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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
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of a nation; and an injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result in the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without morally commit- ting any offensive secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppres- sion; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they make a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure." Again, in his message of January, 1832, after fully discussing the issues forced upon the country, he adds: "The right of a people of a single State to absolve themselves at will, and without the consent of the other States, from their most solemn obligations and to hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this Union, can not be acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant to the principles upon which the General Government is constituted, and to the object which it is expressly formed to attain." This great man of the people has been gathered to his fathers. Over his grave at the Hermitage let the American nation declare in his own emphatic language: "The Union-it must and shall be preserved." These are not all the mighty names which can be arrayed in behalf of the Union, and against the doctrines of secession. When did the ardent and enlightened mind of Henry Clay, when his attention was drawn to the subject of the Union, fail to offer his tribute to its· worth, decline to render the most scathing rebuke to those who dared for one moment to depreciate its value? Nor am I disposed to close this message, without citing another illustrious name, who, without regard to party, boldly planted his feet on the platform of the Constitution and the Union-a man who faced all the fury of the fanatical passions of his own section in behalf of the compromise measures of 1850, which guaranteed the equality of the South under the Constitution. I allude to Daniel Webster. He was a man whose heart was great enough to embrace the whole Union, and whose intellect could span the globe.
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