Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/534

 my all is there, and I have represented a proud State here. I answer for a part of the South. I intend to disclaim the right of any gentleman on this floor to speak for the South, when I can offer a negation to his assertions.

This must be stopped, sir. It may wear out. If it does not, and the crisis comes, you will find the patriotic hearts of the South are better employed than in agitating this subject; men who are better engaged in the daily avocations of life; men whose employments lead them to love their country, to hope for its advancement, to rely in security that on their own exertions depend the welfare and prosperity of their families; and whose prayers are for harmony and the well-being and prosperity of their children in life. These are the bone and sinew of that country. They have no passions to flatter; they have no political aspirations; they cherish nothing but a holy loyalty for their country and its Constitution; and when these men are called to action, and look around upon the elements which they are to oppose, it will be as wise, if it were possible, for a sane man to throw himself in the way of the furious tornado, as for public men to oppose them. They will not do it. They will stand aloof, hugging security with a consciousness of happiness and the future well-being of the human race. They will be contented with the blessings they enjoy, and will not put them to the hazards of revolution.

The gentleman spoke of one State seceding and others following. Mr. President, it would be much easier for one State to come back than it would be for other States to go with it. I can see no propriety in that. What would they do.' Suppose one State goes out; it rules itself out of the Union; it has cut off all intercourse with the other States; and as to talking of a division of the great public lands of the United States, the right of a State to any participation in them is at an end when she secedes from the Union. She has left good company and gone off by herself; she is in a minority; she can not take any portion of the territory, for she has abj ared that; she has surrendered it by going out of the Union, for it is only through the Union that she has an interest in it. Where would be the navy of the seceders? where their army? where their security at home? Sir, the very moment that a State places herself out of the Union, that moment she assumes the attitude of revolution; she has revolted. Certain duties are enjoined on her by the Constitution; if she resists the operation of the Constitution, she becomes a rebel per se.

Sir, let the wise men of this Union turn their heads and their hearts toward peace and harmony; let them become reconciled one to another, and continue not the use of crimination and recrimination, but the language of conciliation, of courtesy, of considerate demeanor, reflecting but not talking, thinking but not acting prematurely, and then we shall see a harmonious and desirable state of things in this country. We shall see no animosity; we shall see here no bitterness; no incendiary pamphlets will be circulated in either section. Let gentlemen of the North cease to agitate the subject of our Southern institutions. They are ours, they were theirs, and they had a right to them, and can re-establish them again if they choose. If it is a matter of policy with them to eschew them, it is a matter of necessity and of right and of interest on the part of the South to maintain them. Gentlemen ma> talk of philanthropy and humanity and the equality of all men