209
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
placed Missouri in such a situation that she must of necessity yield to the surrounding influences, and add another State to the North. I shall not enlarge upon this; but that is what the South has gained. I forewarned them of the impending evil, and for that I was stricken down, so far as political influences could be brought to bear, I was pretermitted; and these were the offenses that I had committed. But the Southern vision is becoming clear; the beam is being taken out of their natural eyes, and they are beginning to comprehend fully the extent of the benefits flowing from that kind of dispensation. I opposed that repeal. I could not agree with gentlemen who advocated the measm·e of repealing the Missouri compromise, sanctified by so many Democratic as- sociations, by the approval of Monroe and his Cabinet, of Jack- son, of Polk, and of all the illustrious men; approved by all, rejected by none; not even a mooted question in the community. Its repeal was concocted with the eclat of a Democratic Ad- ministration, as a Democratic measure. But did that sanctify that curse to the South? No, sir; it could not convert it into a blessing; that was impossible. If some gentleman of the North who is considered ultra in politics-the gentleman from Massachusetts, or from New York, or from Ohio -had introduced a provision to repeal the Missouri compromise, , what reception would be proposition have met in the South? There was not a man in the whole South who would not have grasped his weapon of war and nished to the scene of combat, and been willing to have fallen upon that line in vindication of southern rights. Well, sir, did it sanctify it as a measure of blessing to the South that it was i~troduced not by a southern man, but by a northern man with southern principles? When he introduced it, it was adopted by the South and by both the exist- ing political parties which had but a few years before solemnly adjured the reagitation of the slavery question in their political conventions. Their solemn pledge was disregarded ; the torch was applied to the magazine of agitation; and what has been the condition of the country from that moment to this but agitation unnecessarily produced, for political ends and to manufacture Presidents? That was all of it, and the South is yet the sufferer; and I pray God that deeper calamities may not fall upon her. That measure is the initiative of misfortune to the South. These may have been my antecedents; but they are such as I am proud of; and I only regret that I did not triumph and enforce them with ability sufficient to have produced a trembling in this
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