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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1851
262
to which I desire especially to invite your attention. In many other portions of his letter opinions are thrown out which I also deem justly obnoxious to criticism; but as these are the most essential, I will confine my observations to them alone: "In the letter which I addressed to the people of South Carolina, I likewise asserted broadly that it was unnecessary for the South to incur the moral responsibility of dissolving the Union; that the fanatics abolitionists, and profligate demagogues of the non- slaveholding States would save them the trouble; that events were traveling quite fast enough toward this consummation. Have I been a false prophet? They have journeyed with an unanticipated velocity. Since my letter was written, has not Vermont, within her limits, repealed the fugitive-slave bill; and has not Massa- chusetts de facto annulled it? May not the casus foederis be said now to have arisen? Will not Virginia now move? Will she not call a convention of all the southern States to meet at Richmond? Will not each and all of them respond to the invoca- tion of this great and renowned Commonwealth, mother of so many States? "I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that if Virginia moves, she will save, not dissolve the Union. I believe it will lead to a convention of all the States, and if possible, to a fresh understanding of the bargain, and, that we may obtciin fresh guarantees fo1· the vrotection of our slave institutions by an inhibition of the sl,a,very discu.c;sion in Congress, ancl also secure amendments of the constitution restricting the taxing and ap- p1·opriating-powe1· within due bounds. "But may the trial of these resources and these truths never be put to the test! May Virginia, in her wisdom, in all the dignity and gravity which belong to that august Commonwealth, summon all the slaveholding States to meet at Richmond, for the purpose of saving, if possible, the Union, by referring the ulterior solution of this mighty question to a convention of all the States.-If they decide that they can give us no security for our domestic institutions-that they cannot live in the same Union with those who have the blight and plague spot of slavery on: their hands-,let us part in peace, and endeavor to live in the cultivation of its charities, however hopeless, from the inter- vention of human passion, may be the effort." The first point to be noticed is the alleged fact that the dema- gogues and abolition fanatics of the North are pressing on the contest with fearful velocity-that Vermont has nullified the
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