The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-08-17
Cen. Houston and the Texas ElcctlOn-The
First Howl from the Southern Dlsu.aionfsts.

First Howl from the Southern Disu..ionists.
The reported Union victory Of Gen. Sam
Houston in the late Texas election is beginning
70 reach the ears of the politicians The pun
gent little editorial commentary on the subject
which we publish today from the Charleston
Mercury bet1ays the temper in which the news
is received by the Southern disunionsts. 1t is q
good card for Houston; aud should the full re.
turns Of this Texas election verify our latest re-
ports, we may expect soon to hear the whole
pack Of our Southern fire. eaters in full chorus
after him. But as this hue and cry will attract
the attention of the sober aud conservative body
of the people, North and South, we would not be
surprised if Gen. Houston should become, before
the meeting of Congress, the most conspicuous
and the most popular Presidential candidate Of
the day.
Our Charleston contemporary, while confessiug
that the democratic regency of Texas were guilty
of foolish and fatal blunder in making the re-
opening of the African slave trade the great
question Of their late election, laments the re-
suit, as having raised to power one of the
greatest enemies to the South, and one of the
most unmitigated demagogues within our
borders-a Southern free soiler" This, how.
ever, is a mere matter Of opinion, in which
the weight of the facts and the argument are on
the other side. We know that our Southern
uItras have never forgiven those Southern men,
including Houston, who supported Mr.. Clay IS
great compromise. measures of 1850. We have
not forgotten the Southern secession conventions
and movements organized in opposition to those
measures after they had passed. But we also
remember that in South Carolina, Georgia, Ala
bama and Mississippi, the secessionists in those
State elections of 1851 were signally defeated by
fusion Of the law and order and Union men Of
all part ties.
Thus, throughout the South the course of
General Houston on those compromise measures
was fully endorsed by the people. What next?
The KansasNebraska bill, involving the repeal
Of the Missouri compromise. Granted that
General Houston saw nothing in that scheme but
firebrand of sectional agitation and discord
full Of danger and disaster to the South, how
far was he wrong? What has the South gained
by that Presidential electioneering project Of
Northern politicians, or rather what has the
South not lost? Where is Kansas? Where nov
is the once all-powerful Northern wing of the
democratic party? Where the late majority in
Congress? And to what cause are we indebted
for this new and overshadowing anti-slavery
party the North? These questions need ne an
swers. 1t is enough to know that the conse-
quences Of that Kansas-Nebraska bill fully con-
firm the sagacity and patriotism of General
Houston as a Southern statesman in bis opposi-
ton to the measure
The simple truth u.s. that the South Carolina
politicians have entertained a strong prejudice
against General Houston from the moment that
he preferred to part from Nr. Calhoun rather than
abandon those old Union democratic ideas which
marked the course Of General Jackson. The
first great mistake of Mr.. Calhoun was that
ridiculous quarrel with Old Hickory which re.
suited in giving Martin Van Buren, the inside
track for the succession; and the last mistake of
the great Carolina statesman was involved in
that erroneous conception of purely Southern
sectional party upon the zone idea'' of slaverv
1t must be conceded that General Houston has
never been member Of that ultra Southern fac
ton thus originating, but which at this day, in
its foolish demands for carte blanche to the fill
busters, slave code for the Territories, and the
revival Of the African slave trade, has aban
doped the constitutional limits beyond which
Mt Calhoun never departed. But 70 all Union
loving men, North end South-to all men whose