Attributed to Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1841: “The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy and, while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge and the only security that freemen desire.” Lamar sited the Republic of Texas capital in Austin, after visiting bluffs just south of Pioneer Farms, according to legend.