I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time. This feeling has been impressed my heart by the instruction and example of the great man [Andrew Jackson] whom when I was a boy, I followed as a soldier. I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man. I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles. Whether his policy was right or wrong, he built up the glory of the nation. To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country-the young men. In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her. Texas, to be respected must be polite. Santa Anna living, can be of incalculable benefit to Texas; Santa Anna dead, would just be another dead Mexican. A manufacture of bologna sausage accused a man whom he had discharged of spreading a report that the manufacturer's sausage was made of dog meat.The accused man protested: I never said any such thing, but I will tell you what I did say. I said that where bologna sausages are plentiful, dogs are scarce. The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government. | 
