The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-12-02
FACTS AND CoMmoN SENSE.

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The new constitution establishes cheap
| judiciary and thus places pettifoggers in
stead Of lawyers on the bench. The judic-
iary will be brought into contempt and
there can be no proper security for property
or life.
The new constitution proposes to strip
the State of the right to induce immigra-
ton and the richest resource of Texas for
years past is thus damned up by those who
have exerted themselves to damn the State
down to beggary by instituting beggarly
salaries, where these are conspicuous, and
then by doubling popular burdens by null
tiplying sinecures and perquisites.
Nonresident landowners were wheedled
into the purchase of Texas lands by liberal
codes and were suffered to pay taxes at the
seat of government. Now that we have
secured their money we would recover the
land and therefore enact laws compelling
them to fee pettifoggers in every county
town to look after tax titles and charge
commissions on sums they may not steal.
Properly enough lands might have been
assessed where they lie, bat there is no
honesty or fairness or justice in compelling
widows and orphans of those who fought
the battles of Texas to have agents in each
county. But these people are robbed by
another provision of the pretty document:
1t provides that when a man fails to
pay taxes the title to his land vests
| in the State and if he die of course
the minors and children ale robbed,
the title lapsing and the generous and
good government of Texas will soon recover
all that it gave the defenders of Texas
against Mexican tyrants. Broad districts
for which Texas long ago was paid by in
nocent people who had faith in the integri-
ty and fair dealing of the once proud and
honest commonwealth will also be regained
under this law of taxation"
Thad Stevens stands tiptoe in the land
of departed worthless and blesses Rutabaga-
ism that allied itself with Radicalism and
gave Texas the unexampled curse of univer
versal suffrage in all the counties and towns
of Texas. Here we have absolute demon
ism voluntarily injected into local govern
ment, when the remedy was plain and pal
pable. But the trade was made and Ruta
bagaism executed the contract, and the
heaviest curse that could befall free peo-
pie, and the crowning ignominy involved in
Federal constitutional amendments is ac
cepted and thrust into the new constitution
of Texas. None but dyed-in-the-wool
Radical, and that wool an Africans, would
support such mockery of government
for civilized Southern State.
1t is a rich mans government created
by demagogues who were pretending to
enact the role of ''the poor mans friends"
Any dirty fellow that has money or can
borrow money, by pledging the office he
seeks, can take the loan and go into the
market in any Texan city and buy votes
enough to win any office, high or low, Gre
ated by the new constitution. There is no
lock on the ballotbox, and any man with
money can fill 1t with votes. The process
was proposed to be made too costly to be
practiced; but Rutabagaism howled and
Radical cunning caught the echo, and the
pretty combination has consigned counties
and corporations of Texas to that infamy
recently practiced here in Austin and grown
so common that men boast of frauds and
of bargains and sales effected on election
days. For the perDetuation of these enor-
mites men calling themselves statesmen
have absolutely provided in this new con-
stitution of Texas.
Then the folly of the trainers of this or
ganic code becomes sublime when it strikes
railways and corporations. Their purpose
and whole policy, after doing all that Tom
Scott asked, was to destroy all other like
corporations and prevent forever the con
struction of any road except that penetrat-
ing an unoccupied corner of the State. Was
there ever such superhuman follyG Tom
Scott is vested with mighty principality,
but if other people would build other roadsin
Texas they must suffer the Legislature to reg
ulate freight charges ami subject themselves
to such burdens and conditions that even the
builders of the bridge across the Colorado at
Austin hesitate. Some Legislature consti-
tuted of Rutabagas may render the invest
ment wholly valueless. This new constitu-
ton, if adopted, turns backward the tide
of progress and overwhelms Texas with
measureess calamities.
There is no subject on which these
constitution makers have not acted, and
on nothing wisely. They have stripped
legislatures of power until the State is in
straightjacket, and can move neither hand
nor foot, nor grow great, nor achieve any
great task of progress. But of multiplied
objections to the new constitution, many
fatal to its scceptability, we cannot speak
to-day. The half has not been told. 1t is
mine of pinchbeck, treasury of follies,
an epitome of absurdities, q concatenstion
of prejudices and if it did not confess its
own crudities in providing for its own easy
destruction, Its adoption would almost sink
the State into anarchy. But people abroad
need fear nothing. Texas has not yet
accepted the shackles sought to be
fastened on her brawny limbs; home rule
has net been finally throttled; the State is
not the tyrant this code would make it, and
homes bought here viii yet be secure,
and those inhabiting them as free as dwell
ers in any American State. The people
will hardly accept the botched consti-