The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July 1910 - April, 1911 Page: 71
348 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Reminiscences of Henry Smith.
It is due to the high trust with which I have been charged; to
the Representatives of the people, whose constitutional prerogative
has been unlawfully assumed; to the people, and to the constitu-
tion which they have established; that I should not permit its pro-
visions to be broken down by such an attack on the Executive De-
partment, without at least some effort to preserve, protect, and de-
fend them. With this view and for the reasons which have been
stated I do hereby SOLEMNLY PROTEST against the aforementioned
proceedings of the Council, as unauthorised by the organic law;
contrary to its spirit and special provisions; subversive of that
distribution of the powers of Government which it has ordained
and established; destructive of the checks and safeguards by which
those powers were intended, on the one hand, to be controlled, and
on the other to be protected; and calculated by their immediate
and collateral effects, by their character and tendency, to concen-
trate in the hands of a body, not directly amenable to the people
a degree of influence and power, dangerous to their liberties, and
fatal to the constitution of their choice.
The resolutions of the council contains an imputation upon my
private, as well as upon my public character; and as it must stand
forever on their Journals, I cannot close this substitute for that de-
fence which I have not been yet allowed to present in the ordinary
form without remarking that I have lived in vain, if it be neces-
sary for me now to enter into a formal vindication of my charac-
ter and purposes from such an imputation. In vain do I bear upon
my person enduring memorials of the contest for constitutional
privileges, in opposition to military Despotism at the memorable
seige of Velasco in [18] 32-in vain have I since sacrificed personal
ease to public duty-in vain am I now contending with violent
and vindictive party strife, and unholy interests, without a per-
sonal aspiration, or the hope of individual advantage, encountering
responsibilities and dangers from which, by mere inactivity in re-
lation to a single point I might have been exempt-if any serious
doubts can be entertained as to the purity of my purposes or mo-
tives
If I had been ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with
that powerful speculating aristocracy, which now aspires to no
divided empire. If I had been venal, I should have sold myself
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July 1910 - April, 1911, periodical, 1911; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101054/m1/79/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.