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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
southern republic; for that clearly indicates ulterior views on the part of the Senator, with a mind that was suspicious-but not with me! Again: [Quotation omitted.] I should like to know what sacrifices of the interests of my country I have ever caused. Was it for sacrificing my country that I was immolated? or that I was pretermitted, is a better expression, for I consider it no sacrifice without some loss of life; and I am not hurt. [Laughter.] The cry was "abolition, and the three thousand preachers," because I advocated their right of petition to the Senate of the United States. These were the charges made against me: opposition to the Nebraska bill, voting against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I am satisfied that it was done, not altogether regardless of the circumstances that then existed, for it was known that about that time the Nebraska bill was introduced, when it was not contemplated to repeal the Missouri Compromise; in Providence, Rhode Island,3 I made a solemn declaration that I would vote against the bill, and resist it while I lived. Then the alternative was suggested, "let us bring in the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and Houston either is bound to retract what he has avowed publically, or to vote against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and that will put him down, by raising the cry of abolition against him. He will have to vote with gentlemen who are ultra in the North, and that will put him down, by identifying him with them. Besides, the Administration of the Government with all its pat- ronage, with all the newspaper press, and with the cry of Dem- ocracy, shall overwhelm this man, and he is no longer an obstacle; and if we have suspected that he had his eye on the Presidency, this will kill him at home, and then he will be killed abroad." There is a consolation in that part of it, and I am much obliged to them for it. I do not interfere with politics out of the House, or in the House, any more than I can help; but I see that it is complained that the northern Democracy is routed and broken down. I an- nounced in the dfscussion of the Nebraska bill, that if you dared to repeal the Missouri compromise, it would be giving the adver- saries of Democracy in the North a weapon with which they would discomfort and beat them down; that it was not sustaining the northern Democracy; that it was literally butchering them. Has it not been so? And what has the South gained by it? The result is that within a brief space of time, two States that would have been Indian territory; will be added to the North. It bas • .
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