Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/227

 adversary to observe the rules of civilized warfare.' That was all we asked. The Government of the United States, acting upon its wise and prudent and proper policy, did not interfere."

On the 22d of December, Gen. Foote, of Mississippi, offered a resolution to this effect: "That the compromise measures of the last Congress shall be regarded a 'final adjustment' of the questions dividing the North and the South." Houston interposed: "I am the only Senator who voted for all the compromise measures, Mr. Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania, excepted, who is not now a Senator. On questions of internal improvements, of the tariff, and of free soil, I have acted with the Democratic party. To gentlemen who differ from me as to the compromise measures, I say, 'Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.' "He had devoted himself, he went on to say, to the business of the Senate; to legislation for the country; not to fixing political platforms. He had hoped sectional agitation was dying away. "Mr. Clay, author of the compromise measures, true to his spirit for a third of a century, is sick and kept from his seat. I have defended his action. The resolution of the Senator from Mississippi is unnecessary. Why not resolve that the independent treasury bill is a final adjustment?" He had been censured, he continued, for using the word "Oligarchy" as applied to the State Government of South Carolina. He had only used it because the people of the State have no voice in State affairs. He added:

"I recall how, when in the House of Representatives, in 1824, I heard with amazement the idea that there might be secession, .disunion, resistance to the constitutional action of the Federal Government. I could hardly think it possible that a representative of any portion of the American people would have the fierce temerity to suggest this. I have heard principles of disunion announced in this hall, and have heard Senators utter what was treason, not technically, but which was not stripped of one particle of the moral turpitude of treason. What a delightful comment on the freedom of our institutions that this privilege is allowed. I have only to say that they who, for the sake of disunion, conspire against the Union and the Constitution, are aptly described in holy writ as ' raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.'"

Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, replied courteously that the right of suffrage in that State was restricted by early limitations of property qualification, which in other and newer States have been removed. Mr. Foote, in defence of his resolution, charged General Houston with catering to popular Northern prejudices. Houston merely replied, "I said the same lately at Montgomery, Ala."

The only matter of importance which called out Houston to make a set speech during the remainder of the session, related to