Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/423

 measure since 1850? None had resulted at this time last year. None has been heard of.

Three years have passed in tranquillity and peace. Yet the gentleman who urges the measure thinks that he would have been derelict to his duty had he not brought things to their present condition, and presented the matter in the shape in which it now stands. If it was necessary at ail, it was necessary last year. No new developments have been made. The great principle of nonintervention existed then. There is no new demand for it now. Is not that a reason why this bill ought not to pass? Was there any new indication given of its necessity up to the time that the bill was introduced here? None throughout the whole land. How, and where, and why, and when, and with whom this measure originated. Heaven only knows, for I have no cognizance of the facts; but I well know that persons deeply involved in it, and exercising senatorial privileges here, never received information that such a measure would be brought forward, or would be urged with that pertinacity with which it is now done. Little did we think that it was to be urged upon us as a great healing measure. The honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] said last night that this is to be regarded as a great healing measure for the purpose of preventing agitation. Sir, I heard of no agitation until it arose here, nor would there have been any this day in the United States, if the bill in the form in which it was presented last year, had been brought forward and adopted without any provision either for non-intervention or the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

So far back as 1848, I find that President Polk recognized the Missouri Compromise as of binding force upon this country. He considered it not only binding upon the North in relation to the South, but, as the Chief Magistrate of this Union, he regarded it as binding upon the South, because it accorded certain privileges to the South; for he says, when speaking in relation to his approval of the Oregon bill, that he approved it because it lay north of 36° 30°; but had it lain south of 36° 30°, he would not say what action he would have taken upon it; clearly intimating that he would have vetoed the bill, regarding as he did the Missouri Compromise as obligatory on the two sections of the Union. How has it been repudiated since that time? Was it repudiated and superseded, or rendered null and void, by the Compromise of 1850? No such thing. Do you think that the astute statesmen, the men who managed and controlled the business of that Compromise, as much as any other men versed and skilled in legal lore and in general learning, men of acumen and keen perceptions, would have permitted that matter to go unexplained, if it ever had been contemplated to repeal the Missouri Compromise? Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster would never have done it. Yet no information was given that any such design was entertained by any member of this body. I am sure that, for one, I did not entertain it. Other gentlemen, more astute than myself, might have done so, but I am confident that it was not the general understanding that non-intervention was to be applied to these Territories because they lay north of 36° 30°.

I again ask, what benefit is to result to the South from this measure, if adopted? I have shown, I hope, that if you repeal this Missouri Compromise, Texas has no guarantee left for the multiplication of her States, if she chooses to make them. What are its advantages? Will it secure these Territories to the South? No, sir, not at all. But, the gentleman tells us, it is the principle that we want. I can perceive but one principle involved in the measure.