192
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
against that Convention and its action, so far as Texas is con- cerned. Yes, sir, I do it from my heart, and I know the declara- tions will meet a response in the hearts of thousands who are imbued with a pure love of the Union, and who have rushed to it as an asylum from all surrounding difficulties. Think you, sir, that after the difficulties they have encountered to get into the Union, that you can whip them out of it? No, sir. New Mexico can not whip them out of it, even with the aid of United States troops. No, sir!-no, sir! We shed our blood to get into it, and we have now no arms to turn against it. But we have not looked for aggression upon us from the Union. We have looked to the Union of these States and its noble course to vindicate our rights, and to accord to us what in justice we claim-what we have ever claimed-and less than which we can never claim. The honorable Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], yester- day when speaking of a measure that is not remarkably popular in Texas, I think-the Wilmot Proviso-said that you might slay it here, and it had been said that it was killed, but that the ghost -the dead corpse-had returned, clad with steel, and proceeded to stalk through these halls again. I really thought he said a dead horse, instead of a dead corpse, at the time; and it occurred to me at the moment, that if I say any such spectre walking through the Hall, or on any portion of terra firma to which I could lay claim, either in or out of the State of Texas, and I had anything to do with the grooming of that horse, I need not borrow old Whitley's silver currycomb to do it, but would take an iron one [laughter], and I would rub him down with that. I shall not occupy further the time of the Senate, and shall content myself with submitting to their consideration the views I have presented. 1 Congressional Globe, XXII, Part 2, 1st Sess., 31st Cong., 1849-1850, pp. 1320-1321, 1711-1716. Crane, Li/c and Select Literary Remains of Sam How1ton, 375-393; John Henry Brown, History of Texas, II, 341-343 (this is merely a summary of the speech). This speech was on the subject of the military occupation of Santa Fe, and in defense of Texas and the Texan volunteers in the Mexican War, a resolution, submitted by Mr. Cass, of Michigan, on June 27, 1850, being under consideration. The resolution offered by Cass was as follows: "Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of prohibiting by law any officer of the Army from assuming or exercising within the limits of the United States any civil power or authority not conferred by an Act of Congress, and of pro- viding an adequate punishment for such offence."
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