Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/470

 power that might accidentally result in proscription and the inquisition. "I'll none of it"; I am opposed to and would prevent such a result.

I admit that we are all descended from foreigners, because, originally, there were no natives here who were white men. Many of those foreigners who originally came here were baptized in the blood of the Revolution; but they were not such men as are now coming to our shores, and should not be named in connection with those who are spewed loathingly from the prisons of England, and from the pauper houses of Europe. Such men are not to be compared to our ancestry, or to the immigration which, until recently, has come to our shores from foreign countries. If the object of those to whom the Senator from Iowa has referred, be to prevent men of infamous character and paupers from coming here, I agree with them. I would say, establish a law requiring every person from abroad, before being received here, to bring an indorsement from one of our consuls abroad, and produce evidence of good character from the place whence he emigrates, so that, when he comes here, we may receive him into full communion with all the rights guaranteed to him by the laws which may exist at the time of his immigration. But, sir, to say that a felon, who left his prison the day he sailed for this country, or, perhaps, was brought in chains to the vessel which bore him here, is, in five years, to stand an equal with the proudest man who walks on our soil, the man who has shed his blood to consecrate liberty and his country, is not the kind of arrangement that I go for.

Mr. Will the Senator from Texas allow me to ask him one question?

Mr. With pleasure.

Mr. As the subject of Know-Nothingism, as it is called, has been brought here

Mr. I have not introduced it, and I am not going to comment on it.

Mr. Precisely so; the Senator has not introduced the subject, and perhaps he is not responsible for its introduction; but he is undertaking to say what he himself thinks upon it. Now, as he is speaking on the subject, I should like to understand distinctly whether he approves or does not approve of so much of the creed attributed to the Know-Nothings as would make those who profess the Roman Catholic religion ineligible to office?

Mr. I would vote for no such law.

Mr. I asked the gentleman whether he approved that or not—not whether he would vote for it.

Mr. No, sir; I could not approve of such a law. But the proscription which is charged on those to whom allusion has been made, is no more than formerly existed between Whigs and Democrats. When party discipline was kept up, if a Whig voted for a Democratic candidate he was ruled out of his party and branded as a deserter; and if a Democrat voted for a Whig he was disowned by his party. That species of political proscription will exist everywhere, according to the notions of people. I do not set up my opinion as the doctrine by which others are to be governed. I am governed by my own principles, and my own sentiments, and I have a right to vindicate them, and I am responsible for them to the