Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/69

culminated, Texan martyrs won immortality, Texan liberty was won, and Texan independence was secured. The Convention which made the declaration, met March 1, 1836. Gen. Houston having been returned as a delegate to this Convention, arrived at Washington on the last day of February. The Convention assembled, composed of true men; men tried by every standard of character: great,, heroic, and patriotic; men not inferior in many elements of character to any others of any similar assembly. The day after the organization, the second of March, 1836, the Declaration of Independence was adopted unanimously and signed. Public feeling was mature. Events had precipitated the adoption of this measure; but the people of Texas hailed it with joy and acclamation. The people of the United States, who were conversant with the issues made in the struggle and with the great magnitude of the results to follow, received the news with equal joy; and nowhere was the intelligence more welcome than at "the White House," where Andrew Jackson was filling the Presidential chair for the last year of his term. The spirit of the hero of New Orleans, and the spirit of the coming hero of San Jacinto, were in full sympathy.