323
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1851
from the South, no matter how ardent their feelings may have been, whether, if California had made application for admission into the Union, with a constitution declaring_that slavery should exist, they would not have disregarded an the irregularities which may have been connected with it, and readily have voted for her admission as a slave State? The same rule which would induce me to vote for it in one situation would constrain me to do it in another. I did it. What advantage would have resulted from a delay? Was there any hope for a change of her institutions? Was there any probability of it? No. She came in; and whatever reproaches are attached to the vote I gave, I derive my consola- tion from the general prosperity and happiness of my country. Allusion has also been made, I believe, to the vote I gave on the organization of the Oregon Territory, containing the Wilmot proviso. Upon that subject, Mr. President, I feel myself fully sustained. I voted for the Missouri compromise line. Upon the admission or organization of Oregon, that Missouri com- promise line was repudiated by the South, and I was the only clearly Southern Senator that voted for that admission. I voted in harmony with the Missouri compromise line. I based my vote upon that ground, and in this Senate, it will be remembered what my declarations and sentiments were. To sustain myself upon that, I will bring forward a portion of a speech which was made at that time. It was by the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, no longer on eart~, (Mr. Calhoun.) During the debate in relation to the territorial government of Oregon, he said: "After an arduous struggle of more than a year on the question whether Missouri should come into the Union, with or without restrictions prohibiting slavery, a compromise line was adopted between the North and the South; but it was done under circum- stances which made it no wise obligatory on the latter. It is true it was moved by one of her distinguished citizens, [Mr. Clay,] but it is equally so that it was carried by the almost united vote of the North against the almost united vote of the South, and was thus imposed on the latter by superior numbers in opposition to her strenuous efforts. The South has never given her sanction to it, or assented to the power it asserted. She was voted down, and has simply acquiesced in an arrangement which she has not had the power to reverse, and which she could not attempt to do without disturbing the peace and harmony of the Union-to which she has ever been adverse. Acting on this
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