WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,9
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of armed and uncompromising hostility. The phantom of sup- posed danger, and of prognosticated evils, conjured up by the distempered fancy of Mr. Calhoun, is, by its authors, to be quelled and laid at rest forever, by resorting to a Southern Convention, with a view to devise measures of secession, and, by way of "peaceful remedy,"-a dissolution of the Confederacy, as was projected in 1832 ! ! ! The cause of nullification will, beyond doubt, meet its former fate, and be again consigned to the same inglorious nullity, in which it then sought shelter from the indignant voice of the nation, and from the "lesson" then read to its author ana sup- porters, by the distinguished man, to whom, I suppose, you allude, under the figure of the "Dead Lion" ;--a lesson, at least as effec- tive as that which you so kindly propose to read to me. Were it not too palpable, I should presume that, by the figure referred to, you did not intend it to apply to the memory of Gen. Jackson; for you are a living monument of his favor, kind- ness, and generosity. You were his aid-de-camp. Upon the same principle that a mother pets her weakling child, viz.- because otherwise it could not live-he petted and sustained you, aiding you until he had secured you the place (I think) of Inspector General. And when you were an aspirant in Florida for political honors, he cast the mantle of his friendship around you; but the charm was not sufficient to resist the power of your talented opponent. Did you not return then, and unite with his revilers? I was a friend to General Jackson, and was faithful in my attachments; but he never had it in his power to confer a favor upon me, beyond that of his friendship, and that, I am happy in believing, I retained until his last hour. Had he served me to the same extent he did others, I, too, influenced by that popular quality, ingratitude,-might have become a nullifier as to the obligations under which I should thus have been placed towards him. With him, I concur in the opinion that our glorious position among the nations of earth depends upon the inviolability of the Union of the States. And whatever is calculated to weaken or impair the strength of that Union,-whether originating at the
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