WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
226
will gentlemen tell me that these shall be deemed sufficient ex- pressions of the public desire to justify men in gathering in assemblages unknown and repugnant to the Constitution? No, sir; and it is the duty of every friend of the Union to frown down any such means of action as this Convention. Now the honorable Senator from Mississippi supposes that I am very forgetful, and I suppose, very ignorant also---- [Mr. Davis, of Mississippi. Not at all.] Mr. Houston. Well, very forgetful then. I recollect the colloquy which occurred between the Senator and myself, to which he refers, and I have to say to him that I have become better informed of the facts in relation to the assembling of the Convention at Jackson, Mississippi, than I was at that time. My infomation is, that not one half of the counties of the State were represented in that Convention; that several were repre- sented by proxies, and some of them were delegates constituted by meetings of not exceeding eight or ten persons-I was told seven in one case, as I passed by. Certainly this will not be deemed an expression of the people of this State, especially when, as the Senator has said, they were in advance of their politicians, and their politicians and leaders were such ardent patriots that they had to restrain the people from violent action. When such expressions are presented as evidence of the feeling which animates the whole South, my object is to protect Texas, at least, from the imputation of being at all sympathetic or participant in such proceedings as these, or of the Nashville Convention. As to the action of that Convention on the subject of the Texan title, referred to by the Senator, I ask him if it was necessary for Texas to have the endorsement of that body to secure her rights? No, sir; her rights were founded on no such recognition by any self-constituted body, if I may call it such, or a body constituted by a vast minority of the people of a few States there represented. Sir, if she had no better evidence to commend her title to the favorable consideration of this body, or of this Government, she would deserve to fall in its main- tenance. She wanted no endorsement from the Nashville or any other convention; she relied on the justice of her claim, and on the justice of the States of the Union, and their regard for the compact by which she became a member of it, to concede to her her just rights. And I must say, in my judgment, that so far as that Convention acted, it was calculated to some extent to
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