[In the preparation of this paper I have consulted the Journal of the Consultation, 1835, the Journal of the Convention, 1836, the Journals and Laws of the Congresses mentioned, and the archives in the Department of State, Austin.—C. W. R.]
The law for the present location of the seat of government in Texas is the first subject of the present paper; but before setting it out in full I shall enumerate, as a matter of interest, all the preceding capitals of American Texas with the circumstances which led to their selection as such.
Of the three departments into which Texas under the Mexican regime was divided, Bexar was practically all Mexican in race and sentiment; Nacogdoches had a large Mexican leaven; but Brazos was heart and head American. It was this department embracing Austin's colony that threw down the gauntlet of defiance to the usurping Santa Anna in 1835 and called for a consultation of all Texas at San Felipe de Austin.
The Brazos influence easily dominated the consultation, as Bexar failed to have any delegates therein, and it abolished the departmental system, making Texas a central republic, one and indivisible. Santa Anna was denounced for warring against the constitution of 1824, and a provisional government was established for Texas at large and San Felipe de Austin, the capital of Austin's colony, and the capital of the department of Brazos as well, became de facto et de jure the first capital of American Texas.
In despair of the Federal system in Mexico, the people of Texas through their representatives met in 1836, on the call of the provisional government, in Washington on the Brazos. Not a consultation was this, but a convention or constituent assembly in which all the powers of sovereignty were claimed and exercised in the declaration of independence and the formation of a constitution and the inauguration of a full corps of executive officers. After a stormy session of seventeen days beginning March 1, the Convention dissolved before the advance of Santa Anna's legions.
President Burnet for convenience selected for the seat of government Harrisburg on Buffalo Bayou, to which place he promptly repaired with the archives and part of his cabinet.
The deflection up the Brazos of the retreating Texan army left Harrisburg open to the enemy, and Santa Anna with 750 men made a dash on the capital. Arriving at 11 p. m. April 13th, the Mexican dictator learned that President Burnet and other officials had taken the archives and fled down the Bayou that afternoon in a steamboat. No official documents issued from the ephemeral capital, Harrisburg, save a few executive orders and proclamations.
It becomes difficult now to fix the exact situs of the Texan capital though the perambulations of the president may mark it with approximate correctness.
Despairing of Santa Anna's being arrested by a battle of Houston's fighting, Burnet with part of his cabinet abandoned the main land of Texas and taking refuge on Galveston island offered to share with the General the comforts of that sand-bank retreat if he deemed it still imprudent to give battle. But the long delayed fight for Texas as last came off at San Jacinto, effectually checkmating the further Mexican advance. Then the sovereignty of the Republic as represented in the person of the president was soon transferred from the sea-coast to the battlefield. Meanwhile the captive dictator by the arts of diplomacy retrieved in a measure the Mexican fortunes in effecting an arrangement with his conqueror for the unmolested retirement of the Mexican army across the Rio Grande. To this arrangement between Houston and Santa Anna President Burnet assented; and to fully consummate the proposed treaty the sovereign heads of Mexico and Texas hastened away on the historic steamer Yellowstone to Velasco, then the great seaport of the Republic.
In this capital (for the president and archives were here) was concluded and signed in person the agreement between Santa Anna and Burnet, known as the treaty of Velasco. The ill will towards the butcher of the Alamo and Goliad was so intense that his liberation under the provisions of the treaty was defeated by a popular commotion, which growing in virulence menaced the stability of the Texan government.
Wearied with the clamor of faction, President Burnet ordered in July the first general election under the constitution, and the officers elected met under his call in October at Columbia and organized the permanent government of the Republic.
Meanwhile the enterprising Messrs. Allen were laying out a new town called Houston at the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayon. What influences may have been brought to bear upon the government are not now known. It is certain, however, that the seat of government was, on December 15, 1836, ordered removed from Columbia on the Brazos to the town named in honor of the new President, where it was to remain from April 10, 1837, till the meeting of congress in 1840. And the president was authorized to cause to be erected the necessary buildings for the accommodation of the congress and of the different departments of the government at the place selected; provided the sum or sums so expended should not exceed $15,000. So the capital of Texas remained only about three months at Columbia, where the government of the Republic first went fully into operation.
The following account of the proceedings is given in the Senate Journal of the first Congress:
“The two houses in joint session in the Representative chamber proceeded to vote viva voce for the location of the seat of government.
Twenty-one being a majority of the whole number polled, the town of Houston was declared by the speaker of the house of representatives 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 contest for the honor temporarily conferred on Houston among Black's Place, Bastrop, San Felipe, Nacogdoches, Comanche, Mound League, and Eblin's League 31 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 question 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 Representatives 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 Representatives, 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 majority 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 donation, then and in that case the said commissioners shall purchase the aforesaid quantity of land from any person or persons owning the same: Provided, that the price of the land so purchased shall not exceed three dollars per acre: And further provided, That not more than one league shall be purchased at such a price as three dollars per acre.
Should the site, however, be on individual property and the commissioners be unable to purchase it according to the authorized terms, they should proceed to acquire it under the law of condemnation as expressed in the act.
The salary of the commissioners while at work was to be eight dollars per day, but before beginning their labors they were to enter into bond with good security of one hundred thousand dollars each to be approved by the president, payable to him and his successors in office, conditioned on the faithful performance of the duties of their office, and take an oath to “faithfully and honestly” perform those duties.
Section 9 of the act required, “That immediately after the president receives the report of the commissioners, it shall be his duty to appoint an agent, whose duty it shall be to employ a surveyor at the expense of the government and have surveyed six hundred and forty acres of land on the site chosen by the commissioners into town lots under the direction of the president, which shall be by said agent advertised for sale for ninety days in all the public gazettes of the Republic, and also in the New Orleans Bulletin and Picayune, etc.
Section 12 made it the duty of the agent before the sale of said lots to set apart a sufficient number of the most eligible for a capitol, arsenal magazine, university, academy, churches, common schools, hospital, penitentiary, and for all other necessary public buildings and purposes. An act supplementary to the above and approved January 23, 1839, authorized the president to “have at the capital selected such buildings as he may deem necessary for the accommodation of the fourth annual congress of the Republic, together with the president and cabinet and other officers of the government,” and further made it the duty of the president, together with his cabinet officers, to proceed to the capital with the archives of the government previous to the first day of October, 1839. For the purposes of this supplemental act the sum of $20,000 was placed at the disposal of the president.
The commissioners selected by the Senate were A. C. Horton and I. W. Burton, and those selected by the House of Representatives were William Menefee, Isaac Campbell, and Louis Cooke. Edwin Waller was the surveyor. These gentlemen entered upon their duties with all convenient dispatch in the designated territory. According to their report 32 of April 1, 1839, to the president, the site of the hamlet of Waterloo, on the left bank of the Colorado, was selected as the proper place for the permanent seat of government, and a tract of land consisting of one league and two-thirds of a league and two labors, or about 7000 acres, was purchased at the maximum price of three dollars per acre.
The report is lengthy and somewhat verbose and grandiloquent in expression. The fertility of the soil, the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the climate, and the grand mountain scenery are all noted by the enraptured commissioners, and, while stating that the chosen site for the capital is directly on the great trail of Mexicans and Indians from East Texas to Matamoras and at its, intersection with the main route for trade between the Gulf of Mexico and Santa Fe, they fail not to enlarge on the prospects of building upon this spot a great national city.
Later on, an area of one mile square extending from the river into the open prairie was surveyed by General Edwin Waller and laid out in lots for the prospective city of Austin, and the public buildings were erected on contract in due time. In October the president and cabinet approaching the new capital were welcomed by a crowd of citizens headed by Ed Burleson and Albert Sidney Johnston and escorted into the city. The distinguished officials were royally entertained at Bullock's Hotel, where were gathered the beauty and chivalry of the Republic. “The elegant dinner,” (we are told), “provided under the immediate supervision of Madame Bullock reflected great credit on that lady's taste and superior judgment, displayed in the arrangement of the table and the delicacies which graced the festive board.” 33
The fourth congress convened at the new capital on November 11, 1839.
The present city hall on the northeast corner of Eighth and Colorado streets, stands on the site of the first capitol building erected under contract for the Republic. It was a one-story frame structure of two large rooms separated by a wide corridor with offices in the rear for committees. From the gallery on the entire front of the building there was an unobstructed view to Congress Avenue, then, as now, the main throughfare of the city.
The Executive Mansion, where St. Mary's Academy now stands, was a neat two-story frame building painted white. It appears to have been the most stylish of the public buildings of the period; though occupied by only two presidents, for a short while by Lamar and for a still briefer period by Houston. The other government edifices were generally log cabins scattered along Congress Avenue.
With the succeeding administration came trouble to the town of Austin in an attempt of the seventh congress to remove the capital further back within the settlements. Disquieting rumors of a Mexican invasion perhaps causing this action against Austin, hastened, without doubt, the adjournment of congress. The Vasquez raid early in March, 1842, of seven hundred Mexican guerrillas on San Antonio furnished the pretext for executive interference. Under the clause of the constitution which provided for the removal of the archives from the seat of government in cases of emergency in time of war, the president issued his order of March 13 from Galveston for the return of the archives to the city of Houston for security. A few weeks after the more serious raid of Woll in September, the archives by executive order were sent off to Washington. Thus after divers and sundry dire perambulations on land and water over the Republic the archives first swelling and then sinking in volume, completed the circle in getting back to the capital so unceremoniously abandoned six years before.
The dreaded guerillas not taking San Antonio any more, the archives had no further cause for removal till annexation, and remained at Washington. In default of better accommodations here the houses of congress were forced to use the upper apartments of two grog-shops for their sessions during the closing days of the Republic.
As to the legality of the first removal of the archives from the seat of government, I will content myself with observing that the constitution warranted a removal in case of emergency; but it was not generally believed even then that the report of seven or eight hundred Mexican raiders in exciting fight eighty miles distant made the emergency contemplated. Nor is it my purpose to discuss in this paper the merits of the unseemly squabble over this removal between the archive committee and President Houston. However, it may be of interest to note that the discomfiture by the people at Austin of the military company sent out by the president to surreptitiously complete the removal of the archives, closed the forcible and unlawful efforts to change the seat of government.
But few even of those who justified the first removal of the archives would now defend the continued opposition of the two last presidents to the restoration to their proper place of custody at the legal capital.
Annexation, making ridiculous the further plea of the danger of Mexican raids, restored the lost prestige of Austin. The convention provided, in the constitution adopted, that Austin should remain the seat of government for the state till 1850, when the permanent capital should be determined by popular vote. In the election of that year to determine the question, Austin easily distanced all her competitors, receiving 7674 votes, while 1854 were cast for Palestine, 1143 for Tehuacana and a scattering vote for Washington, Huntsville, and other places. It required a majority of all the votes polled to elect, and Austin was chosen by about 1000 majority of the whole vote counted. The election, however, did not definitely settle the matter, as it was provided by law that the question should be submitted to the result of another election twenty years later. The State being at that time in the throes of reconstruction the question was not again submitted to the choice of the people till at the general election of 1872. The result showed for Houston, 35,188 votes; Waco, 12,776; and Austin, 63,297, or a clear majority of the whole vote. The city of Austin was accordingly declared to be, by popular choice twice expressed in a legal manner, the permanent seat of government of the State of Texas.
Since then there has been no serious attempt to disturb the verdict of the people on this matter now considered settled. Finally, the wisdom of the framers of the act in 1839 for the permanent location of the seat of government being so amply vindicated up to this time, the act itself is rightly classed among the enduring laws of the Republic.
On January 14, 1839, was approved by President Lamar “An act amending an act entitled an act adopting a National Seal and Standard for the Republic of Texas.” The original act approved in 1836 was but a substantial embodiment of President Burnet's order from Harrisburg prescribing the national standard. The substance of the act is in the subjoined portion:
Section 3. Be it further enacted that from and after the passage of this Act the national flag of Texas shall consist of a blue perpendicular stripe of the width of one-third of the whole length of the flag with a white star of five points in the center thereof; and two horizontal stripes of equal breadth, the upper stripe white, the lower red, of the length of two-thirds of the whole length of the flag; anything in the act to which this is an amendment to the contrary notwithstanding.
This is the present Lone Star Flag of Texas. Though coming after the triumphs of Bexar and San Jacinto, it sprang at once into great popularity. In all the subsequent battles of the Republic around Bexar and on the border from Santa Fe to Mier, the Lone Star Flag represented the sovereignty of Texas. It was not till February, 1846, that it was hauled down from the flag-staff of the old wooden capital of the Republic by Texan hands to give place to the Stars and Stripes. A flag though but a piece of bunting is an emblem of nationality; and the flag logically disappears with the death of a nation, as in the case of Poland, or with the blasted efforts for national life, as in the case of Hungary and of the Confederate States. The subsequent display of their defunct flags by those beaten communities might be a cause of offense to their conquerors.
Not so, however, with Texas. The demise of the Republic, or rather the merger of its sovereignty into that of the Union, was wholly voluntary; annexation itself being the joint act of two friendly sovereignties. Their flags never joined issue in battle. So the Lone Star Flag waving on stated occasion over the dome of our magnificent capitol, is no menace to the Union. This flag is simply a reminiscence, typifying the glories of the old Republic and the display of its bright folds in the sun never fails to awaken enthusiasm in all true Texans.
From the foregoing would it not follow that the law creating the flag became obsolete on the demise of the Republic? Perhaps so, technically speaking; but in a larger and better sense, the law had become functus officio, its object having been effected, and had become on the disappearance of the nation incapable of reform or repeal. Or transferred from perishing paper to the fleshly tablets of the heart, the law makes the Lone Star flag immortal, because the Texans will have it so. But aside from sentiment, does not the flag foster nationality? Undoubtedly, but as already remarked, as a cherished reminiscence only with but the innocent tendency to hold our territorial integrity inviolate.
And this in turn tends to settle the seat of government. It is inconceivable that the City of Austin, bearing the honored name of the father of the Texan colony, situate approximately to the center of territory and population of the State and possessing one of the costliest capitols in the Union could ever cease to be the seat of government of Texas; so long as the sentiment of nationality is unimpaired with the indivisible glories of Bexar and San Jacinto and the unspeakable sacrifices of the Alamo and Goliad alike indivisible.
Whatever may befall Texas, the Lone Star flag will forever live in song and story. To have devised such a flag was a greater honor to Oliver Jones, its author, than any other act of the long and useful life of this noble type of Austin's “Old Three Hundred.”
Of the permanence of the laws herein noted, no better reminder could be had than this flag floating over the capitol at Austin on the national holidays of the old Republic.
31. In Fayette county on the east side of the Colorado below La Bahia crossing.
32. Box No. 33, vault No. 2, archives Department of State, Austin.
33. Austin City Gazette, Oct. 30, 1839.
How to cite:
Raines, C. W., "ENDURING LAWS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS. II ", Volume 002, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 152 - 161. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v002/n2/article_4.html
[Accessed Mon Dec 1 17:39:08 CST 2008]
