WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
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enforced upon us. We have no sword to strike but at our as- sailants. The Constitution, I presume, has no clause to allow the United States to strike their swords at a people in the possession of their rights. Our shield is justice, to repel aggres- sion, and we will be carried from our fields upon that shield before we will surrender one constitutional right. It is our aegis, and we will have it to the inch. A Central Government, indeed! The honorable Senator here speaking of a central government! A central government for what? To coerce Texas to submit to aggression. To tell Texas that she must surrender her rights before adjudication! To tell her that she must surrender rights for which the United States as her guardian went to war, after she herself had merged her powers of resistance to a foreign Government in the United States! Because she occupies that territory in a peaceable man- ner, is she to be threatened by the myrmidoms of power? I tell them that they have a lesson to learn from Texas. She never goes beyond her borders. She resists no constitutional require- ments, and will submit to no aggression from any power under Heaven. She will have the rights to which she is entitled, or the wrong doer must soon hear their requiem. I would say to gentlemen, then, with all deference and good feeling, that when they wish to indulge in tropes, and figures, and dashing metaphors, they will keep "lions" and "central governments" out of the path. I do not like to encounter them. "A lion!" I am no Samson. [Laughter.] A "central govern- ment''! I have been accustomed to resistance to central gov- ernments. Texas keeps her warriors at home to defend her women and children against the savages. She sends none of her warriors here; but let a Central Government lay a rude hand upon her banner, and that Star will never be eclipsed, though gentlemen by treading on stars here, may not seem to think much of it. Our banner floats on the wind, and I would let gentlemen remember that from the darkest clouds of the revolution, it has led us to association with this Union, which we are ready to contribute the last drop of our blood to maintain-faithful to the Union, faithful to the Constitution, and faithful to Texas. 1 Congi·essioncil Globe, XXII, Part 2, 1849-1850, 865-866. Democratic Tele- gravk and Texa.s Register, July 18, 1850. Houston's speech was a reply to one made by Mr. Seward, of New York, on the subject of the boundary of Texas. See also the speech on the Texas-New Mexico boundary, June 12, 1850, above.
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