William Carey Crane

“ When at last the Mississippi River, as well as the line of northern lakes, became as much as inland roads, highways for commerce, it was time that the partial system—in a double sense of that term—become both a general and an equable system. Houston came into Congress just at the time when such a system was to be considered and inaugurated. While Tennessee had her special claims as a sharer in this general provision, it was for other States that the legislation first called for was to be made ”

“ When the Atlantic colonies declared themselves independent, though too far from the seat of war to be brought into action, the settlers armed to meet the emergency; and they declared their adhesion to the struggle for independence. When the war closed, the State of North Carolina, which claimed that her boundaries extended to the Mississippi, at first agreed to cede to the United States her claim to territory west of the Alleghanies ”

“ It was in these words: 'That the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power.' " Since the extreme utterances of Mr. Webster, shortly after Houston's entrance into Congress, and Houston's position as to Mexico subsequent to Texan independence and annexation had their origin and seeming propriety in these declarations, their consideration becomes vital at the opening of Houston's national career. ”

“ On the other hand, as Bancroft has traced, the spirit of secular appropriation brought the white race into constant competition with the Indians in every experiment at agriculture; the superior race could not amalgamate or live in society with the inferior; some in Massachusetts, as well as in Virginia, favored the enslaving or extirpation of the Indian tribes on the precedent of the Israelites among the tribes of Canaan ”

“ Houston was to be tested in this new sphere.
Elected in 1823 from the ninth, or last formed, district of Tennessee to a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives at the First Session of the Eighteenth Congress, three special circumstances were likely to test the capacity and character of a young man of mark. These were: first, the fresh energy of the people forming a new State; second, the vital interests, affecting all the States, whose issues were to be debated and settled at that era ”

“ Sent from Massachusetts to the special session of Congress met in May, 1813, as an opposer of the war with Great Britain, he made that maiden speech, on June loth, which brought out his leadership on questions of international law. Remaining till the close of the war, to accomplish the great end of a return to specie payments and of a national banking system which should overcome the commercial losses of a purely State bank currency, Webster retired from public office, to devote himself to private business. Though urged to take a place in the Senate, he declined ”

“ The improvement as well as the defence of the ports on the Atlantic coast, doubtless limited the views of many at the adoption of the Constitution. The duty of laying out military and postal roads necessarily involved the construction of roads for the transportation of inter-State commercial products. ”