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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
and the whole affair proved highly satisfactory to the large assemblage present. 1 The Har1-ison Flag (Ma1·shall), October 7, 1869. 2 This was the father of A. J. Yates. See Opal Rosson, "Life of Andrew Janeway Yates," a master's thesis, in The University of Texas Library. EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH AT A BARBECUE AT MONTGOMERY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1859 1 General Houston said that he cherished the kindest recollections for old Montgomery, that the first barbecue he ever attended in Texas was at Montgomery in 1841. Montgomery was ever in favor of organized government-always gave a united vote in the early struggles for Independence; from which circumstances he denominated her the "Tenth Legion." He referred briefly to his Kansas-Nebraska vote; said that the people were beginning to see that it was a fraud upon the South that Governor Hammond of South Carolina, Jeff Davis and Brown of Mississippi-the most ultra Southern men-had pro- nounced it a fraud and cheat upon the South; that in voting with Seward and other abolitionists upon the Kansas Bill, he was like old dog Tray-in bad company-but that the sequel had shown that he was right; that since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Kansas had been lost; free soilism had been ex- tended four hundred and fifty miles to the South, and that all Southern territory was now open to the inroads of free-soilism. As to those men who had called him an abolitionist and a traitor to the South, he would only say that they were a set of perfect gentlemen; but that if he should tell them so, they would not believe it; he said that he had shed blood enough on Southern soil to wash away all charges against him. As to slavery, he said that nature had fixed its boundary- it would go where the climate, soil, etc., demanded it; he had never raised his voice against it; he was not in favor of reopen- ing the African slave trade in order to christianize the negroes; that to reopen the trade would cause cotton to fall to three or four cents per pound; the poor man would be injured by it in consequence of the reduction of the price of labor. He said that he was not opposed to it on his own account, but for the sake of posterity. Ever since the days of Jackson, there had been a Disunion Southern Confederacy Party. Their object was office. By the
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