207
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
that fortune is a capricious jade, and that politics are "mighty unsartin." [Laughter.] Should the gentleman come, I promise him the bread of peace, the reception of welcome; but still he cannot indoctrinate me with the principles of disunion. That I announce. That is a subject that shall be ruled out of our social intercourse, whilst it meets my unqualified condemnation without attaching it to the gentleman himself. [Applause in the galleries.] I take the Globe, and expect to have them all filed away, and I may occasionally try to refresh my reminiscences, and regale myself by adverting to some scenes that have been existing in the Senate of the United States, and throughout the nation. I shall hope that they are things that have been, but are not; for no sound will be so delightful to me in retirement as to hear that the Union is more closely bound together every day, cemented by affection and reciprocal kind offices; and that crimination and recrimination which has existed heretofore, has died away; that all agitation has subsid~d, and is forgotten; that like one great family in a grand migration to a happier condition of national existence, we are marching hand in hand, and that our people feel one common cause, one common home, and one common fraternity throughout the broad Union. But, Mr. President, notwithstanding the gentleman's character- istics, amenity and politness, his great amiability of disposition, and his bland kindness of demeanor, I am satisfied that when he gave utterance to these sentiments, he could not have been in earnest, and that they were merely an ebullition of the moment- nothing more. He says: [Houston quotes.] Sir, that would argue, if I were disposed to be suspicious-but I am very unsuspecting in my nature--that the gentleman who is ready to draw deductions from the conduct of others, was always looking at that prize himself [the presidency of the United States], and that on the least indication, as he believed, of a similar feeling in others, he was ready to detect it and set it down to their account rather as an offense than as a commendable quality. Again: [Quotation omitted.] Now, sir, I might call on the gentleman for some evidence of that, but I will not do it. I do not believe that it is tangible, and I do not wish to occupy time unnecessarily; but, really, I have never endeavored to chalk out·a course of policy in my life, with reference to the Presidency, that seemed half so significant as to premise the dissolution of the Union and the formation of a
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