Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/626

 you. When I look back and remember the names which are canonized as the tutelar saints of liberty, and the warnings they have given you against disunion, I can not believe that you will be led astray. I can not be long among you. My sands of life are fast running out. As the glass becomes exhausted, if I can feel that I leave my country prosperous and united, I shall die content. To leave men with whom I have mingled in troublous times, and whom I have learned to love as brothers—to leave the children of those whom I have seen pass away, after lives of devotion to the Union—to leave the people who have borne me up and sustained me—to leave my country, and not feel that the liberty and happiness I have enjoyed would still be theirs, would be the worst pang of death. I am to leave children among you to share the fate of your children. Think you I feel no interest in the future for their sakes? We are passing away. They must encounter the evils that are to come. In the far distant future, the generations that spring from our loins are to venture in the path of glory and honor. If untrammeled, who can tell the mighty progress they will make? If cast adrift—if the calamitous curse of disunion is inflicted upon them, who can picture their misfortunes and shame?