WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
118
Nor is it for the purpose of encouraging foreigners, beyond those now in the way of emigration to this country, that I have proposed this resolution. The 4th of March is the· limitation I have pro- posed in regard to foreigners. I have no prejudice against them. I am ready to welcome them to our shores and, on our borders, where their labor will procure them a competency, and thus prove a blessing to them as well as to the country. Sir, the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Georgia have said that these countries cost money, and that foreigners have not bled for the land and territory acquired. I am willing to admit that those who have never reached our shores have not done so, but by giving them a location we give them an inducement for their fidelity to the institutions of the country: But if the gentleman had cast his eyes to the neighborhood of my desk, he would have discovered an individual [Gen. Shields] who has personally sustained your flag at Chapultepec, and on the J)lains of Mexico. That, sir, would redeem a million of foreigners and give them a title to our sympathy. My proposition is not to invite the paupers of Europe; they come upon us uninvited; but rather to provide, if the time shall ever come, that they must finally stop, when this proposition shall cease. Sir, it has no connection with the tariff question. I know not how it may be with other gentlemen, but my proposition has no connection with the tariff. My principles on the tariff are well known, my votes well understood, and no man in America is more opposed to an onerous and oppressive tariff than I am. Since 1824 I have constantly voted against such a tariff. But no one can obtain exactly the tariff they want. As to the circumstances of Texas costing money, to which Senators have referred, Texas had to purchase the boon of admission into the Union. What money was paid for Texas?- I ask honorable gentlemen. She gave her all-her arms, her ammunition, her property, her stores, and her nationality to the Union, and she stood independent of a thousand jarring influences to which honorable gentlemen have alluded, and which I will view in an appropriate place; but I will not allude to a subject sufficiently disagreeable in itself, when I deem it unnecessary. But Texas cost no money to the Union, and for the consequences which grew out of her annexation she is not responsible. Though an independent contracting party, she was not the principal. Others sought her connection, yet when wooed by the nations of
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