INVITATION TO TEXAS NOMINATIONS. 45 



country a great service." There were so many of these urgent ap- 

 peals to me to go there, that finally I reconsidered my determina- 

 tion and consented to go. 



Now, fellow-citizens, I hear it suggested that I went to Texas 

 with too much parade and circvimstance ; that I too often was 

 found making sjjeeches from the platforms of cars and from the 

 balconies of hotels, when it would have been much more dignified 

 if I had simply delivered my Address at Houston and returned to 

 you. Well, gentlemen, I fully concur in the justice of that criticism, 

 and should have gladly deferred to it. Though all I did say was 

 said in the hope of promoting a clearer and better understanding 

 between the North and the South, I would have preferred to speak 

 more deliberately and less frequently. But invitations to speak, 

 poured in upon me by rail and by telegraph, were not less pressing 

 than numerous. I could not find time even to acknowledge, much 

 less accept, those invitations : so that a New-Orleans editor was 

 excusable — though I trust not justified- — in suggesting that my 

 farming, however indifferent, must be rather better than my breed- 

 ing. [Laughter.] I answered when I could ; I consented when I 

 could ; and for the rest I kept silence. 



And here, fellow-citizens, allow me to make some reply to a kin- 

 dred criticism from like friendly sovirces. It is urged, in seve- 

 ral journals, that my name has too often been before my countrymen 

 in connection with office ; and I fully concur in that suggestion. 

 If my own choice had been consulted, you know very well that 

 it would not have been so. But I am, to some extent, a pub- 

 lic man ; I am identified with party contests and party principles ; 

 and I am known to have reproved and reproached better men 

 than myself that they shrink from public life, leaving important 

 offices to be filled by second-rate men, because first-rate men will 

 not accept them. I have said this too often and too publicly to be 

 able now to shrink entirely out of sight and refuse to do the very 

 thing which I have required of others. So, then, during the last 

 twenty years, if I recollect rightly, my name has been four times 

 before you as a candidate ; once for the Constitutional Convention, 

 in which I for some time earned $6 per day and paid $i for my 

 board, and twice as a candidate for Congress: first in the lower 

 district of this City, where I was perfectly certain to be beaten sev- 

 eral thousand votes honestly and twice as many dishonestly. Our 

 friends in 1866 saw fit to use my name for Congress in that diss- 



