William Porter to David Burnet, January 2, 1841
Summary: Porter informed Burnet about an incident involving a dispute between Texas citizens and United States marshals. A marshal from Arkansas crossed into Texas and demanded the return of a number of slaves, upon which the citizens of the Texas county threw him out. The marshal threatened to return with an army. Porter called the incident a threat to the liberties and rights of Texas citizens.
CITY OF AUSTIN Jan. 2nd 1841
To His Excellency
DAVID G. BURNETT
Dear Sir
As one of the Representatives of this Republic, I consider it my duty to communicate to your Excellency, as the Chief Magistrate of the same, intelligence of the violation of the jurisdiction of the Republic, committed in the county, which I have the honour, in part, to represent, by one of the functionaries of a neighbouring Republic. By letters which I have just received, I am informed that the Marshall of the State of Arkansas (one of the United States of the North) has recently visited the county of Red River in this Republic, and by virtue of a writ of fieri facias issued from the Federal Court of the United States for the District of Arkansas, seized upon and took into his possession as Marshall, some negroes, which were in the quiet posession[sic] and were the property of one of the citizens of this Republic. This outrage upon the laws of the Republic and the rights of our citizens was perpetrated I learn, by a person named Ferguson, acting in the capacity of Deputy to the Marshall of the State of Arkansas, ans was committed in the county of Red River, at least fifty miles west and south of the farthest line, to which the United States have ever laid claim. The people of the neighbourhood in which this outrage was committed, remonstrated with the author of it, and peaceably requested him to desist from his unwarranted proceedure[sic]; he, however, refused to comply, and declared his determination to carry the property into Arkansas, upon which they forcibly wrested the negros from his posession[sic]. The officer then left the county threatening to return at the head of ten thousand men and reclaim the property.
I deemed it my duty as a citizen and one of the Representatives of the county, in which this attempt was made to outrage individual rights and violate the national jurisdiction, to inform your Excellency of the facts of the case so far as they have come to my knowledge.
Believing that such flagrant acts of violence by foreign functionaries, will not be tolerated by the constituted authorities of this Republic, and having the highest confidence in the zeal, discretion and Energy of the present Chief Magistrate, I have
the honour to be Your Excellency's
Most Obt. Sert.
WM. N. PORTER.
Source Copy Consulted: William Porter to David Burnet, January 2, 1841, in George Garrison, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1908, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911), 3 vols., 2:474-475