222
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1831-1832
branded with the epithet of assassin? And have I not brooked it? Will the annals of judicial proceeding exhibit another in- stance where such language has been permitted to be applied to an individual in custody? Yet, before the eyes of this assembly, and in the eyes of this whole nation, have I been traduced by the epithet of assassin. Sir, I trust that I need not disclaim the crime imputed in that word. I bore no dagger when I met my accuser! When that term was applied to me, in this place, and on this occasion, I do confess that I felt my spirit chafe, and feel- ings indignant. But so far as the muscles of my countenance were capable of suppressing every indication of such a feeling, I did suppress it. Yet I could not but think of the eloquent and impressive rebuke administered to the high priest of the Jews by the Apostle Paul, when he stood in bonds before him, and the high priest ordered him to be smote upon the mouth. "God shall ·smite thee thou whited wall, for sittest thou to judge me according to the law, and commandest me to be smitten con- trary to the law?" When I was on my trial at this bar, I was under the protection of _this august tribunal. I had by my de- portment here provoked no indignity. As an American citizen, I had a claim to that immunity from insult which is accorded to the veriest victim of malice. Yet I was stigmatized as an assassin, and I brooked it, uttering no reproach in reply. I hoped it might be a propitiation of the offence, if I had com- mitted any against the privileges of the American people. As for the feelings which prompted my accuser, who made use of the term, however warranted he may have supposed him- self in applying it to me, I can refer him to the time, and I do it with pride, though not in the spirit of vaunting, when it was my destiny, and I felt it, I confess, a high and honorable destiny, to be the representative on this floor of American freemen. Did the gentlemen at that time see any thing in my deport- ment which would warrant his treating me as he has done? And I think it must be accorded to me, that when, since that time, I have been accidentally present here, my deportment has been ever respectful. It has never been my habit to retain and gratify malignant feelings; nor should I have given occasion for the present proceedings, had I not been accused, denounced, and insulted upon this floor. I do not justify my course. I have been held accountable, and I have accounted for it. But I trust this is not to be made a precedent for others. If, in what I did, I
Powered by FlippingBook