WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
353
they unite men of the same views, who come up bearing the wishes of the people. Purge the party of disunionists and corrupt poli- ticians. Let your Conventions be free from their shackles, or else fall back upon your rights as the people, and judge of men by their principles and their acts. I want proper Conventions or none at all, and the people have already declared that they agree with me. My time has been so occupied in the public affairs that I have not had much to do with newspapers,-but one came to my notice the other day which contains an article that I must be per- mitted to read. It is published at the city of Houston, by a gentle- man from the region of abolitionism, and I would not say so, if he had not joined with men who attack others because they are of northern birth. He says,- "It is said that Mr. Buchanan endorses Gen. Houston and that consequently Democrats should vote for him. Is this the rule? Are Democrats to take the endorsement of any man against the evidence of their own senses? Who is Mr. Buchanan or Mr. anybody else that he should command us to vote for the great offender?" · Offender! Of-fen-der ! Now I'd like to know how I've offended him? "Who is Mr. Buchanan that he should command us to send Houston back to coquette again with abolitionism?" He may be afraid I'll cut him out, and take his place. "Has it come to this, that Mr. Buchanan is the dictator of the party that placed him in power? Away with the idea! But Mr. Buchanan, we believe, has done no such thing. This too is a story trumped up by these bolters who are moving the world for excuses for their conduct." Now he can't call me a bolter, for they read me out of the party, and if I do any bolting I shall have to bolt back. "If Buchanan endorses Houston, then away with both and all of them. The people know what the principles are on which their safety rests, and no man, be he President or what not can lead honest men away from their principles for the sake of men. If Buchanan endorses Houston and if he still holds to his protective ·tariff notions, and if he also endorses Gen. Cass in his more protection doctrine, whereby our naturalized citizens can claim no protection from our flag, why then we put it to the Democracy whether it is not time to question the principles of the President himself. At any rate we don't want him to dictate to the people of Texas who they .shall make Governor or send to the Senate.
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