The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 2, July 1898 - April, 1899 Page: 155
[335] p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Enduring Laws of the Republic.
resentatives to be duly chosen as the place at which the two houses
of congress had fixed the seat of government till 1840.
,The congress met in the unfinished .capitol building at the town
of Houston on the 1st of May, 1837. It seems to have been thought
that, because the law placed at the disposal of President Houston
the sum of $15,000 for the needed public buildings, the government
would erect its own capitol. On the contrary, a rental of $5,000
per annum was paid by the Republic to the Messrs. Allen for their
building. Whether from this or from some other cause I do not
know, opposition to the new capital soon began to show itself, and
in a little more than a twelvemonth after there was a spirited con-
test for the honor temporarily conferred on Houston among Black's
Place, Bastrop, San Felipe, Nacogdoches, Comanche, Mound
League, and Eblin's Leaguel as rival sites. The last was chosen by
the second congress as the permanent seat of government for the
Republic. The joint resolution to this effect perhaps fell through
for want of the president's approval, as it does not appear among
the printed laws of the Republic.
It was not until the session of the third congress that the ques-
tion of a permanent capital was definitely settled. On the 19th of
January, 1839, President Lamar approved the act herein described
as one of the enduring laws ,of the Republic. It was entitled "An
act for the permanent location of the seat of government," and
reads thus:
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the Republic of Texas in Congress assembled:
That there shall be and are hereby created five commissioners, to
be elected two by the Senate and three by the House of Representa-
tives, whose duty shall be to select a site for the location of the seat
of government, and that said site shall be selected at some point
between the rivers Trinidad and -Colorado and above the old 'San
Antonio road.
Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That the name of the said site shall
be the City of Austin.
Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That said commissioners or a major-
ity of them be, and they are hereby required, to select not less than
one nor more than four leagues of land for said site, and if the same
cannot be obtained upon the public domain or by individual dona-
tion, then and in that case the said commissioners shall purchase the
1 In Fayette county on the east side of the Colorado below La Bahia
crossing.155
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 2, July 1898 - April, 1899, periodical, 1898/1899; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101011/m1/159/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.