at which the honorable Senator from Georgia [Mr. Iverson] concluded his remarks, I should then have taxed the Senate for a short time; but as the usual hour had arrived for our adjournment, I thought it proper to defer what I had to say until this morning. Before proceeding to notice the remarks of the honorable Senator, I desire to afford him an opportunity of giving a more explicit explanation to one expression which he used in relation to myself. When he referred to the course which I had pursued in the Senate on former occasions, he spoke of my "antecedents." If the gentleman will be so kind as to explain to me the full scope of that observation, I shall be better enabled to compass my view of the subject. I should be glad if the Senator would think proper to explain what he meant by my "antecedents," as he twice used that term in the course of his remarks.
Mr. Iverson. Well, sir, I meant simply this: as far as my observation of the Senator's political course had gone—and it covered a number of years—I understood him upon all occasions, in season and out of season, to be crying hosannas to the Union; and I meant, in connection with that, the remark which I made, that when, in the face of the Northern aggression, in the face of the rapid and powerful march of the spirit of abolitionism in the Northern States, and the dangers to which the institutions of the South were subjected by it, I heard a Southern man constantly singing praises to the Union, and denouncing everybody who should call it in question under any circumstances, I suspected that he was endeavoring to make himself a popular man in the North, for the purpose of reaching high political position.
Mr. Houston. Mr. President, the honorable Senator need not repeat the whole of his exposition of that particular remark of his, for he has heretofore been very explicit; and I intend, in the course of my observations, to advert to that particular part of his speech. He has not instanced any particular occasion to which he intended to apply the term "antecedents"; no vote, no action of mine, by which I have gone out of the way for the purpose of lauding the Union, or condemning any gentlemen who had thought contrary to me on that subject. I have combated opinions that I thought heretical, and I am always ready to combat them—whether they be in accordance with Northern or Southern views; but not for the purpose of making personal assaults or reflections on gentlemen. If my antecedents are looked out, it will be found that they have been entirely consistent. I know to what the gentleman must necessarily have referred, as he made the remark in connection with his allusion to the recent defeats which I have sustained. The reference must have been to my vote for the organization of Oregon, my vote for the admission of California, and my vote in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill. All these votes were in strict accordance with the instructions that I derived from my own State, and under the Constitution of the Union and the Democratic measures of this Government; so that in them I am sustained. But if my advocacy of the Union has caused my immolation, politically, as the Senator says, I exult and triumph in that as the most glorious antecedent of my existence; one that I hail with pride and consolation as an American; because I have always looked to the Union as the sheet-anchor of our safety and our national grandeur and prosperity. If for that I have been stricken down, I rejoice
