WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1831-1832
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here to fancy his own high prerogative. We know no royal majesty in this country, to be preserved at the expense of the rights and liberties of the citizens. On what ground, then, was the privilege placed? On necessity? the plea of all tyrants, the hackneyed engine of despotism. Who ever heard of a right higher than the constitution? All the powers of this court are derivative. They exist only as they have been defined and regu- lated by the people. Whatever is not so granted, is the assump- tion of an extraordinary prerogative. If the power is not in the constitution, then it is reserved to the people, and the as- sumption of it is an encroachment upon the rights of the citizens. If, however, the court shall assume this power, and the Ameri- can people witnessing it shall acquiesce in the assumption, I shall bow to their will with the most reverential respect. I trust I shall exhibit the same submission as has distinguished my·conduct throughout this trial. Although the officer sent to arrest me could never have effected his purpose without raising a posse, I bowed, and ever shall bow, to the very shadow of the authority of the House, so long as my resistance could be con- strued into contempts of the representatives of the people of the Union. I conceive that the House had no right to deprive me of liberty, and arraign me at its bar. I shall treat its will with profound re- spect; and should its will inflict upon me a heavier penalty than even the law itself would pronounce, I shall submit willingly to whatever it may adjudge. I have lived to sustain the institutions of my country, and I will never treat either them or the functionaries of its Govern- ment with contumely. Yet it is my opinion that the right has been assumed without legitimate authority, and that the Ameri- can people, when they come to look at the proceedings, and see how directly it strikes at the liberty of the citizen, will never approve of the usurpation. To tell that people that their ser- vants, when acting in a private capacity, are protected by an un- defined power, resting in the breasts of men who at once exercise the functions of accusers, witnesses, prosecutors, judges, and jur- ors, will excite their astonishment; and, unless I am mistaken, they will deem it an awful revelation of usurped and dangerous power. It is certainly a mattter of some magnitude that the prh·ileges of the House, so strenuously asserted, should be defined. The power·assumed by this court is a higher power than that claimed
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