WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1846
455
to the preservation and well-being of this Union? Is it necessary to the furtherance of our interests and the reestablishment and upbuilding of our nation that a certain measure should be adopted, or a certain policy pursued? If these questions can be answered affirmatively, then we have only to march forward in the highway to the destiny which is before us. vVe are not to falter in a decisive act because England may frown or smile on any particular line of our policy. We are now called on to adopt a certain measure, and to pursue it with resolute and unfaltering firmness. We can only judge of the course that England intends to pursue, and the sentiment that her government entertains at this time towards us, from the tone of her journals. We may have recourse to her newspapers, but not to opinions of her min- istry, in order to ascertain with any degree of certainty the views and designs which are entertained by her Majesty's government on this question. The British ministry have given only evasive intimations in reference to the proposition rejected by their envoy here; and judging from the less obscure and uncertain expres- sions in the English newspapers, we have little to apprehend from their favorable disposition towards our interests. Honorable senators have spoken of "compromise." I abhor the term. It sounds like "temporize." It implies that something unreasonable is demanded by one of the parties, and that the other, through over anxiety, is prepared or required to make a sacrifice of rights. "Tempori.ze" implies that insincerity and duplicity are to pass current for open professions, when it is nothing more than the concealment of that candor which it would be honorable to express. T'hese terms should be expunged from the political as well as social vocabularies of the world. Mr. President, I prefer the term "adjustment," for I am de- cidedly in favor of an adjustment of this controversy. The term implies everything desirable in the present phase of this question. We know there is diversity of opinion, and we should all be in favor of doing what is right-of arriving at truth, and carrying out the objects, which alone can be done by an adjustment rather than compromise. We need ask nothing but what is right. We should be satisfied that justice is on our side; and when satisfied of that, we should scrupulously contend for our rights without reference to consequences. We should say, "This is our right; we will maintain it and abide the worse." Much as I m.ight deprecate war, which is full of desolation and calamity to all orders of society-anxious as I would be to eschew
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