WRITINGS OF 5AM: HOUSTON, 1853
434
not take a greater latitude than he has done. When I restrain myself to the very standard of propriety and intelligence, that is enough. The honorable Senator says that he has no expectation that the Wilmot proviso will ever be repealed. Now, sir, I had as much respect for, and came as near sacrificing myself upon, the Wilmot proviso as any gentleman in the Senate. I voted for the organ- ization of the Oregon Territory upon the faith of the Wilmot proviso, while it was repudiated by the honorable Senator him- self, and by every other southern Senator. It was the Missouri compromise principle which was there, which was the same thing as the Wilmot proviso. But the gentleman talks about the condition of the frontier bordering upon these Indian tribes. He says they are restrained there by nothing but the dread of the law. They are dying out of the Missouri State. They are commanded to stand against all the Indian tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, and they require and receive protection from those Indians occupying the borders. I have no doubt that an Indian would make a peaceable arrange- ment with the honorable Senator. If they would let the Indians alone the Indians would let them alone. We have evidence of their law-abiding disposition in the presence and conduct of the honorable Senator who fills the presiding chair of the Senate with so much propriety and fitness; and yet he says that the citizens, those gallant and numerous hordes of soldiers, will break loose and exterminate the Indians, or dispossess:them of their soil, and violate all the sacredness of the pledge given and indorsed by the highest functionaries of the Republic. I will read only one provision in the treaty with the Cherokees, the article which was made in 1835, fourteen or fifteen years after the principle of the line of 36° 30' was established. In the fifth article of that treaty is the following: "The Cherokees and the United States hereby covenant and agree that the land ceded to the Cherokee Nation in the fore- going country shall, in no future time, without their consent, be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory." Mr. Atchison. I will ask whether the territory ceded by that treaty lies in any part of Nebraska? T'he bill does not touch the territory ceded by that treaty. Mr. Houston. I assure the honorable Senator it does, for I am as familiar with that country as I am with the Capitol
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