WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1851
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exercise the fullest latitude of suffrage or franchise, it would be deemed a flagrant usurpation, and no State would submit to it. Suppose Congress, if it had the power, were to pass a law say- ing to Virginia or New York, or any other State, You shall not permit your citizens to vote for the electors of President or Vice President; you shall not permit them to vote for the Governor of your State: what would be said in reply to this? Why it would be one of the most flagrant outrages by Federal authority that ever was committed upon the rights of the States. It would be a usurpation of a most atrocious character. Yet South Carolina has never permitted one of her private citizens to vote for the electors for President or Vice President, or to vote for the Gov- ernor of the State. They know no more who is to be voted for as Governor, or who is to be voted for as the Chief Magistrate of the Union, than they know of the interior of Africa. I used the term oligarchy towards the legislative body of South Carolina, because the constitution of that State is in their power. Such is the rotten-borough system of South Carolina that forty persons in the lowlands wield as much political influ- ence as thousands in the uplands. These were the objections wh;ch I made to the institutions of the State. I make it to those whom I believed to be oppressors and usurpers. The people of South Carolina are a gallant and daring people. They are as generous, noble, and warm-hearted as the sun under which they live. I commend them. But let us recollect that had the gallant Palmetto regiment returned from Chapultepec, where it was commanded by the gallant and generous Butler, who, not satis- fied with the infliction of severe wounds, rushed on bravely, leading his men on to victory, till he fell, he would not have had the privilege of voting for the Chief Magistrate of his State, or for electors for the President and Vice President of the Union. Nor, sir, would any one of his gallant followers. I say it is wrong thus to deprive the people of South Carolina of their privileges, and if disunion were to begin there, no one could blame the highlanders of South Carolina for drawing a line of demarcation between oppressors and the oppressed. But I would be sorry to see discord of that kind arise. And there may be policy in keeping up agitation against the Federal Government, for some men would rather be chief in a village than second in Rome; and it might do very well to create a diversion by loud complaints against the Federal authorities, to prevent the peo- ple from looking into their domestic affairs.
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