123
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
to concede anything. We merely ask them to abstain ·from aggression. The South only asks that her rights be respected in relation to the Constitution of the United States, by which all the States are bound. If the compromise line of 36° 30' is continued, inhibiting slavery north of that line, and the States which may be formed south of it be authorized to claim admission into the United States with such municipal regulations as they may choose to form, according to the nature of their social and domestic institutions, the whole matter is at an end. How trifling the sacrifice would be? What would it be? Would it be the sacrifice of fanaticism? Would it be the sacrifice of a disposition to carry on a crusade against the rights of their brethren of the South? Would it be too much concession to the spirit of conciliation, to discountenance a few fanatics at the North who are rabid upon the subject of abolition? It is not the views _of the great North-it is not the sons and descendants of those who united in establishing the liberties of this country, and who have cemented them with their blood, of whom the South now complain. No, sir, they are bastards, they are aliens to their fathers' principles. But the misfortune is that their numbers are unascertainecl, and it is believed at the South, because a few have assembled in some obscure corner and come out with their manifestoes against slavery, and in favor of aboli- tion, that the whole northern country is opposed to the interests of the South, and completely imbued with the pernicious views of abolitionism. It is our great misfortune that opinion is n:ianu- factured here, to be disseminated throughout the country, like rays of light radiating from the centre, to illumine the benighted region at home, and to effect certain private or political ends. I am opposed to this manufacture of opinion for home consump- tion-for the creation of a factitious popularity for members of this body and of the other and more numerous branch of the National Legislature. Men who are thus actuated speak not for the purpose of conciliation-not to calm or allay the excitement which exists, but to irritate and increase it. Such a course tends to wound and exasperate those whom they deem less informed than themselves, instead of harmonizing the jarring elements which exist in the country at this time. If they would be explicit, less harm would be done. If, instead of saying that so and so is the case at the North-that the North has done such and such things, which are aggressive-if it were simply said that the abolitionists of the North had done it, and not the people, the fact would be correctly stated. If the fanatics of the North, who
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