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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
517
Sir, the occasion to which I have alluded, was not the only one on which I said I was willing to stand on the Missouri Com- promise line, in defense of the rights of the South. On another occasion, it will be recollected in this Chamber, when speaking of the obligations the country was under to a distinguished states- man, then in private life, and whose party had postponed his claim, or pretermitted it, or, in common parlance, laid him on the shelf, I said, that when the Missouri agitation was quieted, he was held throughout the land as a great pacificator; and if he had committed a mountain of sins, that single achievement of tranquillizing the great Republic, giving permanency, peace,· and growth to its institutions, would have overbalanced them all. I said that Henry Clay deserved a monument of bronze, of marble, or of gold, to be placed in the rotunda of the Capitol, for men in aftertimes of great excitement to contemplate, and look upon as a man who blessed his country. That was the sentiment I enter- tained, and it arose from veneration, not only for the man, but for the needed restoration of harmony to our native land. Were I to make such a declaration now, it would be thought that it was an endeavor to bring this bill into discredit. No, sir, nothing is necessary from me to discredit it; for it is its own condemnation under the circumstances in which it is presented here, at this time, in the midst of unity, peace, and harmony, while all is at rest, with not a ripple on the vast ocean of our community. I have seen agitation and bitterness before. I recollect when I ventured to make the first address in this Chamber on the subject of the agitation in 1850, with what dis- countenance it was received. So little was there a disposition to harmonize, that when I suggested that six Senators, without regarcl to party or section, 111,ight be selected from, the ·members of this body who could compose an Address and send it abroad so as to harmonize the country, and kush the fierce waves of political agitation that were then lashing the base of this Cap-itol, it met with no response.~ Well, we subsequently obtained peace and harmony. Let us preserve it. And there is no mode by which we can so effectually accomplish that object, as by rejecting the proposed measure. I had fondly hoped, Mr. President, that hav- ing attained to my present period of life, I should pass the residue of my days, be they many or few, in peace and tranquillity; that as I found the country growing up rapidly, and have witnessed its immeasurable expansion and development, when I close my eyes
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