WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1857
443
the subject and looking into it, no action will be taken upon this proposition. If you will look, sir, at the blocks of marble now lying about the Capitol, you will see that they would keep two thousand men employed until the .next meeting of Congress. Property does not advance so very rapidly in price. The Treas- ury is still accumulating. There is no danger of exhaustion. We need not fear that it will very soon be depleted. I think no harm can result from postponing this measure for a year. Such a delay will endanger neither the Government nor the citizen, but will afford the committee an opportunity of revising their action so as to make it more conformable to what the citizens ought to expect, and have a right to claim, of this body, than if we were now, on the spur of the occasion, to decide on a subject involving the rights of so many. 1 Conuressional Globe, 1856-1857, Part 2, pp. 1074, 1083, 1084. 2 A sarcastic allusion to the approaching panic of 1857.
To ARTHUR G. CoFFIN 1
Senate Chamber, 5th Mar. 1857 Dear Sir By request of our mutual friend Mr. E. P. Hunt of Galveston, Texas, I have the pleasure of sending you my auto- graph. Thine Truly Sam Houston [Rubric] Arthur G. Coffin Esqr. Philadelphia Pa. 1 From a photostatic copy furnished by The Historical Society of Penn- sylvania. To THOMAS J. RusK 1 Huntsville, 23rd April, 1857 Dear General. I hope you are safe at home as well as Miss Helena, and found all well. I can tell you no news. Spring has not yet come in our section. I hope that you are better off in yours. I send you a letter from our friend Hay. If nothing has been done for him, pray do write in his behalf. He is a true Demo- crat, and should not feel the axe. You can save him. In haste Thine Truly Houston Rusk 1 Rusk Papo,·s, The University of Texas Library.
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