The convention which at Washington, on the Brazos, declared independence, also established a government ad interim, and, on March 17, 1836, adopted a constitution. The battle of San Jacinto was fought on April 21, and the hero of that decisive victory - General Sam Houston, was elected by the people the first constitutional president of the Republic of Texas. The First Congress convened on October 3, and Houston was inaugurated on the twenty-second. On February 16, 1846, Anson Jones, the last president, formally pronounced the Republic of Texas to be no more, and committed the government to the hands of the state authorities.

During the brief ten years of its existence, the republic had a place somewhere in the background of the family of nations. Patterned after the United States Government, it had a president, vice-president, a cabinet, a congress, and an army and navy. It received foreign representatives, and had its own abroad; levied and collected customs duties, direct and license taxes; possessed and administered an extensive public domain; issued without stint paper money, and incurred a public debt whose principal and accumulated interest at the date of settlement amounted to over $12,000,000. The white population of Texas was probably not over thirty thousand in 1836 and about one hundred thousand in 1846.2 It was not a timid population in any of its governmental undertakings.

1 This period has been most fully treated by W. M. Gouge in his Fiscal History of Texas, published in 1852. The statistics presented by him are the most complete obtainable, since many official documents and other original material to which he had access have been lost in the fires which have twice destroyed the State Capitol. Gouge was attracted too much by what would allow play to his satire, and the result is that his book is not a judicious account of his subject. See Yoakum, History of Texas, vol. 2, pp. 219, 249, 334.

2 Barker, Potts and Ramsdell, A School History of Texas, p. 166.

The history of the republic is a chapter of difficulties and disappointments, and the ten years were rich in governmental experience. There were few financial expedients which were not resorted to. The key to its character and difficulties is to be found in its expenditures. These illustrate the functions of a frontier government, and explain the adoption of disastrous expedients.

Bordering on Mexico, who was an unsatisfied foe, and having within her confines Apaches, Cherokees, Comanches. and other warring Indian tribes to a number equal almost to one-third of the white settlers, Texas held defence to be of paramount importance. When the permanent government entered upon its duties, the army, which numbered about two thousand men, was suffering privation, and the navy consisted of only one large vessel.1 The first matter, therefore, considered by the First Congress was the1 condition of these agencies of the national defence; and acts were immediately passed and appropriations made for their increase and maintenance.2 In the winter of 1836-7, the army dwindled to about seven hundred men, and the president was compelled to bind himself personally in order to provide them with provisions.3 Volunteers from the United States soon restored the number to nearly two thousand, but in May, 1837. three-fourths of the soldiers were given furloughs because of lack of means to pay them, and because the president believed that a Mexican invasion was not to be expected.4 Military expenditures were in this way kept down, but some had to be incurred to keep companies of rangers in the field to repress the frequent Indian depredations during 1836, 1837, and 1838.

1 Message of Burnet, October 4, 1836. See also Report of Committee on Naval Affairs; House Journal, 1st Tex. Cong., p. 97.

2 Act of November 18, 1836, for the increase of the navy; Gammel, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 1090. Acts of December, 5, December 20, and December 22, relating to the military establishment; ibid., pp. 1113, 1223, 1285. The general appropriation act carried $700,000 for the army and $150,-000 for the navy; ibid., p. 1145.

3 Yoakum, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 207.

4 President Houston in a message of June 6, 1837, said that since he had come into office only $500 in cash had come into the treasury, all of which he had disbursed for provisions for the troops.

The soldiers were a turbulent body, and in the summer of 1836 refused to accept General Lamar who had been designated by the government as their commander. This act of insubordination was also a consideration in the granting of the furloughs; Garrison, Texas, p. 232.

As for the initial civil expenditures, the First Congress established a civil list which for length and compensation was far too imposing and expensive for a pioneer settlement of some thirty thousand Americans. It was provided that the president should receive an annual salary of $10,000 and be provided with a furnished house;1 the vice-president, attorney general, and the commissioner of the general land office, each $3,000; the secretaries of state, treasury, war, and navy, each $3,500; the postmaster-general, $2,000; the treasurer and auditor, each $2,500; the chief justice, $5,000, and associate and district judges, $3,000; foreign ministers, $5,000, and secretaries of legations, $2,000. Members of congress received $5 per diem, and consuls and clerks were paid on the same generous scale.2

The first general appropriation bill carried $150,000 for civil purposes, but owing to the failure of the government's foreign agents to sell land scrip or to negotiate a loan, public officers went without their salaries during the first year.3

About November 1, 1837, the issue of treasury notes began, and thereafter there was no lack of such means to meet appropriations. The effect of the issues was to raise prices to such an extent that the high nominal salaries became by 1839 insufficient for the support of those who received them.4