WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
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it out of the stinted annuity derived from the beneficence of the Government. Sir, there seems to be a passion for expelling the Indian and driving him back. And for what purpose? To invite the white population there, and to invite them beyond their means of sustaining themselves; and to create an unhealthy passion for emigration in the future tide of American enterprise. While you are inflicting wrongs upon one race of people, you are talking about the transatlantic inhabitants coming here and of donating to them land by way of inducement. The aboriginal man is being driven from the face of the white man, whose Capitol stands where some chief's wigwam stood in days gone by. You have forgotten your sympathies and justice for the red man, when you invite the transatlantic emigrant to come and take possession of the domain which you but yesterday rescued from the red man. Sir, I am not disposed to do this. I will treat the red man with justice, and I will vindicate him in the posses- sion of the usufructory rights in the soil; and I will not invite others to come and expel him from his soil. When they are here and are identified with us in citizenship and in political connec- tion, then they are entitled to the aegis of the Constitution; but I will not consent, on any occasion, to minister to the popular feeling which is in favor of distributing the public lands with a profligate hand when our citizens, in the natural and regular progress of time, will march to the frontiers with their packed ponies, their wives and their children, and build their little cabins and inhabit the spot. Then, I would protect them, and give them the land which they have adventured to occupy, rely- ing on the munificence of this Government; but I am not going to say, "We will hold you out inducements beyond all the neces- sities of your condition." Let the inducements and necessities go hand in hand, and accord to them all that is liberal, all that is just, all that protects the enterprising and the adventurer; but until that is done, I hope you will not rescue the land from the Indians merely for the purpose of giving it to carelessness and prodigality. [Later on in the debate:] I was in the war of 1812, and I am, therefore, interested in this amendment; but I shall vote against it, because this is not the proper time to make that proposition, I shall, therefore, vote "no." [Later:] The Senator from Delaware, in his remarks, for which he was called to order, suggested the impropriety of the mode of legislation that is sometimes resorted to preparatory to the action of this body. Now, there is no particular remark of
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