William Carey Crane

“ On the 29th January, 1855, Houston in the Senate argued: "They are a people isolated in their interests, and solely dependent for protection and justice upon the Government of the United States. The Indians have been charged with an aggressive and hostile spirit toward the whites; but we find, upon inquiry, that every instance of that sort which has been imputed to them has been induced and provoked by the white man, either by acts of direct aggression upon the Indians, or by his own incaution, alluring them to a violation of the security of the whites." ”

“ Your men must stay, too, except one, whom I will send to your tribe with the intelligence of the fact.' The chief said: 'My tribe have not committed the robbery; it is a great distance from me; it is in another direction. I come from the rising sun; that is toward the setting sun; I was far from it; you are between me and it; I did not do it.' 'But,' said the officer, 'you are a prisoner.' The officer put him in the guard-house. Imprisonment is eternal infamy to an Indian. A prairie Indian would rather die a thousand deaths than submit to the disgrace of imprisonment. ”

“ You may wound and mutilate him as you please, you may crush every limb in the body of a prairie Indian, and if he can make no other resistance he will spit defiance at you when you come within his reach. ”

“ On the 3d March, just on the eve of the passage of the bill, Houston made that logical and earnest appeal which first appeared in the "Life of Sam Houston," published in New York the following winter. He said, in substance: "Mr. President, this unusual night's sitting is without precedent in the history of any previous Congress at this stage of the session. The extraordinary circumstances in which we find ourselves placed would seem to indicate a crisis in the affairs of the country of no ordinary importance; a crisis that portends either good or evil to our institutions. ”

“ Houston has been an inflexible Democrat. He is a disciple of the school of Jefferson and Jackson. He has filled many of the highest public offices, in all which he has acquitted himself with remarkable ability and with unsuspected integrity. In all positions, the most responsible as well as the most trying and perilous, he has been eminently successful. He has ever proved himself equal to any emergency in which he has been placed. ”

“ As the bill involved the removal of the Indians, Houston reviewed again his relations to them from 1818. In justifying his course on the Missouri Compromise, he alluded to the fact, that of three hundred men in the Senate and House of Representatives when that measure was finally made effective to the harmony of Northern and Southern interests, only three remained; Everett of Massachusetts, Benton of Missouri, and himself. He closed with this appeal: "We are acting as trustees for posterity; and according to our decision our children are to live in harmony or in anarchy! ”

“ Providence, in His own way, will accomplish all His purposes; and He may some day avenge the wrongs of the Indians upon our nation. As a people, we can save them; and the sooner the great work is begun, the sooner will humanity have cause to rejoice in its accomplishment." He closed with this eloquent appeal: "Sir, the friends who have survived the distinguished men who took prominent parts in the drama of the compromise of 1850, ought to feel gratified that those men are not capable of participating in the events of to-day ”

“ On the 15th July discussions again calling out contrasts between the army and navy came up, and for some weeks Houston's ripe and rare experience was called out. In a speech on the Naval Retiring Board he showed that there were more naval officers than could be employed, and that the army furnished in this regard no analogy, since there were so many ways in which army officers at home could be employed, while naval officers abroad could have no corresponding employ. ”

“ If the object of those to whom the Senator from Iowa has referred is to prevent men of infamous character and paupers from coming here, I agree with them. I would say, establish a law requiring every person from abroad, before being received here, to bring an endorsement from one of our Consuls abroad, and produce evidence of good character from the place, whence he emigrates, so that when he comes here we may receive him into full communion with all the rights guaranteed to him by the laws which may exist at the time of his emigration. ”

“ He showed that the South could only be injured by it; and especially argued that Texas, the terminus of the slave population, would have the largest disproportion between slaves and whites; and he exclaimed: "Then, sir, it will become the gulf of slavery, and there its terrible eddies will whirl, if convulsions take place." He then urged that no necessity for abrogation, since the Compromise, had arisen; adding: "Three years have passed in tranquillity and peace. How, and where, and why, and when, and with whom this measure originated. Heaven only knows ”

“ The suggestions made by our fathers in relation to their civilization and humanization are exemplified and illustrated in the present condition of the southern tribes, who have received the greatest benefits of the light shed on them ”

“ During the Executive session to receive and ratify new appointments made by the President, on April 6, 1853, Houston urged the printing of the Report of Bartlett and Gray, on New Mexico, on the ground that the thirst for such works should be encouraged in the American people. On the reassembling of Congress, the Kansas - Nebraska bill of Senator Douglas, was early introduced, and was urged as an administration measure. On the 15th February, 1854, Houston reviewed his own course as to the Missouri Compromise, which that bill proposed to set aside ”

“ It furnishes those in the North who are enemies of the South, with efficient weapons to contend with." Taking up then the case of the Indians, and alluding to the statement that God had made them an inferior race, and that there is no use in doing anything for them, he cited the argument of Ross, the Cherokee, in his defence of their treaty with the United States, as superior in skill and effect to Spanish diplomats as to Florida ”