WRITINGS OF SA:M HOUSTON, 1850
131
encounter the hazard of civil broils-of a war of disolution-the worst of all wars; a war, not of race-a war, not of language, or of tongue, or of religion, but a war of brothers-the most san- guinary of mortal strife. Look at Hungary. Consider the civil war that has raged between Austria and Hungary-one nation; there it has raged with such violence that boys of the age of nine or ten years have been taken as conscripts, torn from their homes and the embrace of their mothers and sisters, and those mothers and sisters herded together like cattle in a pound, guarded by the bayonets of the soldiery, to keep them from rushing and rescuing their children from the ranks. Then, too, the brutal soldiery, pursuing their fell purpose of vengeance, despoil women of all that is sacred, tear from the bosoms of mothers their infant chil- dren, and pin them to the posts of the doors with swords and bayonets and pikes. Can you contemplate, sir, with calmness these scenes? Are they not in the perspective, and consequent upon disunion? And who more able than yourself [Mr. King, the Senator from Alabama, then in the chair] to portray the evil of disunion? Who dare to step forward and interpose his influence, his intelligence, his powerful and expended patriotism, to arrest the progress of this portentous evil? But, Mr. President, it is not alone the North and the South- not alone these two sections of this vast Union, who are interested. Where are the Middle States? Where is the old Keystone? Will she hereafter look indifferently upon a subject so momentous and·so deeply important to her? Will she disregard it? Will she not interpose her mighty influence to arrest it? Where is the new and manly West, with all the vigor of youth, with all the sagacity, wisdom, and strength of manhood, and with all the valor that can inspire the human heart; where is the West to remain, and what is to be its attitude when disunion takes place? What will the North gain by disunion? Do not the productions of the South contribute to the employment of their moneyed capital? Their carrying trade of the productions of the South is a profitable one; and their labor and their ingenuity are highly rewarded by the return of our own raw material when fabricated, and the sale of it in the South. What then has the North to gain, looking at their pecuniary interest alone, by pushing the South to the fearful extremity of standing upon their reserved rights? Sir, if the North does not refrain, if they persist in their threatened ag- gressions upon the South, and invasions upon their rights estab- lished under the Constitution, the sin must lie at their own door,
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