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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1851
264
assemblies, Fourth of July orations, and on other suitable occa-· sions for these pyrotechnic displays. If a southern convention should be held at Richmond or elsewhere, it would be likely to contain a large portion of the violent and active ultraists of all the southern States; for they would be vigilant and industrious, and would seek a place among its members for the convenient opportunity it would afford them to create disturbances, to pledge the people in advance to some extreme measures, and to organize a body of co-operators who might control the leg- islative assemblies and their respective communities, and watch perclu for the moment when they could give the Union its death blow. This is their only hope-this is their real design. Should a convention of all the States aftewards assemble what could it accomplish? It .could meet with no useful purpose in view but to amend the federal constitution. And now let me candidly and seriously ask any man in his senses if he believes a general convention could be assembled in these times of turmoil and excitement, of sectional jealousy and animosity, from which any real good could be expected? If, in the days of our fathers, when our territory was comparatively small, our condition dis- tracted and anarchial, our confederation a loose and frail league, observed or violated as interest or prejudice dictated, there was so much difficulty in forming a constitution by a convention presided over by Washington and composed of many of the most illustrious statesmen and patriots of the revolution what could we hope for now, when every cause of repulsion and antagonism has been augmented a thousand fold? But, in addition to this, the South needs neither new "guarantees" nor "recognition of the bargain." The constitution is ample guarantee for her rights already, and stands in need of neither new readings nor new sanctification. This great palladium of the freedom and the rights of every State and of every citizen in the Union cannot be frittered away by special pleading, nor overthrown by open force. Both means have been tried, and both have ignominiously failed. Its eternal and immutable principles rise up with re- newed vigor after every assault, and the more they are con- demned by fanatics and demagogues, the dearer do they become to every patriot's heart. What wrong can be inflicted on the southern States without equally wounding the constitution? None-absolutely none. And what necessity can there be for amending its provisions? By seeking to do this, the South abandons her strong ground of constitutional safeguard and, impliedly at least, concedes that the constitution does not already
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