441, quote, page 431

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we hear, they are as perfect as at any time since the formation of the Government.

Because we carry the question of niggerism into national politics, and it engenders bad feeling, is not reason for believing that our rights are invaded. We still have the institution of slavery. [Boldface added.] 71 Houston’s rabid racism surfaces in this speech to prevent secession. Also, note that a government which sustains the institution of slavery is nearing perfection.

Houston was a unionist it is true, but a unionist based on his wish to preserve slavery.

He correctly saw that a Civil War would come and could possibly destroy slavery entirely or over decades in the future with the friction existing between two independent nations.

In a Nov. 20, 1860 letter to political colleagues, after the election of Abraham Lincoln President of the United States, during the developing crisis of secession, Houston argues that with secession, “We are called upon to desert the gallant thousands who for years have been fighting our battles against fanaticism in the North.”72 Abolitionism is still fanaticism in Houston’s last speech, in the City of Houston, March 18,1863. Houston sees England as hostile to American interests with an “impious heresy” of “fanaticism” of abolition. Houston says: Nations, like corporations, are soulless. England, to whom many have looked for aid, has nothing in common with us, save what interest dictates. Even that she has thus far sacrificed to her pride, and fanaticism. With her thousands of ruined capitalists and hundreds of thousands of starving operatives to attest the bitter fruits of this war, she yet clings to the impious heresy, which has burdened her with debt and desolated some of her fairest provinces.73 What Houston is referring to here is that the lack of cotton has shut down a lot of the capacity of the British textile industry and also the past abolition of slavery, primarily in the Caribbean, has resulted in government debt to pay for this abolition, and the Caribbean Islands were no longer sites of the exploitation of Africans which to Houston is “desolation.”

71

Houston, Sam, “Address at the Union Mass Meeting,” Sept. 22, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 8 (1943), pp. 145-160, quotes, page 148, 149.

72 Houston, Sam, “To H.M. Watkins and Others,” Nov. 20, 1860, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 8 (1943), pp. 192-197, quotes, page 195.

73 Houston, Sam, “Speech at Houston,” March 18, 1863, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 8 (1943), pp. 327339, quotes, page 329.

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Though it is tedious to show every example of Houston referring to abolitionism as fanatical, there are tactics of denial used in regards to history where despite the historical record of some individual one excuse or rationalization or another will be employed. In this case it would be to try to show that Houston was perhaps not so proslavery as one or more individual speeches might indicate. What this record shows is that Houston consistently regarded abolitionism as fanatical from early in his career to the end. This view wasn’t just a result of “mis-speaking,” or of a specific period in his career, or a couple speeches not reflective of his general career and attitudes.

What also needs to be understood from Houston’s use of the terms, “fanatic,” “fanatics,” “fanatical,” and “fanaticism,” is that Houston didn’t just regard abolitionists as others who had a different point of view or who strongly disagreed with him, they were people who had lost the use of reason on the subject of slavery and were therefore fanatics. It was entirely outside of Houston’s thinking that abolitionism could have any basis in rational thought.

The rabid racism of Houston is what underpinned his ideas that abolitionism was fanaticism. This will be reviewed in this essay going back in time Houston’s statements.

In the extracts of a Sept. 15, 1859 speech in Montgomery, Texas Houston denounces those who would reopen the importation of slaves to the United States as secessionists.

Houston is against reopening the slave trade the extract reports as follows: As to slavery, he said that nature had fixed its boundary—it would go where the climate, soil, etc., demanded it; he had never raised his voice against it; he was not in favor of reopening the African slave trade in order to christianize the negroes; that to reopen the trade would cause cotton to fall to three or four centers per pound; the poor man would be injured by it in consequence of the reduction of the price of labor. He said that he was not opposed to it on his own account, but for the sake of posterity.74 At an earlier speaking engagement sometime in Sept. 1859 in Huntsville that Houston spoke against the reopening of the slave trade reporting, “… referred to the evils that would follow the attempt to reopen the African slave trade, and the bad effects of that measure, if accomplished, would have in the reduction of the value of products of the county…”75

74

Houston, Sam, “Extracts from a Speech at a Barbecue at Montgomery,” Sept. 15, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 375-378, quote, “christianize,” page 375, advocates of slave trade reopening secessionists, page 376.

75 Houston, Sam, “Extracts from a Speech at a Barbecue at Montgomery,” Sept. 15, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 374-375, quote, page 374

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These extracts didn’t reveal Houston’s reasons for not reviving the slave trade in their entirety.

It is in a speech in Nacogdoches, July 9, 1859, where Houston’s reasons for opposing the reopening of the African slave trade are however related in detail. Houston speaks on the consequent of reopening the slave trade as follows: Reopen the African Slave Trade and the South will be deluged with barbarians.

Your present stock of negroes would fall in value, and recede in point of intelligence. Not a poor man would be able to stay in the country, because Labor would be so cheap that he would not be able to get bread for himself and his family. The Labor market would be overdone. The vast army of slaves would be put to work in your cotton fields, and the vast crop would glut the market beyond all reasonable demand. Prices would fall to four or five cents per pound, and even then, when the demand was supplied, the greater portion of your crop would lie upon your hands for want of a purchaser. Freight would advance to an enormous price, because every sail that the Yankees could raise—these dear Abolitionist gentlemen who love the negro so well—would be engaged in the traffic. Each vessel that could be bought or pressed into the service would be upon the coast of Africa. It would be more profitable than the carrying trade. Your cotton would lie and rot upon your wharves or in your gin-houses, because transportation will not pay, and ruin to your financial interests will be the consequence. If negroes would be cheaper, money would be dearer. It is easier now to buy a negro at $1500 than it was 20 years ago at $500. Increase the production of cotton at once tenfold, as it would be, and the demand falls off in proportion. The yankees would then get your cotton at four cents per pound, and make it into calico and red hankerchiefs to buy negroes with on the coast of Africa, which they will bring South to sell for your hard dollars. To such a ruinous policy I am opposed. I do not go to the results that will accrue to the African. I will not discuss its morality. That is a question which I have nothing to do. Its practical effects upon us and our posterity are what we are first to look at. It may be that the African will be benefitted; but it will be death to the Whites.76 In a letter to Ferdinand Flake, July 2, 1859 Houston states that many secessionists are for the reopening of the African slave trade and sees these disastrous consequences: Many of these are prominent advocates for re-opening the African slave-trade, than which no greater evil is to be apprehended to the South. If this were once done, the South would be overrun by African barbarians, and our lives, and what is worse, our homes and families would be subject to their barbarities—and in no 76

Houston, Sam, “Speech at Nacogdoches,” July 9, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 343367, quote, page 347.

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possible way advance our general or national prosperity. In my opinion all these devices are intended to bring about Disunion.77 Houston, speaking in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 12,13, 1859, in defending slavery, racial hierarchy, and in a complaint about abolitionists states the following: Gentlemen may talk of philanthropy and humanity and the equality of all men under the Declaration of Independence; but I do not think an African equally white with me, and therefore he is not on a footing of equality exactly. He has never enjoyed political rights, and therefore he has been deprived of none. If Africa he enjoyed the privilege of slaughtering and eating his fellow-man; and it was consistent with his idolatry, and consistent with his education; but that does not give him the education and moral pitch that white men have.

But be that as it may, whilst these subjects are being discussed, I ask, I implore gentlemen to tell us what better disposition can be made of them. Is the wild savage African better than the slave of the South? Is he as well off as the free blacks of the North, or those who are freezing in Canada? No; he is not as well off as they are; he is not cared for; and will you throw our slaves back into barbarism, or will you turn them loose on use in the South? Have we done aught to produce the necessity of having them amongst us? Did not your ancestors do it? We never were a commercial people; we never carried on the slave-trade until recently— and I brand that as an act of unmitigated infamy; but it was done first by others.

Slavery has descended to us; it is necessary, and we must maintain it; but does it conflict with the well-being of northern gentlemen and northern society that the South bear it? We are told that it is a calamity and misfortune to us. Then, let us bear our misfortunes alone. We have not asked for intervention, nor can we permit it. It is requiring too much. Have I ever sought to drive slavery into your communities? Have I ever sought to drive extend its limits or to trench on any one of the established principles of gentlemen who think differently on this subject from myself? I have not sought to thrust it down their throats; but I have determined always to maintain it like a man, and to vindicate the rights that exist with us.78 [Boldface added.]

Besides the blistering racism, Houston’s self-serving rationalizations are on full display.

For some reason when Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker compiled the writings of Samuel Houston for the University of Texas Press in the years up to 1941 when 77

Houston, Sam, “To Ferdinand Flake,” July 2, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 341.

78 Houston, Sam, “Concerning the Pacific Railroad and Other Matters,” Jan. 12,13, 1859, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 194-216, quote, pages, 200-201.

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volume six of the series was published, they were not able to get a full transcript of a speech given at Tremont Temple in Boston in the year 1855. A simple letter to some Boston libraries, would have very probably produced a complete copy of the speech which was published in the Liberator who took it from the Evening Telegraph of Boston. Given it was a lengthy speech in which Houston both discussed slavery and defended slavery in depth, it would have been a significant historical document defining who Houston was and would the author thinks would be an essential, and perhaps one of the more important document in the eight volume series of Houston’s writings. It isn’t a speech that is flattering to the reputation of Houston though. Perhaps Williams and Barker ran out of stamps.

To rectify this omission the author of this essay tracked down a full copy and has transcribed it and it is in the Appendix of this essay. Here only some highlights will be given. However, the full speech needs to be read so not only understand how racist Houston was but to really appreciate his powers of glibly rationalizing the morality of keeping slavery. Once this speech is read, the abomination of anything in Texas being named after him becomes apparent.

Houston spoke on the benefits of slavery to Christianize the Africans as follows: There they are not objects of cruelty, they are not objects of harshness, they are not doomed to a state of heathenism; they have the lights of religion, of civilization, of morality.

Houston asserts that emancipation would be harmful to the slaves and disastrous to society stating: Look to Jamaica. Has the slave advanced with all the advantages of emancipation, after passing through all the stages of apprenticeship? No, he has deteriorated. He is lower than when he was a slave. His labor is unproductive; he is not profitable to himself nor to any other. How would it be in the South? Turn them loose, and they could not set up in business. Land could not be appropriated to them; and if it were, they would not work it. They would be as they are in Bermuda and everywhere else where they are thrown upon their own resources. They are listless, inert, lazy, living on the fruit of the earth where they can be had, but never will he industrious.

How could two races exist together without amalgamation? It is impossible. Well, they would produce nothing in the South, the spindles of the North would stand still; the implements of husbandry would remain here unsold, and the whole South would present nothing but a spectacle of wretchedness, if not of bloodshed and carnage. Who could derive happiness from this? It would not elevate the slave in the South. You might call him free, but he would be an object of want and wretchedness. Now, if he is sick, a doctor is provided, and he is attended to by the

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master because he is his owner, and it is his interest to care for him. But if free, no one would take care of him. His toil would stop, and his recompense, and he would be cast into the streets. That would be his situation. Whereas, it is the master's duty not only to improve his intelligence, but improve his moral condition, that he may he more honest, trustworthy and faithful; and to take care of his physical condition, that he may perform the amount of labor with less inconvenience and more certainty. These are the facts.

This is an example of one of the defenses of slavery in the South.

But do you believe that if it had not been for the influx of foreign labor, you would have had these railroads! [Cheers and laughter.] Would the Americans, sous of the revolution, ever have been able to do the digging and all the other work that has been done here? [Cheers.] No. You never could have done it in the world.

Well, it is well done, and I am glad to see it done. [Laughter.] But let us reason a little further. Suppose these railroad projects had taken place before the time when you emancipated your slaves, and no foreigners had come. Emancipation did not take place in the North until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I think in about the year ‘90. Do you think that if railroads had been started then, emancipation would have been begun? You would have had negroes at work building railroads to this day, just as sure as the world. [Applause and Laughter.]

It is necessity that produces slavery, it is convenience, it is profit that creates slavery; though often the owners are not as much benefitted by it as it is thought.

It is true that labor must be performed, ana when foreign labor had become reduced to a standard, at which it was cheaper than that of slaves with the capital invested in them, you employed foreigners and turned off your slaves. Had there been such an influx of foreign immigration at the South, do you believe they would have continued to hold slaves?

The other usual defenses of slavery are employed in Houston’s speech, that they are resistant to heat and happy with slavery and it was in the Bible and God works in mysterious ways.79 It is really worth the time to read the entire speech in the Appendix.

Again, these examples are given at length, more than necessary to document Houston’s racism, but done so to preclude rationalizations and excuses to minimize Houston’s racism.

XENOPHOBIA AND HOUSTON

79

Houston, Samuel, “Lecture on Slavery by Honorable Samuel Houston,” Liberator, March 2, 1855, page 4 from a transcript that was published in the Evening Telegraph.

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Houston was involved in the Know-Nothing party and spoke out against certain white immigrants and the fact that many of them were Catholic. I will provide some extracts to gives some examples.

Houston’s speeches against “foreigners” also show that when Houston uses the term “Anglo-Saxon” he means exactly that, a certain white imagined ethnic group. (Given all the groups that have existed in England, and the fact that the ruling classes of England were composed of the Norman invaders, that is invaders from France who originated from Scandinavia, it is truly a fictional thing.) Houston isn’t just using Anglo-Saxon casually as a term including all white people residing in the United States, or members of a society defined by Anglo-Saxon customs, he means specifically Anglo-Saxons as a distinct ethnic and racial group.

From a speech by Houston in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 29, 31, 1855: I admit that we are all descended from foreigners, because originally, there were no natives here who were white men. Many of these foreigners who originally came here were baptized in the blood of the Revolution; but they were not such men as are now coming to our shores, and should not be named in connection with those who are spewed loathingly from the prisons of England, and from the pauper houses of Europe. Such men are not to be compared to our ancestry, or to the immigration which, until recently, has come to our shores from foreign countries.

Houston was immigrants to have an endorsement from American officials abroad for immigrants. Otherwise, Houston imagines and rejects the following: But, sir, to say that a felon, who left his prison the day he sailed for this country, or, perhaps, was brought in chains to the vessel which bore him here, is, in five years, to stand an equal with the proudest man who walks on our soil, the man who has shed his blood to consecrate liberty and his country, is not the kind of arrangement that I go for.80 On July 24, 1855, Houston, in a letter, gave his opinion regarding the “American Order” which was a secret order of those opposed to immigration.

The American Order was under criticism for being a secret society. Houston made a claim: From my personal and familiar knowledge of the principles of GEN. JACKSON, I am confident that were he living, to counteract the policy of European potentates 80

Houston, Sam, “On an Increase of the Army, and the Indian Policy of the Government,” Jan. 29, 31, 1855, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 111-154, quotes, page 151-152.

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and statesmen, to throw upon our shores their refused population of convicts and paupers to pervert our ballot boxes and populate our poorhouses, HE WOULD MOST CORDIALLY SANCTION AND INCULCATE THE PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN ORDER. [Small caps and italics in the original.]

Houston feels Catholics are causing discontent and sees conspiracies by foreign government with immigration stating: General discontent was growing up in the country. This feeling was aggravated by a report that an agreement was made between a Catholic Bishop and Gen. Pierce, conditional that General Pierce was to receive the Catholic vote, and in the event of his election, a situation in his cabinet would be given to a member of the Catholic denomination. As this was published and not denied, it was believed.

Nor was this all. Foreigners were selected to fill important missions to foreign Governments, to exclusion of distinguished American statesmen. About this time it was ascertained that an unusual number of convicts and paupers were thrown upon our shores from European prisons and poorhouses. The belief obtained that these classes of emigrants were thrust upon us by the policy of foreign governments who never can bear us good will as long as we remain a free and independent people. [Italics in the original.]

In this letter Houston asserts that the American Order is in reaction to threats made in Catholic publications, and, “The design of the American order is not to put down Catholics, but to prevent Catholics putting down Protestants.” In this speech Houston states that he wants to extend the period of naturalization to 21 years.81 One reason Houston doesn’t like immigrants, is that they are not supporters of slavery and tend to support abolition.

From a Synopsis of a Houston speech at Brenham, Oct. 20, 1855, criticizing the administration of President Pierce: They encourage the promiscuous introduction of foreigners, in direct conflict with the best interests of the South, of the perpetuity of the Union, and the safety of the institutions of freemen.82

81

Houston, Sam, “Houston’s Opinion Concerning the ‘American Order,’” July 24, 1855, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 192-199, quotes, claim that Andrew Jackson would support the order, pages 194-195, Catholic cabinet appointment, page 196, threats by Catholics, page 197.

82 Houston, Sam, “Synopsis of a Speech at Brenham,’” Oct. 20, 1855, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 204-207, quote, page 206

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Houston’s speech at a Know-Nothing mass meeting in Austin, Texas on Nov. 23, 1855 reveals his Xenophobia at length. One criticism of them is that immigrants from Europe are often abolitionists. Houston states: Yes, my fellow-citizens, vessels are chartered to convey paupers and criminals from European prisons and poorhouses to this country, and we welcome them and receive them on terms of equality with Americans. What is the character of those who come here now? Do they come here prepossessed in favor of our free institutions, or do they come here prejudiced against them? Is there not danger of creating a preponderance of foreign influence against our country, that will finally subvert our free system of government? They are arriving at the North at the rate of five hundred thousand annually. Every census shows that this immigration brings into the Senate four additional members who will operate against the South. The whole government will finally be thrown directly into the hands of the North. Every five years they will increase their number of Representatives in Congress from ten to twelve. It is to the interest of the South to extend the period of naturalization. Ninety-nine hundredths of those who come to our shores are violently opposed to slavery. They are strong advocates of free soil. It is our duty and to your interest to increase the period of naturalization.83 This essay will not exhaustively list all of the cases of Houston’s Xenophobia but show some samples.

Houston uses Xenophobia on seemingly unrelated topics. In speaking on an increase in the number of soldiers in the Army in 1858 he brings up his anti-immigrant ideas as follows: When I said that our Army in time of peace was not composed of the best material, I alluded to the rank and file; and I stated that perhaps not more than one fourth of them were native-born citizens of the United States. A large portion of them are indeed foreigners, who are not naturalized, and therefore can have no sympathy with our institutions, and no feeling for our cause, except that of mercenaries.84 Houston, on April 7, 1858, in a U.S. Senate debate about the admission of Minnesota as a state, is upset that the Minnesota constitution will provide for aliens to vote.

83

Houston, Sam, “Speech Delivered at a Know-Nothing Mass Barbecue at Austin,” Nov. 23, 1855, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 209-234, quote, page 226 84 Houston, Sam, “Against Increase of the Regular Army,” Feb. 11, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 18131863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 6 (1941), pp. 493-507, quote, page 494.

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He opens up his address in the U.S. Senate with this statement: I have no apology to make for consuming the time of the Senate on this question.

I shall vote for the bill admitting Minnesota into the Union; but I shall do so under a solemn protest against some principles contained in her constitution.

The provision which authorizes aliens to vote, I think is in opposition to the spirit and the letter of the Federal Constitution.

Later in this same address Houston states: It is no degradation or reflection on a man that you do not allow him to vote at the polls. ….

If he is a decent man, he can live very well without voting; and if he is not a decent man, the result of allowing him to vote is that he can get a little drunker than he otherwise would if he comes to the polls … The privilege of voting is very unfortunate to many foreigners who come here. If they were permitted to toil in their shops or labor upon their farms upon election day they would be much better off than by being dragged to elections, and getting involved with difficulties there, squandering their means and getting intoxicated. The longer you postpone them the greater blessing it is to them …85 Notice the phrase, “drunker than he otherwise would.”

With immigration Houston feared that he would lose his Anglo-Saxon nation to support racial hierarchy and engage as a master Anglo-Saxon race in widespread imperial conquest. Also, Houston’s speeches show that the idea of winning elections by restricting who can vote goes way back in American history. It truly is a continuing Texas practice.

CONCLUSION: Samuel Houston was a slave owner with a master race ideology who worked to establish the Anglo-Saxon Texas racist state to seek the imperial conquests of all of Latin America to establish slave states and colonies, to rapaciously exploit non-white races, both without and within the United States. He got as far as breaking Texas from Mexico and working with other avaricious white supremacists was able break away the northern half of Mexico, but the Civil War thwarted his designs to go on to devour the rest of Latin America and bring the horror of slavery and colonial brutality to untold millions.

85

Houston, Sam, “Concerning the Admission of Minnesota as a State of the Union,” April 7, 1858, in “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863,” edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1938-43, Vol. 7 (1942), pp. 70-76, quote, page 75.

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Houston is not prominent among those famous for their crimes against humanity largely because he was not able to achieve his projects and because the historical record regarding him has been obscured.

Texas secession was to achieve Anglo-Saxon freedom to exist in an Anglo-Saxon ethnostate, which included freedom for the Anglo-Saxon practice of exploiting African slaves, and then have the opportunity to continue imperial aspirations of conquest and exploitation which only had some realization in the Mexican American War. Texas secession was the start of an ongoing process in which it was only one stage.

That Samuel Houston has any place of honor on the landscape is appalling.

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APPENDIX: Complete text of Houston’s speech in the Liberator, March 2, 1855, Friday, page 4.

LECTURE ON SLAVERY,

BY HONORABLE SAMUEL HOUSTON, At the Tremont Temple, Boston, Thursday Evening, February 22, 1855.

[Reported for the Evening Telegraph.]

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Committee.—By your polite solicitation I have presented myself here. Respect for it induced my visit. I feel that very far from my home— the most remote Southern Senator; but I feel that I view and address an auditory composed of my countrymen, and such with delight with and confidence. No sentiments have I to advance, but such as spring from an honest heart, and are prompted by honest convictions of experience. I am aware that the dissimilarity of institutions subsisting between this section of the Union and the one in which it has been my destiny to be born, to live, and to act in, is very material. Notwithstanding this, I presume a fair and unvarnished statement of facts not trenching upon the enjoyment of the opinions of any individual, will be received with that allowance which a diversity of intertest and of institutions may give.

I was horn in the South, but I was taught to know the North ere manhood had brought me into active life. I had learned the interesting reminiscences of the revolutionary war, and I had known that there was but one brotherhood in the colonies, and but one people achieved the independence of America. As such, I am proud that I am an American, and I feel as one, presenting myself before this enlightened and accomplished auditory.

Unsolicited I am here—I might say undesired; because it devolves upon me a grave responsibility to vindicate an institution with which I am concerned, one with which I had no election, one that fortune or destiny cast me into connection with, and one that must continue or the two races cannot exist together.

To discuss the abstract principles of slavery and freedom is not my task. I take it as I find it, and as I have found it in past life. It was not a contrivance of myself or of my ancestors, and I am not responsible that the institution of slavery exists in the country in which I live. We find that the adaptation of climate, of soil, and of production have demanded and commanded a class of laborers that have been expelled from this section of the country. The institutions here have changed. At the time of the achievement of American liberty, there was not one of the colonies which did not hold slaves, and recognise it as a right institution as it then existed.

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The achievement of our liberty was made by slaveholders, and if they have since dispossessed themselves of slaves, now they exist only in one portion of the country.

There they are not objects of cruelty, they are not objects of harshness, they are not doomed to a state of heathenism; they have the lights of religion, of civilization, of morality. It is the care of masters there who desire the countenance and fellowship of the community, to see that on the Sabbath day the slave attends the worship of the Supreme Being. The Word is given to them by their own preachers, or by white preachers, and they are instructed in religion. Masters, rightly constituted there, feel anxious that their slaves should be acquainted with the mysteries and the joys of revelation. They do not wish it shut out from their spirits, nor from their eves. The house of a man who would make his slaves labor on the Sabbath I have known but two who have been charged with employing their laborers on the Sabbath day would become like an infected place. No one consorts with such a master, or trusts office or distinction to them. These I know are statements that are not in conformity with the general and excited state of feeling which exists in certain portions of the country, but they are, nevertheless, true, and I feel called upon by the respect shown to me to state the truth in return for that respect. (Applause.)

So far as the South has heretofore expressed itself—and I have come to vindicate the South against the responsibility sought to be cast upon it for that for which it is not responsible—the South has said, 'Let us alone, let us regulate our domestic institutions for ourselves. You, gentlemen of the North, you legislators, you governors, you statesmen, go on and regulate your domestic institutions as you think proper. Give us the same privilege and it i all we ask. Let us alone. How long has that spirit of acquiescence existed? How perfect was it on the commencement of the last session of Congress! Not a voice of discord was heard, not a jarring sound was heard throughout the broad land." Peace, concord, harmony and unanimity of feeling existed throughout the whole Union. Acquiescence in the Compromise of 1850 had accorded to the country a state 01 peace, and there was a tranquility not before heard of. To be sure, there were some exceptions: but I speak of measures generally. There was no jarring sound until a voice was heard in the ears of the American community. ‘Nebraska! Nebraska!’ That was the note of discord. From whence did it come? "Was it from the South? (A voice, ‘No !’) I deny it. I will prove from history that the South never demanded it, nor did all of the South acquiesce in it either. (Applause.)

I know it requires some iron nerve to stand up ' against clamors and numbers, but I would not give a fig for a man that could not stand against the world when his breastplate is honor and his helmet truth. (Cheers.) Not one Legislature of the whole South, not one executive, exhibited an uneasiness under the Missouri Compromise. Not one single community, not one editor, not one orator, not one voice was heard clamoring for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. No, not one. It came from the North, and I repudiate the idea of its being an effort of the Slave Power to encroach upon the rights of the North. The North was not injured by it. The injury was done to the South, as insisted at the time. It was putting the knife to the throat of the South, whilst it was an

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abstraction at most, because not one slave would ever be recognized in the Constitution of the country north of 30 deg. 30 mm., on the score of economy or policy; for slave labor could never requite the owner of the slave north of 30 deg. 30 min.; but south of that slave labor could be productive and beneficial to him.

It was an abstraction, but it was a kind of mischievous abstraction that broke op the harmony of the country, and excited apprehensions of the North that the South was struggling for dominion I felt that I occupied an isthmus between two oceans, that when I had navigated the troubled sea, whose tempestuous waves tossed me, I should soon cross the isthmus, and that a broader sea would receive me. I felt that I had to leave a posterity in America, and they were to nave their destiny for weal or woe blended with the people of America. I could see no North, no East, no West, no South. It was one country, an undivided Union, in which I was born, and in which I hoped to live and die. these were the feelings that had; and to see the peace of the county broken and no benefit resulting, led me to suppose that the North would resist the encroachment. They felt veneration as well as the south lor the Missouri Compromise line. It had produced great benefits for the country, which had gone on growing and prospering until its millions had more than doubled.

What harm had the Missouri Compromise done? I recollect the time of its adoption,— too young to participate in the political scenes of the day; I recollect the delightful influence it had in country when it was brought about. The great pacificators of that day had peans sung to them and joy reigned at the restoration of harmony in the country.

Those were scenes that I well recollect. I had seen its benefits, and sustained it for the good of the country. (Applause.) I sustained it for the repose of my own hopes for the future; I sustained it because it was a compromise; and because it was a pledge of honor, in my estimation, I supported it. I viewed it as the other compromises of the Constitution—for the spirit of that instrument was compromise. It grew out of that. The spirit of conciliation and compromise produced the mighty fabric of the American Constitution, and laid the foundation of our liberties.— Hence this compromise had existed for no less than quarter of a century. Its antiquity entitled it to veneration and respect, if it had remained without molestation so long, even if we had realized no extraordinary benefit from it, it should have been respected. But when it was repudiated and repealed or violated, there was no excuse, to my apprehension. But I have met the responsibility of opposing every attempt to impair its force or abrogate its principles.

(Applause.)

I know that many things that I may think—and an honest man ought never to fear to say what he does think may not be acceptable to this auditory. But whatever I may say that shall jar upon your feelings, I will premise that I advance my own opinion, not for the purpose of coining in contact with others, or of attacking the most delicate sensibility. (Applause.) When I look around me and contemplate the extent of this country, the diversity of its productions and of the pursuit of the inhabitants of America, I can but believe that there is a reciprocal duty of one portion of the country to another,

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and or mutual, dependence of one section upon another. The people of the South are little more than overseers for the North They stand pretty much in the relation of over seers for the gentlemen of the North. Why is it so! We produce the raw material; we have the physical responsibility of seeing to the laborer and tending the hands who produce the raw material. When it is prepared for the market, the marine of the North comes and receives it and brings it here. Our cotton and our sugar are brought here for consumption.

Cotton especially is the most important article of this kind of commerce. The cotton is transported here, and you derive the benefit of the carrying trade. This we don't think hard of. You have the advantage of your industry, your ingenuity, your machinery and its fabrication. By the same means that brought it, you transport it back again, and we consume it. So, then, we are the producers and consumers, while you are the manufacturers, and to you we pay tribute. This is all right enough. I don't think hard of it. But it is truth. Thus yon are benefitted by it. Where would be your spindles and looms but for the productions of the South on which they depend? We take your manufactures, and you supply our demand. This is all fair trade, and it is all right. It shows that there is a mutual dependence of one section upon the other, and without both neither can exist and be happy and independent. Hence it is that I have always been devoted to the Union. Upon that subject I may be a monomaniac; at all events I am very much devoted to the fancy. (Applause.)

We found slavery in our country. We use slaves, but we do not abuse them. One race or the other must give way. If slavery were to give way. the spindles of the North would stop. It may be objected that I am appealing to the cupidity of the Northern people. I am appealing to their common sense and experience, and they may give it what name they please, that object to it. Look to Jamaica. Has the slave advanced with all the advantages of emancipation, after passing through all the stages of apprenticeship? No, he has deteriorated. He is lower than when he was a slave. His labor is unproductive; he is not profitable to himself nor to any other. How would it be in the South? Turn them loose, and they could not set up in business. Land could not be appropriated to them; and if it were, they would not work it. They would be as they are in Bermuda and everywhere else where they are thrown upon their own resources. They are listless, inert, lazy, living on the fruit of the earth where they can be had, but never will he industrious.

How could two races exist together without amalgamation? It is impossible. Well, they would produce nothing in the South, the spindles of the North would stand still; the implements of husbandry would remain here unsold, and the whole South would present nothing but a spectacle of wretchedness, if not of bloodshed and carnage. Who could derive happiness from this? It would not elevate the slave in the South. You might call him free, but he would be an object of want and wretchedness. Now, if he is sick, a doctor is provided, and he is attended to by the master because he is his owner, and it is his interest to care for him. But if free, no one would take care of him. His toil would stop, and his recompense, and he would be cast into the streets. That would be his

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situation. Whereas, it is the master's duty not only to improve his intelligence, but improve his moral condition, that he may he more honest, trustworthy and faithful; and to take care of his physical condition, that he may perform the amount of labor with less inconvenience and more certainty. These are the facts.

It is not the love of slavery that causes it to exist in the South, but the necessity of their condition that has forced it upon them.' They are obliged to do it. They cannot liberate them. But we see men when they come to close their account with the earth, anxious to benefit them, make provision to transport then to Liberia. If the same amount had been expended in building up and colonizing Liberia, which has been wasted in other ways in relation to them, it would have been better. That colony has gone on in improvement.

There they can rise to the stature of men; there they are prospering, and doing well where there is no opposing race, and they are not trodden down. The slave turned loose here cannot rise to the condition of the white race, and the white race cannot sink to the condition of the black num. Hence the system of transportation to Liberia is the only one that seems to loom up in the distance by which a provision can be made for restoring these people, at some future day, to the land of their origin.

Strange as it may appear, and difficult as may be the task, the Providence that rules the world, that has built up and pulled down nations, though His plans are mysterious and beyond our comprehension, can again show his power as in days past in a way to meet His divine purposes. When Joseph was sold by the patriarchs to the Midianites and the Ishmailites, and when he was transported to Egypt, no one could have divined the subsequent wonders of Divine power. The children of Israel remained four hundred years in Egypt ere they were redeemed, and then it was by miraculous and infinite power. Was this all chance? Was it the result of national mutation, or of policy of men, or of Moses uninstructed by Deity? No. for he was raided up by wonderful power to teach them that the God of Israel could redeem the nation from bondage and overwhelm their oppressors.

Here was an act of emancipation. And how do we know by what means, at some future day, if we use our influence to excite humanity towards these beings, and endeavor to get rid of them little by little, imbuing them with the light of Christianity, they may become nations as numerous as the sands of the sea, and that from the point where they may establish themselves they may radiate science and religion throughout the continent or Africa? These are things which we cannot foresee, for we cannot tell what is in the womb of futurity, nor in the mind of the Almighty.

My devotion and the sincerity of it to the Union, my desire for its perpetuation, my love of harmony, my anxiety for the future of my country, all have me to contribute during my whole life, to its general welfare, to its harmony and to its advancement. I would advocate in the abstract nothing. Nor is it a subject that I am going to discuss. Men have a diversity of opinion, and I accord to them the right of opinion. I accord to them everything they claim, and in doing so, I only claim the equal privilege of enjoying the

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same liberty that they enjoy. I know that all cannot think alike. All do not think alike, and while they abstain from overt acts, which trench upon no rights, I would not interfere with their opinions. I would not trench upon one single iota that pertains to the North, nor would I take it well to see the North trench upon the South. But whatever the South does, as a community, she is responsible for. She, on the other band, only asks what the North demands—Let us alone. And if pestilent men exist in the South or in the North, it is no reason that discord should exist between the two sections of the country.

The two sections cannot be separated. How would you separate them? Would Mason A Dixon's line be the line of separation? Would not fortresses and cannon be placed on either side of that line—an ideal or a true one—or, if you please. a river—would not they oppose each other. Would not standing armies grow up to protect this frontier! Would not a military power grow up to defend this boundary? Would not taxation and oppression be me consequence of it, and would not despotism follow armies and taxation? Are you prepared for that? Rational men cannot desire it. They desire Union.

The men of the South, and the men of the North desire union and tranquillity; both sections are interested in the union, and neither can repudiate it and be happy and independent. [Applause.] No. All we ark is to be let alone. We do not wish to obtrude our institutions, but we wish all the benefits of the Constitution. We wish that to be the controlling principle of the country. We are willing to give the pound of flesh, but not one drop of Christian, blood.

I well remember that when we were living separate as a community—as a different republic—when we in the far distant South contemplating a union with the far distant States, we did not count Southern States or Northern States. We contemplated the American Union. And if we entered into the confederacy, it was to be domestic confederacy of the North as well as of the South. If our domestic institutions were similar to the peculiar institutions of the South, our political institutions were the same as those of the North, as to republicanism and as to freedom, so that we looked to them as one great community, one vast and mighty people a union that could resist the world.

(Cheers.) All that we had to do was to cultivate harmony among ourselves. We were aware of dissensions; we knew that there was a North and a South—a bank and an antibank—a tariff and anti-tariff. We knew there were in different sections peculiar notions, and we looked at all there, end did not leap in the dark. But when we took a survey of all of them, and saw the great disadvantage of building up a living power on this continent in antagonism to a people of our own language, race and religion, we believed it was impolitic, and injurious to the prosperity of two countries. We saw that at some future day evils would grow up; that England might seek to advance her interests, that Europe with all her power might seek to foster an enemy among us, to hinder our march to glory and grandeur. Though Texas might reap the benefit of it, we saw the evil to the nation of supporting a separate power.

We had no diversity of interest among us. On the institution of slavery we were a unit; we were aware that coming into this confederacy, we should have to participate in all the

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incidents of your government, and we came in and united with you for weal or for woe.

We desired union for the sake of the strength and power of the Union—that we might be able to act in conjunction with you to elucidate the great principle of self-government, that men of equal condition, intelligence and cast unite in achieving in our country, these are the benefits we anticipated, and these the blessings for which we united with this government.

Upon these principles, too, we agreed that the North and the South should be equal recipients of the benefits of the annexation of Texas. We agreed that the Missouri Compromise line should be applied to Texas, and all north of 30 deg. 30 m, comprising 5 1-2 degrees of latitude, the North should have dedicated to their peculiar institutions, while in all south of that line the South should retain un interest.

We were willing to do this to show the equality of our principles, upon which we have acted up to this day. I invoke the North to regard these things; they are evidences of our sincerity and good faith. These concessions have not been eschewed by the people of Texas any more than by the North. The bill that has produced this agitation, which I would be glad to see laid, was not discussed in the South, nor any where but in Congress.

It was hurried through Congress, there only it was discussed,—with precipitancy almost indecorous. It was forced through over those who made but a weak opposition in point of numbers, and I am not sure but in point of earnestness. It was carried for special purposes, I suppose; and judging from past events, it must have disappointed the hopes of those who did it. [Cheers.]

[Here the speaker rested for a few minutes, and Dr. Howe took occasion to announce that Mr. Campbell, will deliver his lecture on the 15th of next month. Also that Mr. Houston will lecture this (Friday) evening, on the subject of Texas. Mr. Houston continued:] Ladies and Gentlemen—I have been led to the reflection that in the adaptation of labor to climate and production, it would be impossible to furnish supplies to meet demand, if it were possible to wipe out slavery and transfer every one of the Southern slaves to the soil of Africa. It would be impossible to supply one fourth or one sixth of the demand that has gradually grown up in the present condition of the country. The white man's labor could never supply that of the slave, whose constitution is adapted to Southern labor, climate and production. It is not that the slave has to bear the burden and heat of the day. Our laborers rise with the sun, are allowed half an hour at breakfast, and two hours at noon, avoiding the heat of noonday, and return at night to their supper and repose. They are not overworked; yet any white man undergoing the same process of labor would be unable to endure it. He would fall under the heat of the sun. There are physical causes why this is so, and they are known to physiologists.

The negroes originated in a southern climate, and they cannot live in a northern climate with the enjoyment of the same degree of health, activity and vigor that they can enjoy

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in the South. There they are healthy, active, and cheerful. They are of all people on earth the most happy. Have you ever heard of a slave committing suicide? If they were wretched and could not bear the chains, or the moderate slavery which they enjoy, they would have recourse to suicide to break their chains, and give their spirits freedom, but I never heard of a slave yet that committed suicide. [Applause.]

Let us look for a moment at the condition of the North. The immense improvements you have made I am delighted with; I congratulate the people of the Norm with all my heart upon their many beautiful, convenient, profitable, and elegant improvements. Your States are like gridirons, your fields and gardens, and your houses are elegant. In the interior of the State I was gratified, with beholding more than oriental splendor; you have founded an elegant and enlightened state of society. But do you believe that if it had not been for the influx of foreign labor, you would have had these railroads! [Cheers and laughter.] Would the Americans, sous of the revolution, ever have been able to do the digging and all the other work that has been done here? [Cheers.] No. You never could have done it in the world. Well, it is well done, and I am glad to see it done.

[Laughter.] But let us reason a little further. Suppose these railroad projects had taken place before the time when you emancipated your slaves, and no foreigners had come.

Emancipation did not take place in the North until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I think in about the year ‘90. Do you think that if railroads had been started then, emancipation would have been begun? You would have had negroes at work building railroads to this day, just as sure as the world. [Applause and Laughter.]

It is necessity that produces slavery, it is convenience, it is profit that creates slavery; though often the owners are not as much benefitted by it as it is thought. It is true that labor must be performed, ana when foreign labor had become reduced to a standard, at which it was cheaper than that of slaves with the capital invested in them, you employed foreigners and turned off your slaves. Had there been such an influx of foreign immigration at the South, do you believe they would have continued to hold slaves? No! they would have constructed ships, though they are no hands at it there, to transport them to Africa, rather than to have them among them. These are the things the North should look at. Your slaves became unprofitable here, and they were thrown off. Labor and institutions, too, are governed by convenience and necessity to a great extent, without canvassing the morality or immorality of the institution. Now, whenever the South should employ foreign labor, if it were possible to do it, it would depreciate the value of slave labor, slaves would become worthless, and, if possible, it would get rid of them.

Look at Mexico! How is it with her? Mexico is often brought up as a reproach against the South, but ought not to be. Never bring up Mexico against America, if you please.

[Laughter. l They are not free agents or free beings They belong, all of them, to the two masters; first, to a despot; next, to bigotry. There is not one man in her whole dominions but has sworn allegiance to the Pope and papacy, and will support religion and tolerate none other on the lace of the earth. That is the condition of ‘free’ Mexico. They are all

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bound to papacy, and it was required of Americans, too, and that was what produced the hubbub between Texas and Mexico. [Applause and laughter.] Well, the Mexicans found they could take a man with a family to subsist, and make a slave if him, cheaper than to buy negroes. A man, who was twenty-five cents in debt, was brought before the magistrate of the city or town, who is called the ‘Alcalde,’ and was adjudged to slavery until that twenty-five cents, or two ‘bits,’ as they called it, should be paid. In the meantime he had to support and clothe his family; his wages were nothing, and every day accumulated bis account. The consequence was, that after a certain period, not having. paid the debt, he was again brought before the Alcalde, and adjudged to perpetual peonage, and his wife and children with him liable to be bought and sold like their cattle and their lands. In this way Mexico obtained slaves. Finding it more convenient, they repudiated their African slaves, who had to be purchased, and transferred their fellow-countrymen into peonage. Thai is Mexican liberty; and there are, on certain hacienda no less than 13,000 slaves, belonging to a single master. They are more abject, and not as enlightened as our servants at the South. They are in general more restricted, and infinitely more abject, for they never approach their master or superior within twenty feet, without putting their hats under their arms, and crawling into his presence in the humblest manner. This is what Mexico has done, and this only.

After the extreme fatigue of travelling, loss of sleep and mixing in company, I know, ladies and gentlemen, my lecture has been very desultory. It has been no doubt unsatisfactory to you; I know it has been unsatisfactory to myself. All that I can do is to assure you that I had not a moment's preparation; I had no opportunity to write a line or a note to-day. Gentlemen here can attest that when I left Washington it was from the toil of office I arose, and I have had no repose of consequence since. I had made no preparation whatever to lecture upon this subject; and I can only promise that if I address you to-morrow night, it will be upon a subject I have been more in the habit of talking of, because I was an actor in it. I hope, therefore, to make it more acceptable. I have given an honest exposition of my sentiments tonight. I have not sought to be censorious nor to reflect upon any; I have told you the truth, and how, by the necessity of our condition, we are forced to act as we have done in regard to slavery. I trust, though a misunderstanding may have arisen between the two sections, no deplorable result may arise, such as has been prognosticated.

Our country is too glorious, too magnificent, too sublime in its future prospects, to permit domestic jars or political opinions to produce a wreck of this mighty vessel of State. Let us hold on to it, and guide it, let us give it in charge to men who will care for the whole people, who will love the country for the country's sake, and will endeavor to build up and sustain it, and reconcile conflicting interests for the sake of posterity. This can be done, and let us not despair and break up the Union. [The lecturer here related an anecdote of the man and his wife who quarrelled about the color of a cow, the man insisting that it was brindle, and the woman that it was red. Words ran so high that they finally separated. Many years after, mutual friends effected a reconciliation, but, unfortunately, the old dispute was brought up in their first interview, and they again

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separated.] I pray, said he, that this brindle cow may never get into this family, and that the Union may be perpetuated while time shall last, and while there is one heart to throb at the names of American and Liberty. [Great applause.]