The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-01-20
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF COVER
NOR o. NJ. ROBERTS.
Delivered Before the Senate ana House
of Representatives, in Joint Session.
January Is, 1881.

as in the past, long an unknown land
to the civilized world, emerging into
existence in the gloom of far off c1un-
try; Graded in revolutions and wars,
growing up with a history filled with
sore trials and grievous sacrifices, alter
mated by glorious achievements, both
civic and military; famous for her great
men and chivalric people; and now rising
up conspicuously into general view, with
her vast proportions and magnificent re
sources: and fairly entering upon the
grand struggle for their development, /
can but feel diffident of my ability TO be
equal to the task before me, as your
chief magistrate, now for the second
time called TO preside over the destinies
OF our beloved State. But sustained by
an ardent zeal for her present prosperity
and future greatness, / cheer
fully snd hopefully accept the
position, at the behest of generous
people, who have manifested their desire
to place their public interests under my
care and direction, as they have done
before. 1t Is only by the wisdom of the
Legislature, the harmonious cooperation
of the executive officers, and the patri-
otto aid of the citizens, that | can hope
to be equal to the grave responsibilities
imposed upon me, in the effort to make
Texas what she should be in the near
future-the great and prosperous State
of the American Union.
Sixty years ago Moses Austin entered
Texas, then a Spanish province, to
found a colony; which resulted in the
first organized establishment of American
civilization in this country, through the
patient perseverance and wisdom OF his
son, Stephen +. Austin.
San Antonio and Nacogdoches were
then on the track of the kings highway
"a mere mule path, that trayersed the
province from the interior of Mexico to
the United States, and which was then,
and had BEEN for an hundred years, the
one great route Of travel and commerce
through the province. There were no
towns on the coast for trade, but our
ports and harhors had then bat lately
been the hiding-places for slsvers and
freebooters of the sea.
ASfeW villages and settlements were
situated south of and along the Kings
Highway, near the Sabine and Red riv-
ers. Small bands of Indians, from the
tribes in the Southern States, were
located below and above the Kings
Highway The great plains of Texas
were the home of the rowing wild In
dams and buffaloes whose undisputed
dominion had existed for unknown cen
turtles. While its forests, widespread
and fertile plains, and genial climate
were as inviting then as now, they eX-
listed in. the solitude of their native
grandeur here, while, for an hundred
years before ccnters of civilization had
been formed and spread abroad, far and
wide, fifteen hundred miles northeast
and southwest of it. Why was this so?
Simply because the waves and currents
of the Gulf had heaved up bars of sand
that closed our rivers and bays from re-
cciving the vessels that transported civil
ization from Europe to America, as it
was done on the Atlantic coast and nj
Vera Cruz in Mexico.
1t had, with all of its slumbering re-
sources, and prospects of beauty, TO
await the spread from one or the other
center, in its slow tread by land, and for
tunately, and at last it came pouring
down from the north and east, and now
how changed the scene. Over million
and half of people moving and pressing
on to work out its magnificent prosper
iiy, are settled within its borders.
The late rapid increase in Texas, with
its being now the center of attraction for
every species of enterprise, give promise
of three millions of people in the next
ten or fifteen years.
Already Texas is the foremost State of
the Union in the production OF cotton
and beef-cattle, and soon will he in wool
growing.
Here different productions fill the
whole range of those in the temperate
zone, and some of those in the tropics.
She has a cotton region, as large as any
two or three of the other Southern
States; sugar region. as large as Louis
lana; wheat region larger than Ohio or
New York; region for orchards larger
than New Jersey and Delaware; graz
ing country for stock of all sorts, OK
tending through ten degrees of latitude
and from one hundred to four hundred
miles in width; an iron-ore and coal re-
gion larger than Pennsylvania, with
copper, and ether metals addel. She
has an abundance of good water power
in the east and southwest: and timbers,
from pine to bois dare, OF every valua-
able variety; part of the largest gypsum
bed in the world, soon to be reached by
the railroads; an inexhaustible supply of
limerick, and other building rocks and
valuable earths The railroads now ira
verse the State, in several lines, from
north to south, and two of them will
soon traverse the Estate from east TO
west Wealth is springing up in cities,
towns and country, far and wide over
the State, and even on our coast, shut up
as our ports are by sand-bars, and neg
lected as they are and have been, an in
creasing commerce is flowing through
them And now after Texas has been a
far-off outside-country so long, she is upon
the eve of being in the middle OF the
transit of the commerce of the continent,
by two Pacific railroads passing through
1t on the nearest and best routes from the
Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, with the
immense advantage of furnishing half
way transportation by water, through
our Gulf ports, when they shall be
properly opened to the enlarged com
merce to which our position entities us.
This is not all that pertains to Texas
now. Her government, and her action
therein, have been as peculiar and out OF
the common course as her history and
condition in other things have been.
She recognizes the right of women tC
hold property in their own right, secures
every citizen in homestead, if he earn:
| or otherwise gets it, and gives him one il
he viii 60 upon the public lands
and settle upon it, and en-
| forces the fundamental principle
| of the just correspondence between tax
, alton on the citizen and protection by
| the government. Texas joined the as
sociation of American States by volunta
| ~ annexation, and not as purchased
territory. She retained her .acant lands
and by liberal donations of it induced
the building Of railroads, thereby en-
couraging the settlement and promoting
the prosperity of the country She hal
endowed her public free schools will
over forty millions of acres of schoo
| lands, each county with four leagues o.
land, 17,712 acres, for the purpose
originally, of erecting and supporting {
county academy and university, will
| / ,22l 400 acres of land, enough of which
have been sold to begin its establish
meat now. The asylums, Lupltic, Dea
and Dumb, Blind and Orphan, with {
large amount of lands, ovet four hun
bred thousand acres of which are still
unsold; has set apart and surveyed thre'
million and fifty thousand acres of 'anC
for new CAPITOL and other public saild
ings; set apart over eleven millions o
acres of land, one-half of the proceeds o
the 1ale of which, ars appropriatedto tn
payment of the public debt, and tn
other half to the public free schools, ant
the whole Of Greer county for the sam,
purpose; and there is now still left owe
nineteen millions of acres of Nnappro
priated lands
Texas has a good body of laws in IN,