101
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, l8!i9
North or the South,-whether arising from the incendiary vio- lence of abolitionists, or from the coalition of nullifiers, will ever meet with my unqualified disapproval. You say you " profess no reverence or love for a government which refuses all its promises, and becomes, in the hands of fanatics and fools, an instrument of oppression, and not protec- tion." With such a sentiment as an abstract proposition, I do not find fault, but if you intend to apply it to the government of our country,-(and I will not accuse you of a design, at once so disgraceful and disgusting)-if such is your deliberate inten- tion, then, I deny the applicability of the sentiment in toto, and regard its intende·d use, with feelings of unqualified pity and contempt. In the resolutions adopted by your convention, reference is made to the proposition introduced into Congress " for slaves to vote in the District of Columbia," and this seems to be considered a direct atfoclc upon the institutioris of the slave-holding States. Can any reasonable man regard this in any other light, than an act of a fanatic abolitionist, or one made for the purpose of retaliating unsults heaped upon the whole· North, by intemperate and sweeping denunciations, too often uttered by a few ultra's of the South? I never did, nor can I now, otherwise regard it. None in the North, excepting a comparatively small class of agitators, consisting of men without influence, save only in their own attenuated ranks, ever speak of interfering with slavery in the States. Sweeping assertions and declarations-imputations cast upon all, and bearing down both friend and foe, must be regarded by every reasonable man, as unjust and irritating, when made with reference to ·the vast communities of the North among whose individual members, so small a proportion are deserving of the censure.-Were there any cause (as, in fact, there is none) to apprehend a combination of majorities in the Northern States, against the institutions of the South, the course adopted by our Ultra Nullifiers, would hasten the crisis and accelerate the result, more rapidly and certainly than all the abolitionists of the North, that ever raved in the impotence of their fanaticism. You, Sir, have caused me to depart from a purpose, which I had formed not to call in question the name of Mr. Calhoun. I had no disposition to allude to him or mention his name, except
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