WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1849
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they in courtesy receive him, and extend to him the hand of respect and the embrace of love? It would not be the individual alone that they would elevate; but it would be the cause of morality; it would enable him .to exert a good influence upon the minds of those who are to be the beneficiaries of American mothers, American children, American brothers, fathers, and parents-all. And yet there is objection-objection in this Senate! Is it worthy of an American Senate to make a victim of a patriot and philanthropist-a man whose mission is peace and good ·will on earth? Sir, I will not be guilty of it. My reasons may be im- perfect, but I know that my impulses are all right. Mr. President, if this gentleman were entitled to the privilege of the floor by invitation of the Chair, this is clearly a man- ifestation of that privilege. It is nothing more. It is excluding no other individual, sir, from the respect we extend to this apostle of temperance. Let others present themselves at the head and front of a great moral and social revolution, and I will bid them welcome. Lafayette was a coadjutor of liberty-a disciple of liberty. Washington was a coadjutor of liberty. Father Mathew is a great apostle of temperance, sent forth at the inspiration of a patriotic heart, by philanthropy of soul, to the United States, to extend the benefit of his influence in re- forming society. I bid him welcome. It has nothing to do, in my opinion, with all the noise of political strife, and I am not prepared to combine it with the tariff, nullification, abolition, or anything of that kind, or manufactures of any shape, unless it is the manufacture of intemperate men into sober, respectable citizens. That is as far as I will go , sir. But I do not think, at all times when this question may arise, we should consider that the time has passed by when prudential consideration should be entertained and cherished in this body. They are, sir, in the American people; they are at the citizen's hearthstone; they are in your churches of sacred worship; they are in your court- houses; they are even upon your muster-fields, and are hardly yet excluded from the grog-shops of America. Prudential con- sideration! Sir, while liberty is outraged, while man cannot approach his dignity, or while the Union is worth preserving, prudential considerations are attached to the ~ 1 reat mind of society. I will cherish it properly on all occasions; I will oppose
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