WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1854
92
the letter of Young, setting forth the swindling transaction of Green with Hargous. 10 Mr. Green, on the excitement of the mo- ment after coming home, had been elected to the Legislature, and he was a member when the message went in. The sympathy for him was so great that they absolutely returned the message to the President, though he only stated the facts, and communicated the papers desired. Previous to that, in 1839, to prevent such fraudulent h'ansactions, a law passed the Legislature of Texas, enacting that men viho should thereafter be guilty of the like, should be consigned to the whipping-post and the pillory, and by this transaction he brought himself within the purview of that status, if the transaction had been in Texas instead of Vera Cruz. Now, Mr. President, a question will arise whether a book containing such beautiful extracts as those to which I have alluded, will not claim the attention of the honorable chairman of the Committee on the Library, and whether he will not cast it forth, and [not] as bread upon the waters to return after many days, but as a refuse, unclean thing, which should never defile a library where science, mind, thought, heart, and soul should be the equalities to adorn the books. I have shown, from the facts which I have adduced in this case, and those which I brought before the Senate on a former occasion, that I have not been the assailant, but I am the repellant. I have not attacked, but I have defended. In this defense it has been my business to examine the character of those who assailed me, and the facts upon which they predicated their assaults, and the weapons with which they attempted to strike me. I have done this as a man defending himself against calumny and defama- tion, and not as a man who was anxious to walk out of the way to attack others, either in their private, official, or political rela- tions. It was due to members with whom I am associated in this body that I should do so; for if I were the black-hearted traitor, the perfidious villain, the heartless murderer, the vindictive be- trayer I am charged with being, I should not be a fit associate for Senators. I have sought to prove to them by facts that I am worthy of equality and fellowship with them; that I am worthy to be the peer of the proudest who walks on American soil, where honor directs his steps, and that I stand with skirts or ermine unsoiled, not only before the Senate, but before the world. I have endeavored to show up the reckless villains who have no regard
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