I should like to know what sacrifice of the interests of my country I have ever caused. Was it for sacrificing my country that I was immolated? or that I was pretermitted, is a better expression, for I consider it no sacrifice without some loss of life; and I am not hurt. [Laughter.] The cry was, "Abolition, and the three thousand preachers," because I advocated their right of petition to the Senate of the United States. These were the charges made against me: opposition to the Nebraska bill, voting against the repeal of the Missouri compromise. I am satisfied that it was done, not altogether regardless of the circumstances that then existed, for it was known that about the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, when it was not contemplated to repeal the Missouri compromise, in Providence, Rhode Island, I made a solemn declaration that I would vote against the bill, and resist it while I lived. Then the alternative was suggested, " Let us bring in the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and Houston is either bound to retract what he has avowed publicly, or to vote against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and that will put him down, by raising the cry of abolition against him. He will have to vote with gentlemen who are ultra in the North, and that will put him down, by identifying him with them Besides, the Administration of the Government, with all its patronage, with all the newspaper press, and with the cry of Democracy, shall overwhelm this man, and he is no longer an obstacle; and if we have suspected he had his eye on the Presidency, this will kill him at home, and then he will be killed abroad." There is a consolation in that part of it, and I am much obliged to them for it.
I do not interfere with politics out of the House or in the House, any more than I can help; but I see that it is complained that the Northern Democracy is routed and broken down. I announced in the discussion of the Nebraska bill, that if you dared to repeal the Missouri compromise, it would be giving the adversaries of the Democracy in the North a weapon with which they would discomfit and beat them down; that it was not sustaining the Northern Democracy; that it was literally butchering them. Has it not been so? And what has the South gained by it? The result is that within a brief space of time, two States that would have been Indian territory, will be added to the North. It has placed Missouri in such a situation that she must of necessity yield to the surrounding influences, and add another State to the North. I shall not enlarge upon this; but that is what the South gained. I forewarned them of the impending evil, and for that I was stricken down; so far as political influences could be brought to bear, I was pretermitted; and these were the offenses that I had committed. But the Southern vision is becoming clear; the beam is being taken out of their natural eyes, and they are beginning to comprehend fully the extent of the benefits flowing from that kind of dispensation. I opposed that repeal. I could not agree with gentlemen who advocated the measure of repealing the Missouri compromise, sanctified by so many Democratic associations, by the approval of Monroe and his Cabinet, of Jackson, of Polk, and of all the illustrious men; approved by all; rejected by none; not even a mooted question in the community. Its repeal was concocted here, and from here it was radiated throughout the country with the eclat of a Democratic Administration, as a Democratic measure.
