354
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
"The fact that nearly every federal office holder in Texas is supporting Houston gives plausibility to the report. Is it so or not?" "If Mr. Buchanan endorses Houston, away with both of them." And this is the editors of the Telegraph, a gentleman who, a few months since, wrote the most extravagant eulogy upon me that mortal man ever penned. I never knew how great a man I was until I had read it, and now how conveniently he takes it all back! I think the people are entitled to vote for me this time, if they want to, and it is wrong to abuse Mr. Buchanan, because he cannot help it. If he endorses me, it is because I have sus- tained him while these men have deserted him. Whether he does it, it is not for me to say. I know not upon what ground the statement is made, but it must have come from some reliable source, or this editor would not have become so excited, upon the subject. I cherish no unkindness against the editor at Hous- ton. He may go on and blacken my character as his malignity may dictate, but it is wrong for him to make that the cause of aspersing the President. This editor should not write for the people, for he has no feelings in common with them. A man who declares that "manual labo1· is a degredation," and "that those who devote themselves to it for life, with occasional exceptions, are below the ave1·age scale of humanity," knows nothing of the feelings which throb for their country's good, in the hearts of the hard-fisted yeomanry of the country. So long as we confine ourselves to the Constitution and the Union, we need fear no danger to our institutions. Abandon these--let dissolution come, and anarchy awaits us. Look at the condition of Mexico, read the pronunciamentos of her rival Chieftains. The plan of Tucabyo was the proclamation of anarchy. It overthrew the constitution of 1824, and since, pronunciamentos have followed each other in rapid succession, each bearing its train of pillage, murder and or,>pression. If we depart from the constitution, we may expect a like result. We will have civil war without end. .Make a Southern Confederacy, and there would be a Northern one. These men who have shown a disregard for the struggles of our fathers, will care but little for Union, when their chief end is attained. Chieftains in every state in the Union would issue their pronunciamentos, and followers would flock to their standard. The scenes that would ensue, I will not shock you by relating. God when He intends to destroy men first ma~es them mad. He has maddened Mexico. She has not the terrible
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