Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/538

 eternity, its effects will not be arrested. It has opened a world, and we came forward and were incorporated into this Union. It was not a small territory; it was an empire and a Republic of itself, which had passed through every crucible of trial and of difficulty that would test men's souls and try their nerves. This was not to secure the Presidency of the United States; nor did it look very possible then that aspirations of that kind influenced me or any other Texan. Certainly it is not so plausible as to suppose that, by contriving the separation of these States, the honorable gentleman might have aspirations to gratify, which, it might be presumed, could not be so well compassed in the Union, considering the intractable character of the Northern people. Their affinities might not be such as to be commanded readily in advancing the gentleman to the Presidency, and he might think it expedient to have a dissolution of the Union, and a new confederacy formed, in order that he might turn a jack and secure the game to himself. [Laughter.]

Sir, I trust I have always had higher and holier aspirations than those connected with self. If my ambition were not inordinate, it ought to be gratified and fully satisfied with the number of positions that I have filled, as responsible and important, relatively, as that of the Presidency of the United States; surrounded by difficulties, overwhelmed by menacing millions, without a friend to succor or sustain us. Sir, I have had to wade through difficulties and through scenes of anguish and peril with a gallant people—none have ever been tested to the same extent— without resources, new, unhoused, surrounded by all the inconveniences and peril of a wilderness, surrounded by savage tribes, with the feelings of nations alien to us. Sir, we have had these to pass through; and loyal to one section of the country, I was loyal to all. When Texas was annexed to the United States, it was not to the Southern Confederacy, nor in anticipation of one; she was annexed to the Union; and as a Union man, I have ever maintained my position, and ever shall. I wish no prouder epitaph to mark the board or slab that may lie on my tomb than this: "He loved his country; he was a patriot; he was devoted to the Union." If it is for this that I have suffered martyrdom, it is sufficient that I stand at quits with those who have wielded the sacrificial knife.

But, sir, it has not estranged me from the people I represent. The gentleman says I have no right to represent them on this floor; that I have been repudiated. That forms a justification for him, I suppose, when speaking of the entire South, to embrace the little section of Texas and represent that too, while he excludes the actual representative from any participation in the duties of his section. I admit the great ability of the gentleman, and his entire competence for the task. He speaks of the whole South as familiarly as if he were speaking for it; and, in contradistinction to the whole South, he speaks of Georgia as "my own State." Well, sir, that may be all right; Georgia may have but one man in it for aught I know. [Laughter.] I have not been there for two years; but it did seem to me, having heard of distinguished personages there, some that have occasionally illumined the Senate by the corruscations of their genius and their profound ability, that really Georgia had some other representatives on this floor and in the other House than the honorable Senator himself.