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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1855
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A KNOW-NOTHING MASS BARBECUE AT AUSTIN, NOVEMBER 23, 1855 1 Ladies and Gentlemen, My Countrymen and Fellow-Citizens: Inauspicious as the day is, I rejoice to see so many of my fellow- -country-men assembled before me. The occasion is one imbued with the highest import for the welfare of our common country. It is one, in my humble opinion, upon which the perpetuity of the liberties of this nation depends. It is one of no ordinary import. However much the principles we advocate may be derided, how- ever much our enemies may persecute us, and popular influence be brought against our institutions, let us brace ourselves like men and stand erect for our country and our God. God is the author of liberty, and it is for liberty that we contend. I feel, my fellow-citizens, that the day has gone by when I as an individual was not acceptable to my countrymen at this place. Misrepresentations once clouded upon me, but they have been dis- pelled by the omnipotency of truth, and I stand vindicated in my actions. I rejoice that in the advocacy of American principles, I find myself greeted as a friend, a brother, and a companion. This greeting I accept with the most lively and sincere emotions of gratitude and pleasure. My countrymen, I know that my po- litical position as a Senator, has been arraigned, my acts brought into question, not only their policy, but their integrity. To both those charges I am amenable. I am amenable to you, but not amenable to the accusations of canting demagogues, and hypo- critical politicians. I might advert to the scenes of twenty-three years residence in the State of Texas, to scenes that would thrill you, and call up emotions of the most agonizing character, to many bosoms, whose nearest and dearest friends fell in defence of Texian liberty. But I will pass by those scenes. I will come to a more recent period, when your character changed to that of a sovereign and integral part of the United States. I will now come to that period in which I have been your Representative in the Halls of Congress. I was proud of the confidence reposed in me, conferred as it was, unsolicited on my part. In the Senate of the United States, my actions are before the world; there is no concealment in them; they are recorded upon the tablets of your annals ; and there, I hope, they will remain through all time to come. When I arrived in the Senate of the United States, matters had not been arranged in regard to our peculiar relations with the United States.
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