'\'\ 0 RITINCS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1856
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magistrate of my country. I shall not do homage to the individual, but I shall bow reverently to the mandate of the Constitution, and the voice of the American people. I will submit; every patriot will submit. You are to judge the tree by its fruit; but because we are not gratified in our expectations and our desires about the elevation of different candidates, we are not to quarrel and engage in strife. Any man who is elected to the Presidential chair by the American people, through the cbnstitutional channel, deserves from every honest man and every patriot, obedience as the constitutional head of this nation, and he shall have mine. 1 am glad that the opposite sentiment does not obtain in the party of which I am a member. If defeated, we shall submit. If others be triumphant, we shall cooperate in everything that we conceive is for the country's good-everything that we think is calculated to promote harmony and peace, and give strength and perpetuity to the Union and concord to the American people. These are our sentiments; and we have none that prevent us from obeying the Constitution, or render us alien to the duty of good citizens. I trust that the day is not distant when all the troubled waters of our present sectional strife will be quieted-when agitation will cease. Though it does not now lash at the base of the Capitol, or in the halls of deliberation, it has reached a dangerous height. I trust that a calm will ensue to this turbulency of the elements, and that peace, joy, tranquility, and hope, brightened by delight- ful visions, will pervade this whole community. 'Congressional Globe, Vol. XXV, part 3, pp. 76-78. Neither the set of Congressional Globe at The University of Texas Library, nor that at the Texas State Library contains Part 3, of Volume XXV, but the Library of Congress at Washington has it. Texas State T·imes, October 4, 1856. John S. Ford, editor of the Texas State Tim.es, stated that the reason he gave so much space to the speech was that various editors were printing garbled extracts from the speech and he considered that the people, in general, had a right to see the entire argument that had been made before Congress. znuring the debate on the Army Appropriation Bill, Senator Clayton, of Maryland, made a resolution to the effect that a special committee should be raised, composed of seven Senators and eleven Representatives, to consider and arrange differences between the two Houses concerning the Army bill. It had been laid aside. But Senator Stephens Adams, of Mississippi, rose and moved that consideration of the resolution be resumed. He explained that his object in moving to take up the resolution was not to vote for it, but to give Senator Sam Houston, of Texas, an opportunity to discuss the pro- priety of it and of kindred measures.
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