WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
440
The sentiment which he leaves on record I repeat: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." With such teachings and such lights from those of the past and of modern times, can Texas forget her duty to herself? These were the men who formed the first structure of perfect liberty and self-government in the world. We have the exposition of the principles upon which this sublime structure of self-govern- ment was based. Are we to cast them all away? Are we to quit our haven of safety, in which we are secure, happy, and pros- perous, and risk our all upon the uncertainty of an untried experiment, which seems only to open the door to revolution and anarchy? Could we for a moment entertain such a maddened thought, we need only extend our imagination across the Rio Grade, and there, exemplified to a small extent, behold the effects of secession and disunion. A disregard for constitutional govern- ment has involved Mexico in all the horrors of civil war, with robbery, murder, rapine, unrestrained. There it is simply civ'il war, brother armed against brother, partisan against partisan; but to us it would be all these, added to the combined efforts of the powers of tyranny to crush out liberty. A responsibility rests upon us, because our advantages, aris- ing from self-government, and a more perfect freedom than any ever enjoyed, render us the more accountable. I need not call the attention of the Legislature to a period so recent as the annexation of Texas to the American Union. The feeling that prevailed in the community in anticipation of that event, and the ardent desire for its consummation in almost every heart in Texas, can testify to the sincerity of our people when they took upon themselves the duties of citizens of the United States. A generation has not half passed since the great object was accomplished; and are we to be seduced already into any measures fraught with principles that would involve us in the inconsistency of impairing the integrity of our formation, and that, too, when it would involve us, in my opinion, in the crime of raising our hands against the Constitution and the Union, which have sheltered and defended us, and which we are solemnly bound to support and maintain? The good sense of the nation can not overlook the fact that we are one people and one kindred; that our productions, occu- pations, and interests are not more diversified in one section of the Union than another. If the vain hope of a Southern Con- federacy would be realized upon the basis of all the slave States, there would soon be found enough diversity of Northern and
Powered by FlippingBook