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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1847
Mr. Houston. Such a proposition was not acted upon. No such 1·esolution was passed. Mr. Butler, admitted that it was not passed, but it was offered; and Mr. Ritchie said in his paper he would not have gone before such a committee. Mr. Houston. Then it was what he had said-a condemnation without trial. l\ir. Ritchie was condemned without a hearing, and for what? For publishing an article, signed "VINDICATOR," alleging certain things against the Senate. Well, this body was amenable to public opinion as well as an individual of society. They had no exemption from public opinion. They were amen- able to it. Though termed the "Supreme Legislature" by the advocates of this power, they possessed not the right which they had assumed to exercise. The rights of the citizen are well ascer- tained and defined, and their privileges are well understood; and whenever this body shall define its privileges, the citizen will have some guide to direct him. But though this exclusion neither affected Mr. Ritchie in his purse nor in his person, it was an indignity-a chastisement-and it must be viewed as an encroach- ment on the freedom of the press. He was not an advocate for the licentiousness of the press; but he would rather see it in- creased, if possible, than see this body assume a right which was not inherent in it. Such an exercise of power, such an assumption of right, was dangerous. But there was no danger to be appre- hended from the licentiousness of the press. There was a conflict among editors which would lead to the detection and e.xposure of falsehood. Their warfare differed from an assumption of power by the Senate, when it was directed against an individual. If the object of the Senate was to redress a grievance, it had signally failed. It would not check the licentiousness of the press; and though one man might be the victim here, yet public opinion would vindicate and sustain him abroad. The punishment of the Senate might fall on a man who had rendered himself obnoxious as a party man; but a man who has been an advocate of prin- ciples which he believes to be right for the last half century, will not be induced, by all the terrors of the machinery of this Senate, to abandon those principles. They have grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, and will remain unchanged in his declining years. Such an individual would be sustained by the people; for, however proud they might be of their representa- tives on this floor, they were equally proud of the liberties of the citizen. Whatever trenches on the rights of the citizen, will ne\'er
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