WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
384
between the acts of individuals and those of a people, between the wild ravings of fanatics and that public sentiment which truly represents the masses of the people. It is in the diversity of opinion that Democracy may rest securely. The right to think adversely, to us is a guarantee of American Republicanism, and though this privilege may often be carried to extremes, and to our detriment, yet the very safety of our institutions depends upon our maintaining it as a republican principle. When thought becomes treason, the traitor is as much the enemy of one section as of the other. Its overt acts we must repel. Its expression by those inimical to our institutions, where they do not exist, need affect us nothing. The alarm at their endeavors is needless and but strengthens them,-the eternal din which has echoed to that song of hostility to the South is music to their ears. Their aim is to array sectionalism upon their side, and thus promote strife and confusion. We should meet their clamor with the contempt of a people who fear no invasion of their rights, and instead of feeding the flame of discord, which a few in both sections have kindled, lend our endeavors toward quenching it altogether. How happy would have been the result if the attention of Statesmen North and South, had been as much directed towards promoting harmony between the States, and cementing those fraternal bonds which can alone hold us together as a people, as towards promoting the strife of sections, and the antagonisms which are fast dividing us. Half the care-half the thought which has been spent to meet sectionalism by sectionalism, bitterness by bitterness, and abolition by disunion, would have made this peo- ple, today, a happy, united and hopeful nation. Elected by the people, I am responsible to the people alone. Indebted to no clique or caucus for the position that I occupy, I shall act alike beyond the wishes and control of such. Looking to the people in their broad conservatism and their patriotism to sustain my endeavors, I shall pursue the course which will best conduce to the prosperity of Texas. Regarding my election as an endorsement of the sentiments enunciated by me when I yielded my name to the people, I shall feel as the representative of the popular will, an additional incentive to make my adminis- tration accord with those principles. Should my endeavors to turn the attention of the Legislature toward these questions, whose solutions bear the prosperity and happiness of the people of Texas to the sacrifice of those national abstractions which should have no place in our councils, fail of success, I have but fo
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