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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1855
armies and taxation? Are you prepared for that? Rational men cannot desire it. They desire union. The men of the South and the men of the North desire union and tranquility; both sec- tions are interested in the Union, and neither can repudiate it and be happy and independent. [Applause.] No. All we ask is to be let alone. We do not wish to obtrude our institutions, but we wish all the benefits of the Constitution. We wish that to be the controlling principle of the country. We are willing to give the pound of flesh, but not one drop of Christian blood. I well remember that when we were living separate as a com- munity-as a separate republic-when we in the far distant South contemplated a union with the far distant States, we did not count Southern States or Northern States. We contemplated the American Union; and if we entered into the confederacy it was to be a domestic confederacy of the North as well as the South. If our domestic institutions were similar to the peculiar _institutions of the South, our political institutions were the same as those of the North, as to republicanism and as to freedom, so that we looked to them as one great community, one vast and mighty people-a union that could resist the world. [Cheers.] All that we had to do was to cultivate harmony among ourselves. We were aware of dissensions; we knew that there was a North and a South-a bank and an anti-bank-a tariff and an anti- tariff. We knew there were in different sections peculiar notions and we looked at all these, and did not leap in the dark. But when we took a survey of all of them, and saw the great dis- advantages of building up a living power on this continent in antagonism to the people of our own language, race and religion, we believed it was impolitic, and injurious to the prosperity of two countries. We saw that at some future day evils would grow up; that England might seek to advance her interests, that Europe with all her power might seek to foster an enemy among us, to hinder our march to glory and grandeur. Though Texas might reap the benefit of it, we saw the evil to the nation of supporting a separate power. We had no diversity of interest among us. On the institution of slavery we were a unit; we were aware that coming into this confederacy, we should have to participate in all the incidents of your government, and we came in and united with you for weal or for woe. We desired union for the sake of the strength and the power of the Union-that we might be able to act in
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