First Republic Ended
Up in Quite a State
Kent Biffle's Texana © 1997, The Dallas Morning NewsIf so-called leaders of the so-called Republic of Texas keep acting up, Texans will soon be asking: "Where's Santa Anna when you really need him?"
Before those self-anointed leaders start the state down the slippery slope to a second Republic, we should recall that the first Republic (1836-46) was no utopia. The first Republic was widely unloved.
Few loathed the Lone Star Republic more than English journalist and lawyer Nicholas Doran Maillard.
He disembarked in the Republic of Texas on Jan. 30, 1840, and took a jaundiced look around. Six months later, he was safely back in Britain, damning the Republic of Texas as:
"A country filled with habitual liars, drunkards, blasphemers, and slanderers; sanguinary gamesters and cold-blooded assassins; with idleness and sluggish indolence; with pride, engendered by ignorance and supported by fraud."
Biting the hand that underfed him, Maillard ranted about Texas, asserting that the Republic's society was "divided into the four following and distinct classes - Despotic aristocratical Land-owners and Speculators, Usefuls, Contemptibles, and Loafers.
"The first consists chiefly of Planters, Slave-holders, and Government Officers. These men have not the least spirit of accommodation in them. ...
"The second are overseers, store-keepers, and master tradesmen. The Contemptibles are those who are obliged to labour hard to get their daily bread. ...
"The Loafers are by far the most numerous class, and are those who go about from one dram-shop to another, for the purpose of gaming and sponging on their friends, and not unfrequently on strangers."
He didn't neglect the women of the Republic:
"The Texan ladies seldom show themselves to strangers, and, like those of the United States, they use either the pipe or the swab."
(His footnote: "The swab is a piece of soft wood about three inches long, which they chew at one end until it forms a brush, then dipping it into a small bottle of brown rappee snuff, which they carry about them for the purpose of cleaning their teeth; this operation being performed, the swab is placed on one side of the mouth, while the pipe sometimes takes the other.")
"They have little neatness or cleanliness of person to attract the eye. Their figures are scarcely to be described; coarse from neglect, or emaciated by self-indulgence, their skins have borrowed from the sun the exact hue of the lemon; and if the countenance be a true index of the mind, I doubt not that their dispositions have somewhat of the peculiar flavour of that sour bullet of the tropics."
Gallantly - for him - he contrived a compliment:
"To those who admire silence above everything else in a woman, permit me to introduce the ladies of Texas, par excellence, as mutes."
The climate didn't cool Maillard's boiling bile. When not snowbound, the place was an oven, he whined, citing summer temps of "frequently" 125 degrees Fahrenheit. (Footnote: Texas temps don't go there. The record was 120 degrees in the Baylor County seat of Seymour on Aug. 12, 1936.)
If it was as bad as the Englishman said, one wonders why his country was among the handful to recognize the Republic of Texas as a nation.
By the way, there's more than a historical plaque in London to commemorate the Texas Republic's long-ago legation. In Cockspur Street, there's the Texas Embassy Cantina, with its Tex-Mex menu and its "martinez" - a martini with a shot of jalapeno juice.
Leaders of the Second Republic movement forget the design that motivated the foremost leaders of the First Republic. Their goal was to make Texas one of the United States. From the git-go, Texans were raring for statehood. Anti-slavery politics in the USA thwarted the process.
When a resolution of annexation was introduced in the U.S. Senate, John Quincy Adams - Massachusetts' version of England's Maillard - killed it in a 22-day filibuster.
Rebuffed, Texas President Sam Houston began entertaining European suitors, positioned to rescue his not-so-independent Republic.
"Supposing a charming lady has two suitors," he later explained. "One of them she is inclined to believe would make the better husband, but is a little slow to make interesting propositions. Do you think if she was a skillful practitioner in Cupid's court she would pretend that she loved the other 'feller' the best and be sure that her favorite would know it?
"If ladies are justified in making use of coquetry in securing their annexation to good and agreeable husbands, you must excuse me for making use of the same means to annex Texas to Uncle Sam."
A traveling Irishman, Francis C. Sheridan, appraised the first Republic:
"To hear a Texan talk of his country, you would suppose that he lived in as civilized a place as there is on the face of the globe, when he knows all the time that the Republic of Texas is in fact at this time (1839-40) nothing more than a collection of squatters without character or credit."
University of Texas at Arlington historian Richard Francaviglia (The Shape of Texas) said, "Texans of the Republic bit off more than they could chew. The plantation system was never able to extend beyond the southeastern part of Texas. Texans were unable to settle, much less defend, their western frontier."
Texas was so poor by the time it finally entered the Union that the federal government took no significant land for itself, as was the rule, but left the lands for debt-ridden Texas to sell. Land was the Republic's main asset, and most of it was still in the hands of its previous tribal owners.
The Republic was crippled by the panic of 1837 in the United States and never really recovered, said Dr. Francaviglia.
Import-export statistics reveal that the Republic struggled to maintain a balance of trade but usually lost the struggle.
Maritime historian Ben C. Stuart crunched the numbers. In 1839, the total value of goods coming into the Republic was $1,108,238, while exports were valued at only $120,580.
Dr. Francaviglia said, "The figures indicate a 9-to-1 discrepancy, a clear signal that the Republic's economy was hemorrhaging to the outside world."
A dozen crimes were punishable by hanging in the first Republic. Even white-collar criminals such as forgers could get the noose.
But so-called leaders of the second Republic movement will be pleased to learn that - among capital offenses - passing bogus warrants isn't mentioned.