WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1850
136
gratitude. And, sir, when I forget the obligations due to gen- erosity and friendship gratuitously bestowed, may my right hand forget its cunning. If gratitude be sin, I hope to bear the transgression while I live. Mr. President, it was my intention to have ~aid something in relation to the Southern Address, but I shall make but few remarks upon it, and only those that I shall deem proper, from the fact that I have the misfortune to dissent, in regard to it, from the majority of southern gentlemen of the same political party as myself. That address was, in my estimation, not calculated to attain any valuable end. I did not think it was calculated to obviate any of the difficulties of the moment which then existed. I then saw it was an affair and a part of the policy which was commenced by the distinguished gentleman, the author of. the address. He believed that it would not only be masterly, but masterful in the end. I believed it calculated to do no good, bub that it would excite the southern people, and only drive them perhaps further on the road of separation from their northern friends, and the abandonment of them to whatever reproaches might arise from either the indiscretions or bad temper of the South. I knew we had fast and tried friends in the North, and that it was our duty to stand by them and to sustain them. I knew, too, that some of them had been immolated on the altar, and sacrificed for their devotion to the Union and the rights of the South. I believed also that the Southern Address was calculated to create sectional parties in the country, and that if we once created such parties, it would be an easy matter to dissolve this Union into sections also. And for these reasons, with out impugning the motives of any gentleman-without re- proaching any of the gentlemen who signed the Address, or any persons who have ever evinced unamiable temper, here or else- where, on the subject-I allowed them the privilege of doing what I abstained from doing, claiming that such was my right. For this, too, I have been denounced. "All, sir, the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart; see, they bark at me." I might say this at home, I do not say it here. I know not what the North say; I read but few newspapers, and have scarcely heard the current news of the day, but it has been a matter of sincere regret to me that the South, of which I form a part, deem it necessary at this time, and in consideration of what seems to be apprehended, to resort to the extraordinary mode of remedying existing evils, and averting others, by a convention. But that
. I I
Powered by FlippingBook