Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/644

 And in writing to Andrew Stevenson February 4, 1833, he says:

"I have received your communication of the 29th ultimo, and have read it with much pleasure. It represents the doctrines of nullification and secession in lights that must confound, if failing to convince their patrons. We have done well in rescuing the proceedings of Virginia in 1798-99, from the many misconstructions and misapplications of them. Of late, attempts are observed to shelter the heresy of secession under the case of expatriation, from which it essentially differs. The expatriation - party moves only his person and his movable property, and does not incommode those whom he leaves. A seceding State mutilates the domain, and disturbs the whole system from which it separates itself. Pushed to the extent in which the right is sometimes asserted, it might break into fragments every single community."

These views clearly show that this great expounder of the Constitution did not recognize the right of a single State to break the harmony of the nation, and destroy its unity by seceding at its pleasure. Nor was he less earnest in his desire to perpetuate the Union and guard against the heresy by which it might be endangered. In one of his celebrated State papers, written in September, 1829, he thus pictures in language at once solemn and truthful the consequences of disunion:

"In all the views that may be taken on questions between the State governments and General Government, the awful consequences of a final rupture and dissolution of the Union should never be lost sight of. Such a prospect must be deprecated—must be shuddered at by every friend of his country, to liberty, to the happiness of man. For, in the event of a dissolution of the Union, an impossibility of ever renewing it is brought home to every mind by the difficulties encountered in establishing it. The propensity of all communities to divide when not pressed into a unity by external dangers is a truth well understood. There is no instance of a people inhabiting even a small island, if remote from foreign danger, and sometimes in spite of that pressure, who are not divided into alien, rival, hostile tribes. The happy union of these States is a wonder, the Constitution a miracle, their example the hope of liberty throughout the world. Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruction of either."

Who that has a heart that throbs for freedom can disregard the wisdom and admonition of patriots, whose lives have been devoted to the service of their country, and who, turning away from the appeals of wealth, have felt rich in the enjoyment of the boon of free government and the possession of an humble competency!

After leaving the sages who participated in the formation of our Union, we find that the distinguished patriots of latter days likewise offer their testimony to the value of the Union, and against the doctrine of secession. Andrew Jackson, the President of the masses, the man to whose bravery in battle, and whose firmness in council, the country owes much for its present prosperous condition, was called upon to meet this question under circumstances the most embarrassing. His giant will encompassed it all, and a grateful people now revere him for the act. The position assumed by South Carolina in her ordinance of November 24, 1832, called forth his proclamation of the loth of December following. The following extract will suffice:

"The Constitution of the United States then forms a government, not a