351
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
My principles you all know. I have ever been opposed to banks,-opposed to internal improvements by the general Govern- ment,-opposed to a distribution of the public lands among the States,-opposed to taking the power from the hands of the peo- ple,-o_pposed to special monopolies,-opposed to a .protective tariff,-opposed to a latitudinous construction of the Constitu- tion,-opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles. Will those who are so bitterly opposing me now come up and compare notes? Well, Mr. Buchanan became President. He is an honest man. He is a patriot. He took the reins of Government under trying circumstances. Mr. Pierce had thrown himself into the hands of free-soilers and disunionists. Men of ultra creeds were to be found in the high places of Government. He built them up in his Messages. He produced the Utah difficulty, by giving such scoundrels as Brigham Young and others whom he sent there control of affairs. Our relations with Great Britain were un- settled. A system of fraud in the performance of Government contracts had grown up. These were all entailed upon Mr. Buchanan, and he had to meet them. He has been honest and faithful, and if all the evils have not be remedied, it has not been from a want of effort on his part. You did well to make him President, and when all the clouds which have gathered about his administration are cleared up, you will find that sur- rounded as he has been by factions which have crippled his administration, and by difficulties :which were not of his own making, he has acted wisely and as a patriot. He has quieted the Kansas and Utah troubles. He has obtained an abandonment of the right of search by Great Britain. He has breasted the shock of "squatter sovereignty." If he has not fully met the expectations of the country; it is the fault of Congress. Did he not advocate the Pacific Railroad, and intervention in the affairs of Mexico, to protect our commerce and the lives and property of our citizens? Did he not ask Congress to give him the means to protect our interests in Central America? Has he not advo- cated the acquisition of Cuba? And though there are measures to which objection may be made upon principle,-the increase of the tariff, for instance, I cannot but regard them as those of expediency alone, to meet a pressing emergency. His antecedents show that he has stood with the Democratic party in its old battles on the tariff question. If the finances of the Country have been paralyzed, the fault lies at the door of Congress. He cannot
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