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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
State, to the head of the column of the southern division of the Union? The time may come-yes, will come, sir, when, if she shall be as properly cared for by this Government, in her inter- course with Mexico, as New York has been cared for in her intercourse with the British Provinces, she may be to that divi- sion what the Empire State is to the northern division. But, whatever her future power, I trust that the language of her sons will ever be, in contradistinction to the supercilious expres- sions which fell from the lips of a distinguished Senator a few days ago, as far as concerns the exercise of might for the pur- pose of sectional oppression:
"O ! 'tis excellent To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant."
Whenever one section of this country presumes upon its strength for the oppression of the other, then will our Constitu- tion be a mockery, and it would matter not how soon it was severed into a thousand atoms and scattered to the four winds. If the principles are disregarded upon which the annexation of Texas was consummated, there will be for her neither honor nor interest in the Union; if the mighty, in the face of written law, can place with impunity an iron yoke upon the neck of the weak, Texas will be at no loss how to act, or where to go, before the blow aimed at her vitals is inflicted. In a spirit of good faith she entered the Federal fold. By that spirit she will continue to be influenced until it is attempted to make her the victim of Federal wrong. As she will violate no Federal rights, so will she submit to no violation of her rights by Federal authority. The covenant that she entered into with the Gov- ernment must be observed, or it will be annulled. Louisiana was a purchase, California, New Mexico, and Utah a conquest; but Texas was a voluntary annexation. If the condition of her admission is not complied with on the one part, it is not bind- ing on the other. If I know Texas, she will not submit to the threatened degradation foreshadowed in the recent speech of the Senator from New York. She would prefer restoration to that independence which she once enjoyed, to the ignominy ensuing from sectional dictation. Sorrowing for the mistake which she had committed in sacrificing her independence at the altar of her patriotism, she would unfurl again the banner of the "lone star" to the breeze, and reenter upon a national career, where,
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