47
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
all possible favors to the new States which make application for admission into the Union. I am very anxious to extend to them every favor and every consideration that can be beneficial to them upon just constitutional principles; but beyond that I am not prepared to go. If there is any law or provision of the Constitution by which Minnesota can come into the Union with three Representatives, or with two Representatives, I am pre- pared to vote for allowing her that number; but I have not heard any adduced, nor have I understood any argument to show that justice or injustice would be done here by admitting her with a greater or less number. Now, it seems to me that it will be an act of justice to allow Minnesota one member, because she has no legal or constitu- tional claims to a greater number than one. It seems to me very strange that you are conferring a benefit on Minnesota by giving her three Representatives-a thing that has never been done to any new State, as far as I know. It is said she has a large fraction beyond the number requisite for one mem- ber, and that this fraction entitles her to a Representative. Why, sir, there is Iowa, and there is Texas, with four times the population of Minnesota, and they were admitted with only two members each. Why not extend this benefit to them? It would 11ot even then be in the same ratio that you are conferring benefits on Minnesota by giving her three Representatives and two Senators. To carry out the same proposition you ought to give Iowa and Texas seven members each. I presume their pop- ulation, according to the present ratio, would entitle them to seven members. · Sir, I am opposed to substituting expediency in place of prin- ciple. The Senator from Ohio objected to our applying a Pro- crustean principle in this case. He applied this 1·emark to the apportionment of repres~ntation. Sir, the Constitution is my Procrustean standard by which things must be measured; and I am not for stretching the Constitution, nor a;m I disposed to go beyond its limits in the admission of new States. I am will- ing to extend to them every necessary constitutional favor, and to fill the measure to the brim; but I am not disposed to dis- 1·egard the Constitution and the laws of the country. I do not see how we can allow Minnesota a representation upon suppo- sitions in which gentlemen here indulge, that she has a large population who have not been enumerated. We are told that there are some thirty thousand square miles of her territory
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