William Carey Crane

“ The funded debt was not heard of; it seemed to have floated off, nobody knew whither. But the public debt, now augmented to over seven million dollars, hung like a black cloud of evil portent over the country. ”

“ General Houston was emphatically, in the language of the day, a hard-money Democrat. He held sternly, that a public debt is a public evil. In his opinion, no money is a safe currency except metallic money, gold and silver. A currency not directly redeem.able in coin of its own nature, leads to contracting public debt, and to the unrestrained increase of public debt. Facility in the issuance of paper currency leads to mismanagement, to reckless expenditures, to dishonesty, peculation, and embezzlement in the administration of public affairs. ”

“ Sam Houston closed. His valedictory, like all other papers and addresses emanating from his pen and tongue, ranks him among the first statesmen and patriots of the world. Texas was prosperous. Certain formalities, hereafter to be indicated, only were necessary to introduce her to the sisterhood of the United States. He anticipated the pleasure of retiring to domestic life, only to be disappointed by the call of his countrymen for further and long-protracted services. The following document places his administration in its true light before the world ”

“ It will devolve on the future historian of the Republic of Texas to relate how, in a time of profound practical peace, with no serious attempt at invasion by Mexico, with no trouble of any moment with Indians on the frontier, with not even the skeleton of an army, with no internal dissensions, with no works of public improvement undertaken, the public debt was increased from little over a million to upwards of seven millions of dollars. ”

“ Pecuniary confidence is, especially, a plant of slow growth. Besides, being receivable only at their cash value in market, and worth no more in payment of Government dues than a like amount of gold and silver, nothing was gained by purchasing them. As a consequence, gold and silver flowed into the treasury, and at the close of President Houston's second term exchequers were on a par with coin. ”

“ The experience of the redbacks naturally created distrust of the exchequers. It was loudly asserted that these were only redbacks under the thin disguise of another name, and their utter and speedy depreciation, like their redback predecessor of unhappy name, was confidently prophesied. Speculators, like buzzards watching a sick animal, attacked the exchequers and entered into combinations to destroy their value. They sunk to 30 cents, and even less, on the dollar. President Houston was equal to the emergency. He convened Congress in extra session, June 27, 1842. ”

“ This sum, $25,000, was formally tendered to the Secretary of the Treasury in treasury notes. Though these notes were receivable as gold and silver in payment of taxes and duties, they were neither, it was alleged, in the contemplation of the act of incorporation, nor in its words, gold and silver. The bonus of $25,000 was neither a tax nor a duty. Accordingly President Houston ordered the Secretary of the Treasury to refuse them in payment of the bank bonus. The eighteen months from the date of the act, within which time payment could be made, were about to expire. ”

“ An administration of Government finances based on a system of paper currency, produces oppressive taxation of the people, is calculated to make the few who are rich, richer, and the many in moderate circumstances, poorer ”