WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1849
77
contracted within the boundaries of that country, or slain upon the battlefield. This is not a special case. But if it were to extend a general principle to analogous cases, I would at once support . , it, and I would not hesitate. If we are to look for precedents, we shall find some of days gone by that would not be very worthy of imitation; but if it be necessary to create a precedent, I would do it when justice and right demand it, without reference to any precedents before it. This being guided by precedents will do very well in courts of judicature. It is very well that judges should be regulated in their decisions in relation to matters that have been ascertained and fixed by precedents. But I understand that the object of legislation is to remedy evils to which the law does not extend, and where equity and justice appeal to the judgment of legislators. Under these circumstances, I shall support this bill, and I shall do so from a sense of justice to the representatives of this individual, because it was in the discharge of his duties con- nected with the Mexican war that he deceased; and I cannot for one moment believe that it will work injustice to the nation to do justice to the representatives of this individual, who perished in the service of his country. Mr. President, I would go further. If now, in time of peace, an officer were ordered upon extraordinary service, and in the performance of that service were to die, I would vote to pension his family, equally as if he had fallen upon the field of battle. I would mete out justice according to right. There is no danger of bankruptcy to the treasury from the granting of this pension; for perhaps a case similar to this does not exist in the history of the army of the present day. For these reasons I shall vote for this bill, and I shall vote for every similar claim that can ever be presented to this body; and then I shall have only acquitted myself of a conviction of duty that rests upon my mind, that we should do justice under all circumstances, both to the exalted and the humble. I will now renew the motion to lay the bill upon the table, which the Senator from Pennsylvania so cour- teously withdrew at my request. 'Congressional Globe, Avvcnclix, 1848-1849, pp. 540-541.
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