WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1861
247
Amount due on outstanding debt______________ Amount of debt of Republic which will be called for ________________
50,000.00
10,000.00
Total __________________ ---------------$1,175,956.99
The expenses of the present session of "the Legislature are also to be provided for. Total receipts to August 31, 1861 (see Comp- troller's Report, September, 1859) ________________$343,344.27 Amount in Treasury, subject to disbursement, January 19, 1861, per Treasurer's Report__ 14,785.62
Total ______________________
---$358,129.89
The peculiar attitude of our relations with the Federal Govern- ment will, I trust, command the earnest attention of the Legis- lature. While the proud structure of government, built by our fathers, seems tottering to ruin, and some of its pillars are already torn loose by the hand of internal dissention, we may not alone contemplate the scene and await its total downfall. As parts yet of that structure, the solemn duty presses upon us to prove faithful to the trust imposed by the patriots and sages of the past, and to restore it to its original pride and grandeur if we can; and if we can not, to see that our own liberties perish not beneath its ruins. The election of the Black Republican candidate to the Presi- dency has involved the issue of the permanency of the Govern- ment upon the basis laid down by its founders. The principles of their party as developed in the passage of laws in many of the States, subversive of our rights and in con- tinual aggressions upon our institutions, have at last obtained a foothold on the Government itself. The struggle has been long, and the encroachment gradual, and at last, through our own folly and dissension alone, has resulted in placing one department of the Government in the hands of those who have aggressed upon us. The question presses itself upon our consideration, whether 'tis best to abandon the Gov- ernment, and acknowledge that our Constitution is a failure, or to maintain in the Union every constitutional right guaranteed to us.
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