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The fact you don't like it and/or goes against your own historical sentiments is irrelevant...
Now then? I have expended enough energy and need to go make a mile-high bacon sandwich!
^^^^^^This is what I actually absorbed from your latest epistle
Its time to sum all this up and conclude our arguments
You cannot disprove that somebody didn't say think or feel something especially in a one time situation. I cannot prove Houston didn't give this speech, although I doubt he gave it in the form printed in the Houston Telegraph, a defunct newspaper with an obvious agenda, in a pro-secession market. Like Houston wrote in his letter to Sam jr., they LYE to suite the market. I dispute your single source and will leave it up to whoever is reading this to determine its historical value, . The conventional wisdom is that Houston kept his non-secessionist views until the end, and I will stick with the conventional wisdom on this issue.
I think the Southern slave trade used violence and intimidation not only against those held in servitude but on the general population as well. This was most evident in the results of the referendum of 1861 which in effect overturned the election of Houston as Governor in 1859, the last legitimate election in Texas before the Civil war began. Because it was the last election in which people could freely express their will without fear of retaliation of some sort.
Secessionist did betray their oaths to the US Constitution. One you cannot defend a constitution by seceding from it, and Two the attack on Fort Sumter which was property of the US Government is what started hostilities to begin with
Somehow suggesting that Houston was "deposed" instead of removed, and that there is somehow a difference between the two is ridicules. They had no business requiring a duly elected Governor to take a different oath midway through his term. Any claim that this new constitution that required this oath was lawfully enacted, is to legitimize the fruit from the poison tree. The referendum was illegitimate, the secession convention was bogus, thus the constitution that resulted from those bodies and acts was bogus as well. The Texas state legislators, who voted for secession, were traitors, and in the pockets of the slave industry to boot. If they wanted secession they should have all resigned and formed a new government that had no connection what-so-ever, to the Government of the state constitution ratified in 1845.
Yes the State Legislature should apologize to Sam Houston for trampling on his authority as Governor and removing him from office without cause. Then they should promise never to usurp the will of the people again with post-facto (election) changes in the law.
I also bet we have difference in our bacon sandwiches as well. That debate is for another thread of course.
=Jack Lance;30717489]^^^^^^This is what I actually absorbed from your latest epistle
Its time to sum all this up and conclude our arguments
I agree it is time we sum up and conclude this argument.
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You cannot disprove that somebody didn't say think or feel something especially in a one time situation. I cannot prove Houston didn't give this speech, although I doubt he gave it in the form printed in the Houston Telegraph, a defunct newspaper with an obvious agenda, in a pro-secession market.
Back up a minute. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the Houston Telegraph and New York Times may have published the same writings/speech...but yet for different purposes?? I have some journalistic credentials -- perhaps you do too -- so let's be real. Fact might be that opposite publications (one pro-secession, another anti-South) might publish the same speech/missive and be truthful in doing so for different audiences, and for different reasons.
Bottom line? Did Houston say what was published or not? Were those his true beliefs or did someone just make them up and submit them under his name? I stand by that everything written has the ring of his style of writing and what he did in life. How such is taken as per the right course for Texas or not, is another thing.
And you don't answer that one, I notice...
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Like Houston wrote in his letter to Sam jr., they LYE to suite the market.
This point is not-applicable to the discussion. Did he say what he said or not?
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I dispute your single source and will leave it up to whoever is reading this to determine its historical value
I absolutely agree with that. You got it. I am perfectly willing to submit it to others as to which of us has made the better case without wavering and deflection. Fair enough!
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The conventional wisdom is that Houston kept his non-secessionist views until the end, and I will stick with the conventional wisdom on this issue.
LOL You are quite loose with the phrase "conventional wisdom". As it is, the two words do not always belong together, anyway. Houston was a Southern Unionist. As was Robert E. Lee. As was Throckmorton of Texas. As were many other Confederate figures. But, when it came down to it? The same stuck with their state and region. Would you have done different?
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I think the Southern slave trade used violence and intimidation not only against those held in servitude but on the general population as well.
LOL You are obviously in the middle stages of self-destruction. There was no Southern slave trade. What the hell are you talking about??? The "slave-trade" was completely in the hands of northeastern shipping merchants. Not a single slave-ship was ever chartered out of a Southern port. Read these links sometime:
This was most evident in the results of the referendum of 1861 which in effect overturned the election of Houston as Governor in 1859, the last legitimate election in Texas before the Civil war began. Because it was the last election in which people could freely express their will without fear of retaliation of some sort.
Gawd......this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. You really are grasping, aren't you? What sort of retaliation are you talking about? Now, up North, Lincoln declared martial law and shut down dissenting newspapers and approved the arrest and persecution of those even suspected of Southern sympathies. Did anything similar take place in Texas (or the South at large?).
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Secessionist did betray their oaths to the US Constitution. One you cannot defend a constitution by seceding from it, and Two the attack on Fort Sumter which was property of the US Government is what started hostilities to begin with
To even begin to make the case you are feebly attempting to make, you must first show how secession was violating the Constitution.
The 13 colonies seceded from England. There is no way around it. Texas seceded from Mexico. We were rebels. What did the Southern states do that was different?
The attack on Fort Sumter? *rubs hands together with pure glee* I was HOPING you might go with this old stuff.
For one thing? Ft. Sumter was an installation in CSA territorial waters and occupied by armed troops of another nation whose leadership (the Lincoln administration) were determined to use military force to coerce another nation back into a Union with which they had peacefully withdrawn from, prior. The Southern states had done the North no wrong, and had offered every "peace branch" in the world to them. Including paying for all installations (which included Ft. Sumter), a mutually beneficial economic and defense alliance, and the Mississippi River up for free navigation.
What more could be offered and/or fair to both sides?
A federal armament in the South Carolina harbor could no more be permanently permitted than could the British in the Boston harbor during the American Revolution.
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Somehow suggesting that Houston was "deposed" instead of removed, and that there is somehow a difference between the two is ridicules.
LOL Houston was deposed. If you don't get the difference, then take it up with political science terminology. Houston was NOT removed. He chose not to answer his call to take the oath to the provisional Confederate Constitution, and the office of governor was declared vacant. That was a rule of law then and still is.
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They had no business requiring a duly elected Governor to take a different oath midway through his term. Any claim that this new constitution that required this oath was lawfully enacted, is to legitimize the fruit from the poison tree. The referendum was illegitimate, the secession convention was bogus, thus the constitution that resulted from those bodies and acts was bogus as well. The Texas state legislators, who voted for secession, were traitors, and in the pockets of the slave industry to boot. If they wanted secession they should have all resigned and formed a new government that had no connection what-so-ever, to the Government of the state constitution ratified in 1845.
I must admit I having a good time listening to you further self-destruct and rant and rave.
But ok, I will play along for a moment or two more... Traitors? What were the American colonists of 1776? What were the Texicans of 1836?
Hell, so far as traitors go with the former Confederates? Even the northern administration admitted they could not convict them of "treason. Here is the rationale of chief justice Salmon Chase to secretary of war Edwin Stanton (from Burke Davis' book The Long Surrender):
******** "If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion...His (Jeff Davis') capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason."
Burke Davis then continued on page 214, noting that a congressional committee proposed a special court for Davis' trial, headed by Judge Franz Lieber. He wrote: "After studying more than 270,000 Confederate documents, seeking evidence against Davis, the court discouraged the War Department: 'Davis will be found not guilty, and we shall stand there completely beaten'."
What the radical Yankees and their lawyers were admitting among themselves (but quite obviously not for the historical record) was that they and Lincoln had just fought a war of aggression against the Southern states and their people, a war that had taken or maimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans, both North and South, and they had not one shred of constitutional justification for having done so, nor had they any constitutional right to have impeded the Southern states when they chose to withdraw from a Union for which they were paying 83% of all the expenses, while getting precious little back for it, save insults from the North.
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Yes the State Legislature should apologize to Sam Houston for trampling on his authority as Governor and removing him from office without cause. Then they should promise never to usurp the will of the people again with post-facto (election) changes in the law.
*shakes head with amusement*. The will of the people was expressed in the vote itself and election of delegates and the same with the Texas legislature duly elected which upheld the actions of the secession convention. There was nothing "post-facto" about it. In fact, this is beyond ridiculous to even say so. Are you just playing pocket pool or something?
Anyway, why don't you go ahead and apologize if you want. As said earlier, apologies mean nothing at all if not given by individuals to other living individuals. Go ahead. I will listen respectfully....even if quite amused by the spectacle.
BTW? You never have answered which side you would have gone with? Would it have been Texas (and the other Southern states of the CSA), or the North? That is a fair question, I think!
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I also bet we have difference in our bacon sandwiches as well. That debate is for another thread of course.
No so sure on that one, in terms of differences. But I guess we can find out. I love mine with bread toasted, slathered with salad-dressing, decked with crispy bacon, covered with salted sliced tomatoes, lots of dill pickles, some diced onions, and lettuce. THEN topped with another layer of toasted bread and ready to lave into!
Ahhhh, a sweet bit of heaven! What say you?
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The end
That works for me. This has about run its course. Enjoyed the exchange even if it did get testy sometime.
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...this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. You really are grasping, aren't you? What sort of retaliation are you talking about? Now, up North, Lincoln declared martial law and shut down dissenting newspapers and approved the arrest and persecution of those even suspected of Southern sympathies. Did anything similar take place in Texas (or the South at large?). 
