own changed position. In order that Houston's course may be accurately viewed on his entrance into the Senate, a review of the progress of policy as to the leading measures before Congress when he was a Representative of Tennessee must be briefly traced.
During the four years of Houston in the House, from 1823 to 1827, as we have observed, the five agitating questions were the tariff, internal improvements, slavery, Indian policy, and foreign policy as to North American territory; while the Presidential election was an occasion every four years for the discussion of each and every question as it affected the several States. As observed, the tariff touched chiefly the interests of the New England manufacturing States, and of the Gulf or cotton-growing States; internal improvements were interests affecting mainly the advance of the Middle and Western States; slavery was a question of sentiment in the extreme North, and of practical life in the extreme South; while the Indian policy and foreign policy toward the English colonies on the north and the Spanish settlements at the southwest, was a question, indeed, of national sentiment, while it was vital mainly on border territory.
The intense excitement following the election of President Adams by Congress, which led to the election of President Jackson for two terms, was followed by a new era in Presidential elections. During forty-eight years, from 1799 to 1837, there had been but seven distinct administrations; the double terms of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, and the single terms of the two Adamses. From that period, while Houston was prominent in national affairs, during twenty-four years, or half the former period, from 1837 to 1861, there were eight distinct administrations, the single terms of Presidents Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan, with the intervening half terms of Presidents Harrison and Tyler, of Taylor and, Fillmore; parties succeeding each other, not only each four years, but intermediate between these successive elections. Since Houston left the House in 1827 the eighteen years of his absence from the Capitol had witnessed the administration of six successive occupants of the Presidential chair.
Meanwhile, the policy as to internal improvements had become so common an interest as to be generally accepted; the removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi had quieted border agitation; the foreign relations of Canada and Mexico had little to enlist public interest; and the Missouri Compromise had, for a quarter of a century, accomplished an end of deferring conflicting issues till the occupation and annexation of new territory should revive it. As
