"Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, sacred in its object, the Texian revolt has illustrated the Anglo-Saxon character, and given it new titles to the respect and admiration of the world.
"It shows that liberty, justice, valor—moral, physical, and intellectual power—discriminate that race wherever it goes. Let our America rejoice, let Old England rejoice, that the Brassos and Colorado, new and strange names—streams far beyond the western bank of the Father of Floods—have felt the impress, and witnessed the exploits of a people sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, and customs, their magna charta and its glorious privileges, into new regions and far distant climes. Of the individuals who have purchased lasting renown in this young war, it would be impossible, in this place to speak in detail, and invidious to discriminate; but there is one among them whose position forms an exception, and whose early association with myself justifies and claims the tribute of a particular notice. I speak of him whose romantic victory has given to the Jacinto[11] that immortality in grave and serious history which the diskos of Apollo had given to it in the fabulous pages of the heathen mythology. General Houston was born in the State of Virginia, county of Rockbridge: he was appointed an ensign in the army of the United States, during the late war with Great Britain, and served in the Creek campaign under the banners of Jackson. I was the lieutenant colonel of the regiment to which he belonged, and the first field officer to whom he reported. I then marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which have since distinguished his eventful career: frank, generous, brave; ready to do, or to suffer, whatever the obligations of civil or military duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honor, patriotism, and friendship. Sincerely do I rejoice in his victory. It is a victory without alloy, and without parallel, except at New Orleans. It is a victory which the civilization of the age, and the honor of the human race, required him to gain: for the nineteenth century is not the age in which a repetition of the Goliad matins could be endured. Nobly has he answered the requisition; fresh and luxuriant are the laurels which adorn his brow.
"It is not within the scope of my present purpose, to speak of military events, and to celebrate the exploits of that vanguard of the Anglo-Saxons who are now on the confines of the ancient empire of Montezuma; but that combat of the San Jacinto! it must for ever remain in the catalogue of military miracles. Seven hundred and fifty citizens, miscellaneously armed with rifles, muskets, belt pistols, and knives, under a leader who had never seen service, except as a subaltern, march to attack near double their numbers—march in open day across a clear prairie, to attack upwards of twelve hundred veterans, the élite of an invading army of seven thousand, posted in a wood, their flanks secured, front intrenched; and commanded by a general trained in civil wars, victorious in numberless battles; and chief of an empire of which no man becomes chief except as conqueror. In twenty minutes, the position is forced. The combat becomes a carnage. The flowery prairie is stained with blood; the hyacinth is no longer blue, but scarlet. Six hundred Mexicans are dead; six hundred more are prisoners, half wounded; the President General himself is a prisoner; the camp and baggage all taken; and the loss of the victors, six killed and twenty wounded. Such are the results, and which no European can believe, but those who saw Jackson at New Orleans. Houston is the pupil of Jackson; and he is the first self-made general, since the time of Mark Antony, and the King Antigonus, who has taken the general of the army and the head of the government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he has spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine.
"I voted, in 1821, to acknowledge the absolute independence of Mexico; I vote now to recognize the contingent and expected independence of Texas. In both cases, the vote is given upon the same principle—upon the principle of disjunction where conjunction is impossible or disastrous. The Union of Mexico and Spain had become impossible; that of Mexico and Texas is no longer desirable or possible. A more fatal present could not be made than that of the future incorporation of the Texas of La Salle with the ancient empire of Montezuma. They could not live together, and extermination is not the genius of the age; and, besides, is more easily talked of than done. Bloodshed only could be the fruit of their conjunction; and every drop of that blood would be the dragon's teeth sown upon the earth. No wise Mexican should wish to have this Trojan horse shut up within their walls."
CHAPTER CXLVI.
THE SPECIE CIRCULAR.
The issue of the Treasury order, known as the "Specie Circular," was one of the events which marked the foresight, the decision, and the invincible firmness of General Jackson. It was issued immediately after the adjournment of Congress, and would have been issued before the adjournment, except for the fear that Congress would counteract it by law. It was an order to all the land-offices to reject paper money, and receive nothing but gold and silver in payment of the public lands; and was issued under the authority of the resolution of the year 1816 which, in giving the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary authority to receive the notes of specie paying banks in revenue payments, gave him also the right to reject them. The number of these banks had now become so great, the quantity of notes issued so enormous, the facility of obtaining loans so universal, and the temptation to converting shadowy paper into real estate, so tempting, that the rising streams of paper from seven hundred and fifty banks took their course towards the new States, seat of the public domain—discharging in accumulated volume there collected torrents upon the different land-offices. The sales were running up to five millions a month, with the prospect of unbounded increase after the rise of Congress; and it was this increase from the land sales which made that surplus which the constitution had been burlesqued to divide among the States. And there was no limit to this conversion of public land into inconvertible paper. In the custom-house branch of the revenue there was a limit in the amount to be received—limited by the amount of duties to be paid: but in the land-office branch there was no limit. It was therefore at that point that the remedy was wanted; and, for that reason, the "Specie Circular" was limited in its application to the land-offices; and totally forbade the sale of the public lands for any thing but hard money. It was an order of incalculable value to the United States, and issued by President Jackson in known disregard of the will both of the majority of Congress and of his cabinet.
Before the adjournment of Congress, and in concert with the President, the author of this View had attempted to get an act of Congress to stop the evil; and in support of his motion to that effect gave his opinion of the evil itself, and of the benefits which would result from its suppression. He said:
"He was able to inform the Senate how it happened that the sales of the public lands had deceived all calculations, and run up from four millions a year to five millions a quarter; it was this: speculators went to banks, borrowed five, ten, twenty, fifty thousand dollars in paper, in small notes, usually under twenty dollars, and engaged to carry off these notes to a great distance, sometimes five hundred or a thousand miles; and there laid them out for public lands. Being land-office money, they would circulate in the country; many of these small notes would never return at all, and their loss would be a clear gain to the bank; others would not return for a long time; and the bank would draw interest on them for years before they had to redeem them. Thus speculators, loaded with paper, would outbid settlers and cultivators, who had no undue accommodations from banks, and who had nothing but specie to give for lands, or the notes which were its real equivalent. Mr. B. said that, living in a new State, it came within his knowledge that such accommodations as he had mentioned were the main cause of the excessive sales which had taken place in the public lands, and that the effect was equally injurious to every interest concerned—except the banks and the speculators: it was injurious to the treasury, which was filling up with paper; to the new States, which were flooded with paper; and to settlers and cultivators, who were outbid by speculators, loaded with this borrowed paper. A return to specie payments for lands is the remedy for all these evils."