Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/221

Rh On the 25th July Houston made a lengthy speech on the claim of Texas to the territory of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. He said:

"Texas asserts no new claim. She made the same prior to annexation. Texas is loyal; she has assented to everything that goes for peace. The treaty of annexation promised protection to the inhabitants of that portion of her territory; but we will be magnanimous. If we yield, we shall do it as parties in a matrimonial alliance who have determined to say 'yes' anyhow."

In reply, on the 30th July, to Benton and Clay, he exclaimed: "Texas is not greedy; she only seeks to do her duty." On the 31st July he stated, that when New Mexico was ceded to the United States in 1848, Texas sent a judge to incorporate the inhabitants into the State of Texas.

On the 13th August, responding to Davis of Mississippi, and Clemens of Alabama, who opposed the admission of California, Houston spoke with warmth, opposing disunion sentiments. He said, for many months he had sat and listened to debates on this and kindred topics. He had voted for the California bill, and for another, supposed to be unfriendly to the South. He might not be right, but he declared:.

"My motives are as pure as those of any gentleman on this floor, though my conception of what is beneficial to the South may not be in accord with theirs. I have been actuated by feelings as purely Southern as any gentleman in this body. I know that my constituents desire the harmony of the people of these States, and the perpetuity of the Union. At a celebration on the 4th July the sentiment of Texas was uttered in these words: 'Our brethren from Maine to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; we salute them with our love.' In voting for the California bill I can not conceive that free soil, or any soil but American, has been regarded. Are there indications that the South is borne down? Are we to take as proof the expression of the Southern Convention? I respect the men of that convention, but the meeting held at Nashville was surreptitious. The delegates from Texas received some 140 votes out of 1,600 or 1,800. Other representatives stood for the parallel of 36° 30'. If you partition California by that line I have no idea you would create one solitary slave State, but rather that you would multiply free-soil States. I contend that California has a right to come into this Union as a State upon the principle of self-government. Suppose our Union were divided with Mason and Dixon's line as the boundary, what would be our condition? An American in France or England enunciates his country's name with as much pride as Paul when he exclaimed, 'I am a Roman citizen!' Why should we allow that respect to diminish? Let us preserve the sacred name. Let us preserve it with the Constitution under which it stands. We of the South ask no compromise. Give us the Constitution. Tread not upon our rights by undelegated power. I feel confident that if these measures pass, joy and exultation will fill every heart. Your Nashville conventions will die away. Let us meet the difficulties that have come upon us like men, and dispose of them in such a way that if our