Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-02-25
GRANT VERSUS TEXAS.
To the Editor OF the Eagle.


inception of the movement to it's final
consumation, conspiracy to acquire
territory out of which slave states
might be made for the American
union" The writer then details at
some length an outline of Texan his
tory to prove that General Grant was
in error. And upon superficial view
it would appear that Mr.. Post had
proved his case; as he no doubt hon
estly believes he has.
But General Grant, confess, was
not only man of very considerable
learning, but of far deeper penetration
into the history of his own country,
ut least than he could have been ex-
cept he had always been close OBJ
server and reader with good memory
and powers of analysis. If he was al
any time the careless dullard that
thousands have thought him to be, un-
til he entered upon his great career, l
scarcely think he could have in ad-
dition to his busy life then brushed up
to that remarkable brightness that
illumines his book. But if there was
one subject that General Grant
might have excusably made a
mistake upon, | think the 9ues-
ton of the annexation of Texas
is that one. And | shall prove con-
clusively, think, that even there he
makes no mistake. But Mr.. Post
makes, as who does not, some consid-
cradle mistakes. lie calls the Spanish
word "1abor," "laborer," meaning
l772-3 acres Of land, and "sitio' he
| call. .'.cipio," 4, 428 acres of land. OF
course these are small mistakes. When
he says that Texas was republic
more than ten years, he makes mis-
take: yet, as the convention of
Columbia dec AIRED the republic free of
Mexico, March 2, 1886. and the state
was admitted in 1S45 into the union.
In about 1847 very large number
of the pioneers and discharged SOL
diers frcm the armies of Harrison and
Jackson in the west and southwest:
had congregated upon the border OF
Texas in Louisiana These adveD-
turers often crossed into Texas find
ing there continuation of the forests
and prairies similar TO Arkansas and
Louisiana, Astounding i'll game. A
large number of their countrymen
too. had served in the armies of
Mexico fighting for Independence
against Spain. In this way there
were some thousands of the hardy
sons of other states well acquainted
with Texas and its allurements, and
by far the greater part of these adj
venturers were southern men and
naturally believed in slavery. Stimuli
taneously the Mexican government
began elaborate preparations TO settle
the state of Texas, or, as it then
was called Boshinla and Texas. a
large number of Empressarios, among
them Lorenzo de Zouala, Victor Blan-
CO, Mexia, Austin and several others.
These laws contemplated wide zone
on the border of the United States,
which was never to be settled, at least
by any but Mexicans. This was a
safeguard of Catholicism to protect
the faithful against the heritics. These
empressarios began to settle their
grants and had introduced several
thousand Americans when the dis
turbances caused by the rising ambi-
ton of Santa Anna precipItated a
conflict into which the continent was
drawn, quite willingly. no doubt, so
far as the lie .ders were concerned.
At this time Texas was filed by such
spirits as the two Jacks, Houston,
Archer. Hunt, Burlson, Johnson, Mi
am and many more such sturdy and
laborious farmers who certainly had
not left the rich Western states 10
hunt a labor of land in Texas. I hey
were hunting adventure, not work.
About this time-lS30-the reader
will easily observe Calhoun was form
ulating his doctrine in Washington,
and concreting the extreme pro
cfo,n rtnhss ntrIlt loot n
principles, which was, as he then
knew, to be the great opponent of the
free national idea OF the North. No
man knew better than Calhoun
and the admirers aud followers that
the free states and the slave states
represented two distinct types of civil
iZation and that one or the other must
yerish or both get into separate gov
ernment. And he plainly saw that
several additional states would be adj
mitted as free states and that the bal
ancing process already begun by adj
hitting first a slave aud next a free
state was only to be preserved by the
acquisition of territory in about the
ATTITUDES of the other slave states.
Ii will be remembered that whilst it
was then clear case that our territory
to the northwest stretched to the Pa
cific ocean, that to the southwest
ended with Louisiana, Arkansas and
small part of what is now Kansas.
Slavery was already at its terminus,
territorially speaking. In this emer-
gencv something had TO be done by
the astute leaders of the slave interest.
TO extend the territory of the union
southwesterly in the direction out
lined by Burr some years previously,
was the only alternative. Hence, we
find Andrew Jackson himself strongly
implicated by circumstaHtial evidence
in the Burr affair, turning out a one
of the finest friends of Texas indepen-
dence. Nor was this friendship con-
fined to kind words alone. for we find
his able friend and late subordinate
Sam Houston. and host of other fol-
lowers of Jackson, .opportunely"
turning up at the right moment in
Texas. Of all the Americans in Texas
in 1885. not fifty in one thousand were
from other than slave states.
Its well known principle in the