The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-08-19
UNITY AVID INOIyIsIBILITY Oh
TEXAS.

I
We would not have Texas subdivided.
While Capitalization and boundless power
over men and property is steadily usurped
! by congress and State lines are rapidly OBJ
4 liberated, the integrity of Texas, its local
memories, history and purposes of agrand-
izement Hust be cherished and perpetuated.
The Union, in maintaining peace and COM
merce between the States and with foreign
powers, is an admirable ad junct of political
existence; but the invasion of every
local right, the infraction of each in
cident of local freedom by steady ag-
gressions of congress aud of the chief
executive render the physical potency
of State eminently desirable. Grant and
Kellogg would never have defed and plum
dered and tyranIzed over New York as over
Louisiana, and there is nothing like capac-
ity to defend ones self when bully struts
about village gleen or an ignorant reckless
soldier wields despot's armies and de-
praved judicatories, the one to rob, the
other to enslave and degrade people. We
never expect to see another military machine
made president that the country's laws may
be set at naught and local freedom crushed :;
but the woes of Louisiana and terrors of
savage governments In South Carolina and
Mississippi illustrate the necessity for power
at home to command respect abroad. Dis
tricts of Texas of which it has been proposed
to make separate States might become negro
or Mexican governed adjuncts of the
Union and profitless neighbors of Texas
| With its present confines the northern
and western counties occupied by farm
ers from beyond the Ohio and from
Western and Central Southern States aud
counties bordering on the Gulf of Mexico,
peOpled mainly from the Gulf States, while
the West is enriched by German industry
and intelligence-from all these diversties
Of population of diverse modes of think
ing, there must be evolved that perfect
unity shaped by common interests and a
common destiny. To make a government
which protects SO many different popula
tions successful and even endurable, it
must move, as the Federal government was
designed to do, within very narrow
sphere. Counties and towns must.be assured
of the broadest freedom, and suffrage there
fore, must be restricted to those interested
in making these governments cheap and the
people prosperous. The greater and
broader the State, the greater the legisla-
tive, freedom and power to be entrusted to
counties and towns. The interests of JEFF
ferson and of Laredo, in future years, may
be as diverse as those of Maine and of
Texas and no one central government can
legislate for both localities in reference to
local facts with equal justice. Each dis
trict, like each State, should have the great
est freedom compatible with the mainte-
nance and perpetuity of the common gov
ernment. Therefore we have said that the
constitutional convention had very sim
pie task before it. 1t need only create a
frame work of government. The legisla-
ture and county and town governments
must do the rest, and that these may serve
the people well, and make Texas the most
attractive county ia the world, and that the
best classes of people of all the States
may be induced to seek homes in Texas, the
right of suffrage must be restricted to those
interested in its proper exercise. Without
this, local freedom is not desirable, and with
out it, the protraeted unity of this great
State is neither possible nor desirable.