WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1861
230
given an evidence of their willingness to make inroads upon us, could they do so mith impunity. These are some of the conse- quences of disunion, which we of the border cannot shut out of sight. If Texas has been compelled to resort to her own means of defence, when connected with the present Union, it is not to be supposed that she would rely for protection on an alliance which the Gulf States alone would make; and having grown self-reliant amid adversity, and continued so, as a member of the Union, ·it will be but natural that her people, feeling that they must look to themselves, while sympathizing fully with those States whose institutions are similar to their own, will prefer a separate Nationality, to even an equal position in a Confederacy, which may be broken and destroyed at any moment, by the caprice or dissatisfaction of one of its members. Texas has views of expansion not common to many of her sister States. Although an empire within herself, she feels that there is an empire beyond, essential to her security. She will not be content to have the path of her destiny clogged. The same spirit of enterprise that founded a Republic here, will carry her institutions Southward and West- ward. Having, when but a handful of freemen, withstood the power of a nation and wrung from it her independence, she has no fear of abolition power while in the Union; and should it be the resolve of her people to stand by the Constitution, and main- tain in the Union those rights guaranteed to them, she will even be proof against the "utter ruin and ignominy" depicted in your communication. A people determined to maintain Constitution preserves and controls the administration of the Government; and although "the administration of the Government by a sec- tional hostile majority," will be distasteful to the feelings of Texas, if she can, by Constitutional and fair means induce that majority to yield obedience to the Constitution and administer the Government in accordance with it, the triumph will be ours; and we will escape the miseries of civil war, and secure to our- selves and to our posterity all the blessings of liberty, which by the power of Union have made us the greatest nation on earth. Recognizing as I do, the facts that the sectional tendencies of the Black Republican party· call for determined constitutional resistance, at the hands of the United South, I also feel that the million and a half of noble-hearted, conservative men, who have stood by the South, even to this hour, deserve some sympathy and support. Although we have lost the day, we have to recollect that our conservative Northern friends cast over a quarter of a million more votes against the Black Republicans, than did we
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