Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/422

 to the enterprising and industrious, that labor will be transferred there, because it will be of a most profitable character, and the disproportion of slaves to the white population must be immense. Then, sir, it becomes the gulf of slavery, and there its terrible eddies will whirl, if convulsions take place. I have a right, therefore, to claim some consideration in the Senate for the effect which the repeal of this Compromise will have upon our State. I have a right to demand it, and demand it for other reasons than those which I formerly gave here, that were personal to myself.

It is alleged that the refusal on the part of the North to continue the Missouri Compromise line over the acquisitions of 1847 and 1848 was a repudiation of the Compromise. That may be thought technically true. I grant that a proposition was made, or a compromise entered into by the North and South, to extend the Missouri Compromise as far as the jurisdiction of the United States extended. That was to the Pacific Ocean. When it was, by contract, carried on through Texas on its annexation, then, if I understand it, it was a new line—a continuation of the old line by consent. It was established there by a compact with Texas; for by the original Missouri Compromise it could only extend as far as the jurisdiction of the United States went. Then the proposition to continue it to the Pacific was a new and substantive proposition. Though it might refer to the original principle of the old, it had no more connection with it than the Atlantic has with the Pacific.

I understand, if individuals make a contract, whether they enter into it in writing or not, if it is to be executed by any given time, and subsequently it is proposed by one of the parties to make another contract, which involves not the first, but is made because it is convenient to extend the first further, the refusal of one of the parties to agree to the second does not invalidate the former contract. This is a kind of argument I have never heard resorted to, except in favor of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I have a great deal of veneration for that Compromise. I recollect the time when I was tried in the Senate Chamber upon its principles. There are Senators here who well remember that I was denounced, more in manner than in words, when I said I planted myself upon the Missouri Compromise line, and that astride of it I would stand, if needs be, and that there I would do battle, and there would I perish in the defense of the rights of the South. That was emphatic language, and I felt all that I uttered. Sir, I have some reverence for it; and if I should feel such reverence, it is not unreasonable that I should have determinations, too, which will not be changed by all the technical and abstract notions which have been adduced and relied upon to enlighten the public mind, to manufacture public sentiment here, and to give direction to it abroad. Sir, I have no idea that the public sentiment is to be subverted, and I assure you that the North, or West, or South, can not be willing that this should be done. No one can deprecate more than I do the fearful agitations which, I apprehend, will follow this; but after the manifestations which we have had here, nothing that I can utter will affect those who are present, or certify to them what must be the inevitable consequence, out of this Hall, when agitation is rife abroad. Do these gentlemen say that I have not made any argument on this point? It is, sir, because I was not sufficiently skilled to meet the refined arguments that were adduced in favor of the repeal. What necessity has grown up for the adoption of this