WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
492
with or without slavery, as they might think proper. This was accepted by Texas, with all the sanctity and solemnity that could attach to any compact whateYer. She adopted the Missouri compromise. "Tbe consent of the Texan Republic to this condition was given in every possible mode whereby it could be expressed by the Government of the people. It was manifested in the most solemn form, by her Executive, by her Legislature, by her deputies in convention, and her people at the polls; for the constitution, after its formation, was submitted to the popular vote, and they ratified the previous action of the Executive, the Legislature, and the convention, and finally it was attached to and became a part of the constitution, under which she was admitted as a State into this Union. Whenever a question may arise, involving the ap- plication of this rule of action, I must and will obey its command. Such was the case, when the bill for the reorganization of Oregon as a Territory was brought forward. No part of that Territory lay south of parallel of 42°; its southern limit being more than five and a half degrees north of the Missouri Com- promise line." "The Missouri compromise has been repeatedly recognized and acted upon by Congress as a solemn compact between the States; and as such, it has received the sanction of each individual member of the Confederacy. I consider that the vital interests of all the States, and especially of the South, are dependent, in a great degree, upon the preservation and sacred observance of that compact. Texas, in adopting the compromise line, in com- pliance with the imperative demand of the other States, as a part of the price of her admission, surrendered [in] more than one third of her territory in latitudinal extent, her right to continue the institution of slavery. This sacrifice was exacted by the southern as well as by the northern States. The sacrifice was received at the hands of Texas, and among the solemn guarantees then made to her in behalf of the Union, to the full benefit of which she is now entitled, that of preserving the Missouri com- promise is, in my humble judgment, not the least in value." Such were the opinions I expressed in a letter to General Gadsden, of South Carolina, on the 20th of September, 1849. Then, sir, as a further expression of my opinion at the time I acted on this compromise in 1848, I said : "Legislation in Congress, on the subject of slavery in the Ter- ritories, is, in my opinion, useless and injudicious. The line of
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