Life and select literary remains of Sam Houston of Texas/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
The election of James Buchanan as President was an indication that the party to whose true interests Houston had given his patriotic devotion, were not gifted with his clear vision of interests impending in the future. He accepted the situation; wasted no energies in complaints; was sustained by conscious integrity of motive and correctness of judgment; and his " last days " were his "best" in the counsels of the Senate. Though assuming no prominence he watched occasions when duty called for action, and he quietly but faithfully employed them. This character of Houston shone out all the more conspicuous, because deep religious conviction, as well as patriotic fidelity, ruled him; and that, though the people of his own State listened no more to the counsel of age, but to the rash counsels of the young. The succession of Rehoboam to Solomon is but a type for ages and nations.
The meeting of the 35th Congress, December 7, 1857, just after the new Presidential election, found the veteran hero of Texas promptly in his seat in the Senate, where more than ever he was greeted with respect and reverence by his comrades, and by the people of Washington. The first session, beginning December 7, 1857, lasted till June 14, 1858; the second opened December 6, 1858, and closed March 4, 1859, which was the expiration of Houston's term. On the nth February, 1858, Houston presented resolutions of his State as to the impeachment of Judge Watrous. On the 16th February he proposed an act establishing a Protectorate by the U. S. Government over Mexico and Central America; urging, as oft before, that the people needed to be defended against the intrigues of political leaders, who oppressed them. On the 17th March, when a petition from Utah came to the Senate, and some from policy would suppress it, the commanding voice of Houston was heard from his seat: " Let us have it read."
Early in March, 1858, the news came that he had been superseded in the Senate, by vote of the Legislature of Texas. Houston made no allusion to it, except as references to it by other Senators compelled his notice. On the 19th March he used the following language: "I was not the enemy of slavery, nor was I its propagandist, nor will I ever be. I believe it was the breaking- down of the barrier that secured our institutions in the South, when the Missouri compromise line was abandoned. It was only opening the door to free soil. I wish it to be understood that there are more people in the South than the statesmen and politicians that are seen in her public assemblies. There is a gallant yeomanry, a chivalrous and generous population, whose hardy hands are adapted as well to toiling for the procurement of the necessaries of life and the nurture of their families, as they are to the application of arms to vindicate their rights. They are the men whose voice will be heard when you carry the question of union or disunion to their homes."
On the 23d March, when he was again called out, he said:
"The Legislature of Texas have superseded me in accordance with my wishes, by an election, to take effect March 4, 1859; till then it will be my duty to carry out their wishes. It has always been a cardinal principle of my democracy that when the will of a constituency on any measure is known to the representative, he is bound to execute, in all good faith, that known will; or he is bound to resign his situation, in order that another man may be selected who will carry out their views. I therefore vote for the bill pending, knowing it to be in accordance with the views of three-fourths, at least, of the Legislature of Texas."
On the 20th April Houston was drawn out in the only lengthy speech of this session. The bill proposing a Protectorate of the United States over Mexico and the Central American States, having been objected to, an amendment, omitting the mention of the latter, was pending. Forgetting the relation in which he now stood to his State, animated still by pure devotion to her interests in common with those of the country at large, Houston urged the following considerations:
"Texas is most interested in the proposed Protectorate of the 2,000 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico, for 1,000 miles are on the Texan line. Mexico is both powerless and faithless. I alone, of 261 members of the Senate and House of Representatives, who were present in December, 1823, when the Monroe doctrine was announced, remain here to sustain it. Nearly all who then favored it, Webster, Clay, Benton, and others, are now dead. It was to such men, counseled by a Cabinet of such men as John Quincy Adams, Wm. H. Crawford, John C. Calhoun, Samuel L. Southard, William Wirt, and John McLean, that President Monroe addressed himself in such confident and resolute language with reference to the ulterior purposes of this country. I shall never cease to remember the exultant delight with which his noble sentiments were hailed. They met not only a cordial, but an enthusiastic reception, both in and out of Congress. They were approved with as much unanimity as if the entire population of the Union had been previously prepared to re-echo their utterance. At that epoch there was a broad, towering spirit of nationality extant. The States stood in the endearing relation to each other .of one for all and all for one. The Constitution was their political text-book, the glory of the Republic their resolute aim. Practically there was but one party, animated but by one object, our upward and onward career. As if in atonement for the wrong inflicted on the country by the angry Missouri controversy, which was then fresh in every mind, there seemed to be no circumscription to that genuine patriotism which everywhere within our embraces displayed itself. May we not trust, Mr. President, that a similar result will ensue from the still more angry Kansas controversy, and that the benign influences of such results will be as, durable as creation! This will assuredly be the case if the only question asked within this Capitol, when an embryo State asks for admission into the Union, shall be, ' Does her Constitution conform to the national requirement, a Republican form of Government?'"
Houston then went into an extended history of Mr. Monroe's words, and how they were commented on; that he was opposed to the so-called Holy Alliance, which sought to re-establish Spain in her former possessions. "Its position was: 'that crowned heads have a derived power to preserve what is legally established, was, as it ought to be, the invariable policy of those whom God has rendered responsible for power.' This is its language. Our excellent Minister to the Netherlands, Christopher Hughes, on the 25th August, 1823, at Liverpool revealed it. Great Britain, through Minister Canning, sought the co-operation of our Government. Monroe's reply was as a destructive earthquake to hopes of American acquiescence, at Paris. It was hailed by the Marquis of Lansdowne, in the House of Lords, in the following February, who said: 'He could grudge to the United States the glory of having thus early thrown her shield over those struggles for freedom which were so important, not only to America, but to the whole world. Let their lordships look to what had happened in the United States. There, a population of 3,000,000 had, in forty years, been increased to 10,000,000.' Brougham, in the House of Commons, echoed the same sentiment. 'He trusted that as the United States had the glory of setting, we should have the good taste to follow the example of holding fast by free institutions, and of ever assisting our brother freemen, in whatever part of the globe they might be found, in placing bounds to that infamous alliance.' "In June, when called upon to vote, Houston responded to an objector: "Any one from motives of humanity is entitled to undertake to become a protector. I should not feel myself restrained, at my age, to interpose in behalf of humanity, and to arrest the cruelties and murders committed on a defenceless people."
True to his instinct, Houston, shortly after this speech, in view of the pressure of business in the Senate, moved a resolution that the Senate meet at 11 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock, that there might be more time given for deliberation on important measures. On the 5th May Houston replied to Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, who had disparaged West Point Military Academy because so many of its cadets did not finish their course, or left the service after completing their course. Houston approved this thinning of the ranks as a benefit to the service, and exclaimed: "Practical men, not martinets, are wanted." He urged, however, that the course might, in some respects, like those of colleges, require adaptation to the practical demands of the service; and said: "I doubt whether the extent to which theoretical study is carried there is essential to every officer constituting the army of the United States."
The meeting of the second session, December 6, 1858, found Houston cheerful and devoted in his Senatorial duties. On the 23d December, 1858, when the motion to go into the new hall, just then near completion, after the holidays, was pressed, Houston said:
"That as his term expired on the 4th March, it was a matter in which he could be disinterested. He urged, however, that the change was necessary for the health of the members." On the same day he presented and urged a memorial giving a pension to the widow of Col. Trumbull. He said that this duty, imposed by friends of his in the North, was imperative. Col. Trumbull did not fall in battle, but died from lingering disease contracted by exposure in the service. He urged that men who, after faithful and protracted preparation for the service, had lived for years on small salaries, were entitled to remuneration in the brief years of their later service. On the 10th January, 1859, when provision was proposed to exclude ex-Members of Congress from the floor of the new Senate Chamber, since they were so often there as mere lobbyists, Houston provoked merriment by a humorous allusion to its possible application to himself. On the 5th January Houston made honorable mention of Gen. Quitman, commending his gallantry in coming to the relief of Texas in her need; though by unworthy detention prevented from being present at the decisive battle. On the 12th January Houston spoke on the Pacific Railroad bill, urging that the southern route through Texas be chosen as the most economical, and least liable to interruption in winter. On the 31st January he spoke on the Indian reservation; urging to the last his views of domesticating the Indians, and declaring that he believed even the warlike Comanches might be trained, like other Mexican Indians, to habits of civilized society.
On the 28th February Houston delivered his farewell address to the Senate.
No man ever left the city of Washington with such unanimous esteem for mingled nobleness of character and faithfulness in action as Sam Houston. The following mention of him in the National Intelligencer, which for half a century was esteemed throughout the United States and Europe as the impartial chronicler of passing events—a mention made during the memorable session of the Peace Commissioners, who met in January, 1861 — deserves to be added as the closing record of his Congressional life. The Intelligencer of February 28, 1861, has this statement: "Texas is raising an army. The Legislature has authorized the new Governor to issue State bonds to the amount of $500,000 to repel invasion." In its issue of March 2d, the Intelligencer quotes as follows from the New York Journal of Commerce: "A letter from Cape Verde, Texas, received in this city from Col. Waite, makes no mention of an order to relieve Major-Gen. Twiggs, who delivered up the United States property to Texas. The telegraph does not say to whom, but probably not to Gov. Houston." The Intelligencer explains: " It was to the committee of three on public safety."
The Intelligencer of March 6th contains the following citation:
"The Austin, Texas, Intelligencer has been permitted to publish the following extract from a letter written by Gov. Houston to an old friend, defining his position: 'You say it is reported that I am for secession. Ask those who say this to point to a word of mine authorizing the statement. I have declared myself in favor of peace, of harmony, of compromise, in order to obtain a fair expression of the will of the people. Dangerous as may be the precedent inaugurated by the convention before the majesty of the law which recognizes the power to submit the question of disunion to the people, I yield, in the same spirit that actuated Andrew Jackson in paying the fine arbitrarily imposed on him at New Orleans. I am determined that those who would overthrow shall learn no lesson from me. I still believe that secession will bring ruin and civil war; yet, if the people will, I can bear it with them. Sixty-seven years of freedom, the recollection of past triumphs and sufferings, the memories of heroes, whom I have seen and known, and whose venerated shades would haunt my footsteps were I to falter now, may perhaps have made me too devoted to the Constitution and the Union. But, be it so. Did I believe that liberty and the rights of the South demanded the sacrifice I would not hesitate. I believe that less concession than was necessary to frame the Constitution will now preserve it. Thus believing, I can not vote for secession. I have hesitated to say anything on this topic, because I desire the people to act for themselves. My views are on record. Yet it is perhaps but right that my old friends should know that the charge that I am for secession is false."
In his memoir of Houston in "Johnson's Cyclopedia," Hon. A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, says: "His decided opposition to the policy of secession lost him the confidence of those for whom he had done so much."