The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1889-03-28

their shadows BEFORE" saw the calamities
about to beset his country, he used all the
energies of his great soul to arrest it, and
all in vain. But what manner of man was
he and what relation has he borae to his
state that they now sought in the trans
ports of passion to strip of his robes. 1t
was he, Mr.. Speaker, who, when his state
was invaded and when Mexico sought to
aggravate despotism by the anar-
chy of daily revolutions and to pour
on the head of Texas the bar
barrie disorders of her own people,
made his heart his country's rampant and
carved
BEAUTIFUL CHILD OF LIBERTY
from the womb of that unnatural and
despotic mother. Aud this child which he
lad nursed to manhood, whose laws he
had fashioned, whose institutions he had
established, this child he was asked to en-
bark on the tempest-tossed sea of revQ-
luton. Mr.. Speaker, what did he do? He
but asked that the cup might pass from
him, and when pressed to his lips he
drank it to the dregs. While other sons
of Texas, not wronged like he, Joined the
Federal army and waged war on their
that, though she had exiled him
from her counsels, he bowed his great
head on his breast and exclaimed, "Oh Je-
russlem!" and wept for calamities he could
not avert. have looked history over for
such a spectacle and have not found it.
Ooriolanious retired his victorious legends
from the walls of Rome, gave up his re-
venge and subjected himself to the impu-
tation of treaohery, but it was the tears
and entreaties of wife and mother and
not patriotism which saved the Roman al
tars. Regulus, when carried captive to
Carthage and then offered his liberty if he
would prevail on the Roman senate to sign
a dishonorable peace, took last look at
his loved ones, denounced the treaty, and
preferred an ignominious death to the
DIsHoNoR OF HIS COUNTRY,
The precincts of sacred history are conse-
Grated ground, and cannot without irrever-
ence draw a line parallel to its pathway but
it belongs to Houston to blaze the first
pathway in historywhere disowned patriot
lays down the honors of lifetime for the
peace of his state-the first pathway
from throne to cottage along which
man made of flesh and blood walked from
oho pnlOuo ITO udu uldueS anu Iudue Sredbj
disowned, iusulted and exiled without
staining his hand in blood or raising his
voice in anathemas, and when arrived at
that cottage turned on that throne bene-
dictions and blessings. That pathway,
Mr.. Speaker, will, to generations yet
unborn, when patriotic endeavor
seeks to excite patriotic action,
stand above the world like the
milky way in the skies, bright, shining and
studded with stars, and the man who
walked that way will be pointed to down
the lane of centuries yet unborn, un-
crowned and single, above the fogs and
passions of the world and drinks his in
SEPARATION from the gods. And now, Mr..
Speaker, let US show to the world that a
nations gratitude outlasts the passions of
an hour, survives revolutions and con-
fagrations, and by anthem and by eulogy,
with uncovered heads, restore his portrait
to its former station, and, like the sun
flower, "turn on our god when he sets
the same look which we turned when
he rose"