to sustain their officers. The older States felt indignant that
Texas, already seven times larger than Xew York, thirty-six
times larger than Massachusetts and two hundred and sixty
times larger than Rhode Island, should want to grasp 98,000
square miles more. Civil war was imminent. A congress-
man from South Carolina addressed a letter to President Tyler
saying: "The first gun fired on the plains of Santa Fe or
IS^ew Mexico to coerce Texas will be a signal for the whole
South to rush to her defense." But the profound statesman-
ship of Houston and Rusk, aided by such statesmen as Thos.
H. Benton and Frank Pierce, affected a peaceable compromise.
Texas sold her interest in the Santa Fe territory for fifteen mil-
lion dollars. This paid the last cent of her public debt,
and left a handsome sum in her treasury. Houston's pro-
found statesmanship stipulated that two millions of this sum
should be set apart forever for free schools, the interest alone
to be used. Thus our hero in war secured the first dollar for
free schools ever placed in the Texas treasury, and laid the
foundation of our present grand system of education.
But Houston looked at every department of progress and
prosperity for Texas. He was one of the first of our great
statesmen that saw the indispensable necessity of railroads for
the full development of Texas. But one of the first giant
frauds ever committed on Texas was the charter for a "Texas
Railroad, ISTavigation and Banking Company," in 1839, with .
a capital stock of five million dollars, to be increased to ten
millions — all on paper. This huge fraud, after cheating
innocent men out of fifty or sixty thousand dollars, evaporated.
This first attempt at railroads gave Texas a supreme dis-
gust for the whole system. ^Added to this, the city of Hous-
ton with her Houston Telefrayli with a circulation ten times
576 The Life axd Weitixgs of
larger than any other paper in Texas, all bitterly opposed rail-
roads, and denounced any moYement on their behalf as an
eflFort to revive the old fraud of 1837. But Houston, Rusk,
E. M. Pease, Bermond and a few other far-seeing men were
the ardent advocates of railroads.
I shall never forget General Houston's visit to my house
in 1853. He and General Rusk had visited Austin and made
addresses before the Legislature on the great importance of
railroads for the future development of Texas. He said to me :
"I come by request of our committee in favor of railroads to
enlist you in a subject that should be dear to every Texan
heart. Texas must now decide whether she is to be a mere
cow pen and sheep ranch, or a great Empire State. If she is
content to be a sheep ranch or cow pen she has about all she
needs; but if she wishes to be the grandest State on the conti-
nent she must have railroads. She has no navigable rivers, no
inland bays or seas, but is the best adapted for a grand system
of cheap railroads of any State on the continent. She has no
mountains to tunnel, and is almost a natural grade and can be
fitted for ties and roailroad irons at comparatively little cost.
But she has no freights and no travel to pay capitalists to
build her roads; therefore she must give the railroad man a
heavy bonus of sixteen sections to every mile after the first
twenty-five miles are put in running order. We can make
an arrangement to give this bonus, reserving every alternate
section for free schools, and when the roads are built the re-
served alternate section will be worth five times as much as
both sections were before the railroad was built. But," he
added, ''short-sighted men and demagogues, headed, I am
sorry to say, by the gallant city of Houston and the learned
but impracticable Dr. Erancis [Moore, are bitterly opposed to
railroads, but propose to build an 'adobe road' from Houston
to the Brazos timbers at Hempstead. To overcome this vast
array of opposition we must have the vigorous aid of every
man who thinks, whether he wears a black cravat, a white cra-
vat, or no cravat at all. And our committee wants you to
spike the big cannon at Houston and silence its thunders
against railroads and use all your influence for railroads."
T promised to enter the fight with "fervency and zeal,"
provided the State reserved the^ight to control the roads as
Dr. Kufus C. Burleson. 577
highways. The historic city went to work on her "adobe
road," graded it up to Hockley, with the assurance of the
learned Dr. Moore that the farmers would pack it down in the
summer -and fall, and its large amount of lime would convert
it into "an adobe surface" as hard as the "adobe brick" of
which the halls of the Montezumas were built centuries ago.
But alas, "the best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang
aglee." The whole "adobe road bogged down in a continent of
mud." But the merchant princes and the grand practical
men of Houston rushed up to Austin, got a charter for the
Houston and Texas Central railroad and clapped the ties down
on the well graded "adobe road," and pusht^d forward the
Houston and Texas Central, and Houston became the grand
railroad center and pride of all Texas.
How few men enjoying the luxury of riding over the
vast prairies of Texas in a magnificent Pullman car ever think
how much they owe to Houston, Kusk, Pease, Bremon and
their compeers who fought the first grand battle for railroads !
The crowning glory of their plan is, they so combined the rail-
road interests and the interests of education that to-day Texas
has the largest educational fund of any country on the globe
— over $200,000,000 — and is to-day the fourth railroad State
in the Union and will soon quadruple any other State. But
another grand index of Houston's profound statesmanship
was, he detected the blighting influence of foreign immigra-
tion, largely of paupers and convicts, on the prosperity of
America. Houston saw, forty years ago, our Chinese trouble,
and sought to guard against it. He and other great statesmen
were profoundly penetrated with the conviction that " A.merl-
cans should rule America," and that Washington was right
when on the night before the battle of Yorktown he issued
the order, "Put none but Americans on guard." He com-
prehended the eternal truth of the Bible, "that nations that
mix themselves, part iron and part clay, are weak." Hence,
he and other profoimd statesmen organized "The American
Party," which became familiarly known as the "Knownothing
Party."
The true object of this party was not to exclude or op-
press fof-eigners, but to adopt the old Roman law, by which
no man became a citizen of Rome by residing three years, or
37
578 The Life and Writings of
f]ftj years, and paying $3 for his naturalization papers. The
old Roman law allowed no man to become a Roman, unless
he was eminent for his honesty, intelligence and patriotism,
and all the virtues of a Brutus or a (^ato. The x\merican
party wanted not only to adopt this grand old law of the Ro-
mans, but to blot out the disgraceful scramble for office, and
especially for the loaves and fishes thereof.
But these noble ends were misunderstood ; were fearfully
opposed by all men who coveted the foreign vote. The Amer-
ican party itself made a fearful mistake by waging war against
foreigners and against the Catholic religion. The funda-
mental principles of the American party ^vill live again and
^vill prove a blessing, not only to all native Americans, but a
protection to all honest foreigners and Catholics.
ISTothing showed the profound statesmanship of Houston
so grandly as his devotion to the Federal Union founded by
the toils and tears and blood of our revolutionary fathers.
Every grand thinker and philosopher, from Bishop Berkley
to Webster and Gladstone, has firmly believed that God so
formed the majestic rivers, mountains and valleys of this con-
tinent, as to be the home of the most united and the grandest
nation in the world. Bishop Berkley was so profoundly pene-
trated with this conviction, that he came to America, in 1729,
with a noble aspiration to found a college in Rhode Island, to
prepare the people of this grand continent for their magnifi-
cent and united destiny. Washington, Jefferson, Clay, Jack-
son and Houston all regarded the permanent union of the
United States as the only hope of peace and prosperity at
home and protection and glory abroad. General Jackson ex-
pressed the sentiment of all the grandest statesmen when he
said : "The Federal Union, by the eternal, must and shall be
preserved." They looked with shuddering at every disposi-
tion to alienate and divide the diflferent sections of this Union
into petty States or kingdoms, each hostile against the other,
as were the States of Greece, and as are the present govern-
ments of Europe, requiring 2,000,000 of armed men to pro-
tect and destroy each other. Hence Houston opposed earn-
estly the repeal of the Missouri compromise. He said this is
the entering wedge of untold calamities to the American peo-
ple. He said by the compromise measures of 1850 we had
Dr. Rufus C. Burleson. 579
throttled tlio monster of abolitionism, tliat was goading to
madness the hot-headed men of the South and preparing for
disunion and rivers of blood.
I never shall forget his prediction and portrayal of the
horrors of disunion and secession, as we stood alone in the
beautiful live oak grove in front of the Baptist church at In-
dependence. He said: "John Bell and I were the only
Southern men who voted against the repeal of the Missouri
compromise, and we have been bitterly denounced as pander-
ing to ISTorthern fanaticism to secure the presidency. I see
the editors and politicians of Texas are denouncing me, and
some old and dear friends have turned away from me rudely,
saying T have become a traitor to the South.. But while that
is the most unpopular vote I ever gave, it was the wisest and
the most patriotic. Stephen A. Douglass introduced the re-
peal of the Missouri compromise to catch the vote of the
South. He is now preparing another bill, called 'squatter sov-
ereignty,' to catch the JSTorth, and he hopes that the two will
place him in the presidential chair. But, alas, it opens the
agitation of the slavery question, which has been crushed by
the compromise measures of 1850. W. H. Seward and the
Abolitionists are rejoicing, and are quoting with joy the fool-
ish declaration of Rhett, who said : 'The slave power is ag-
gressive, and I expect to call the roll of my slaves at the foot
of Bunker Hill, in Boston.' The result of all this will be, in
1856, the Free Soil party will run a candidate for president,
and the whole vote will be astounding. In 1860, the Free
Soil party, uniting with the Abolitionists, will elect the presi-
dent of the United States. Then will come the tocsin of war
and clamor for secession. Led on by Calhoun, the Rhetts,
the Yanceys and the "Wigfalls, the South will secede. Each
section, in profound blindness and ignorance of the other, will
rush madly into war, each anticipating an easy victory. But,
alas ! alas !" he said, "Oh ! what fields of blood, what scenes
of horror, Avhat mighty cities in smoke and ruins — it is brother
murdering brother, it is Greek meeting Greek — rush on over
my vision. But, alas ! I see my beloved South go down in the
unequal contest, in a sea of blood and smoking ruin. I see
the proud neck of the South under the slimy heel of the
^orth. I see slavery abolished; military despotism estab-
580 The Life and "Weitixos of
lished over the South. I see the faithful servants, instead of
being Christianized and sent home to Christianize their own
Africa, freed from all guide and control, turned loose to go to
ruin and ultimate extermination, as the poor Indian has.
And, Oh ! mj country ! my country ! nothing but the arms of
the God of Liberty can save America from anarchy, lawless-
ness, socialism and all the monster evils that will follow the
downfall of the South and the supreriiacy of the Abolitionist
party. The North, after crushing the South, will herself
reap the bitter curses of her 'higher law' doctrine, which sim-
ply means a contempt of all law, and makes blind passions and
the spirit of the Jacobin mobs rule the land. Assassination,
'gun-powder plots," and wild anarchy will engulf her cities.
Oh ! my dear sir, I urge you and all Christian men to appoint
davs of praver and fasting, that God mav avert these dreadful
evils."
Jeremiah or Daniel could hardly have predicted more
clearly the bloody evils of secession than Houston did in 1852.
All the world admired the profound penetration of Burke in
predicting, years beforehand, the terrible convulsions of Eu-
ope, and Napoleon, who when a prisoner on the lonely island
of St. Helena, foretold the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty
and the elevation of a ISTapoleon to the throne of France. Our
Houston, with equal penetration, predicted the horrors of the
abolition and secession war. He almost beheld the infamous
assassination of Lincoln and Garfield and the horrors of the
intended explosion of the "Haymarket" by Ihe anachists in
Chicago; also the hundred thousand charges of dynamite now
sleeping under Chicago and the great cities of the North. How
fearfully these convulsions followed. John Brown made his
infamous raid on the South. Helper had published his infa-
mous "Impending Crisis" (endorsed by thirty-two congress-
men), advising the negroes of the South to rise up at midnight,
murder their masters and convert the South into blood and
ruin. All these culminated in the election of Lincoln, the
abolition candidate, as Houston predicted eight years before.
The whole South was goaded to madness. But Houston de-
termined to exert every power on earth to save Texas from the
yawning gulf. He had stumped the State against secession,
and had been elected governor largely by his personal popu-
Dr. Kufus C. Burleson. 581
larity. But a convention of the people had been called, and
it was believed the ordinance of secession would be passed.
General Houston came to Independence, and when we
were alone, seated under a live oak tree, he said : "I am mak-
ing my last effort to save Texas from the yawning gulf of
ruin. I have been to San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Galves-
ton, Huntsville, and now come to Independence as the great
educational center, endeavoring to arouse the patriots of
Texas to a united action to save Texas. Our plan is for lead-
ing men in all the great centers of influence to meet simulta-
neously in their different localities and proclaim their unal-
terable devotion to the South and opposition to the abolition
fanaticism, but to declare that our wisest and safest plan is to
make our fight in the Union and under the Stars and Stripes.
I am happy to say that leading men in all these localities cor-
dially approve of this plan. Will you aid us in this great
struggle ?"
I assuerd him I would, with all my heart, but expressed
great fears that all was lost. It was after midnight. He
said: "Our only hope is in God. Let us kneel down and
pray to the God of Liberty." Oh ! what prayers and tears
jvere poured out before God.
At the time appointed, a noble company of students and
citizens assembled on the public square at Id dependence.
Kesolutions were read according with the plan suggested by
Houston, "to remain in. the Union and fight for our rights
under the Stars and Stripes." Students John C. Watson and
B. H. Carroll advocated the affirmative, T. I. Dunklin and
M. M. Vanhurst advocated the negative. Dr. D. R. Wallace
and other eminent men say that the speeches would have done
credit to the halls of Congress. The affirmative was carried
overwhelmingly, and the Stars and Stripes were suspended
from a liberty pole fifty feet high.
We waited eagerly to hear from the simultaneous upris-
ing of other centers of influence, especially the roar of tho old
lion in Austin. But, alas, in a few days General Houston
sent me word : "All is lost. When the hour came we could
not rally a dozen men bold enough to come to the front and
avow their convictions."
582 The Life axd Writings of
A few days afterwardS; Mr. Task Clay, mayor of Inde-
pendence, cut down our liberty pole, and the Stars and Stripes
lay tattered and torn in the dust.
A few days afterwards General Houston was deposed
from the governor's chair, and all his gloomy forebodings and
predictions ridiculed as the vagaries of an old fogy. A lead-
ing member of the convention, of the smart Aleck family, said
he would drink all the blood that was shed. But, alas, when
the blood began to flow in torrents at Bull Bun and Manas-
sas, he put on a white cravat, turned up the whites of his eyes
and said : "I will play Jonah no longer. I must preach the
gospel." And he became a chaplain in the home guard di-
"v^sion. Another leading member of the convention said :
"ISTot a gun will be fired, l^obody will fight but the Abo-
litionists, and if they fire a gun I will take fifty buck negroes
and march into Boston." Thus madness reigned. Horace
Greeley said: "I spit on any theory that does not end war
and restore the Union in six months." And at the first battle
of Manassas the great Abolitionist leader, Wilson, with a
dozen other congressmen, went out with baskets of champagne
to drink with shouts of applause when they reached Bichmond.
The battle cry was : "On to Bichmond ! Bag Jefferson Davis
and his cabinet before sundown !" But, alas ! instead of bag-
ging Jefferson Da^ds and his cabinet, he had to desert his car-
riage, mount a bare-back mule and make his escape through
the woods, and rushing into Washington, cried : "All is lost.
The Southern devils have sacked everything."
But while such folly and madness were ruling our ISTa-
tional councils, Houston and the wiser men retired to weep
and pray.
Just before Houston was deposed Lincoln sent a special
messenger to Austin disguised as "a horse trader," proposing
to send at once fifty thousand men to hold Texas in the Union
with Houston as governor. But Houston replied : "Every
drop of my blood will I give for Texas, and not one drop
against Texas."
After he Avas deposed and thrust out of ofiice ho passed
through Independence with his angel wife and lovely family
on his way to Cedar Bayou, north of Galveston. He spent a
few days in Indepondenoo. much of the time in prayer and
Dr. Eufus C. Bukleson. 583
tears. In his lonely forest home he looked with a sad heart
on fields covered with smoke and blood; brother arrayed
against brother. He lived to hear that his own first born had
been badly wounded on the battlefield. Finally, God in
mercy relieved him from his sufferings.
The last address he ever made was to a vast audience
who had gathered in front of the hotel in Houston to pay their
respects to a hero who had done so much for Texas. He said :
"I have been buffeted by the waves; I have been borne along
Time's ocean until shattered and worn I approach the narrow
isthmus which divides me from the sea of eternity. Ere I
step forward to journey through the pilgrimage of death, I
would say that all my thoughts and hopes are with my country.
GENERAL SAM HOUSTON'S GRAVE.
If one impulse rises above another it is for the happiness of
these people. The welfare and glory of Texas will be the
uppermost thought while a spark of life lingers in this breast."
Under these terrible accumulations of sorrow his health
speedily declined, and he died July 26, 1863, aged seventy
years.
The Houston Telegraph announced his death, and said :
"Let us shed tears to his memory, due one who has filled so
much of our affection. Let the whole people bury with him
what unkindness they may have. Let his monument be in the
hearts of all Texans."
584 The Life and Writings of
Thus lived "and thus, died General Sam Houston, one of
the few immortal names that were not born to die." Though
thirty years have passed, every year demonstrates more his
profound wisdom and patriotism and causes every true Texan
to say : "Oh ! that America had only had a hundred Hous-
tons. Clays and Jacksons." It would have saved her two
million lives, and, including pensions, two hundred billion dol-
lars.
In conclusion I wish to state clearly and emphasize earn-
estly the seven great characteristics that made Sam Houston
the hero of San Jacinto and the father of Texas :
1. Love of Mother — His love of mother filled his whole
soul and permeated his whole being. Her prayers, her faith,
her counsels and her examples followed him from the cradle
to the grave; follow^ed him in city and in wilderness, in pros-
perity and adversity. Her influence, in connection ^vith his
angel wife, Maggie Lee, brought him back from his wander-
ings to duty, glory, and to God.
2. Reverence for God and Eeligion — General Houston
is a striking illustration of the declaration of the great Thomas
Carlyle : "A strong religious sentiment is a characteristic of
all great minds." He said to me : "In all my dark trials and
struggles, I have always gone alone, at night, for special se-
cret prayer. My retreat from Gonzales to San Jacinto was
the most remarkable ever known in history. Every day I
dreaded my ovm men more than Santa Anna. The great ma-
jority of the men were eager for the battle at once, and hot-
headed men, not knowing the great plan of my campaign,
were ready to excite mutiny, depose me, rush headlong to bat-
tle, and, perchance, make another Alamo or Goliad. Goaded
to madness by these men, I sometimes raved and cursed like
a madman, yet every night, when all was quiet, I went alone
and spent a half an hour on my knees in prayer, though so un-
worthy." I never shall forget that half hour spent with him
in prayer, just before he was deposed from the governorship,
in 1861. It was midnight; we were all alone, and kneeling
by a rock under a live oak tree, in Independence, w^e poured
out our tears and prayers before the God of Washington and
liberty, to save our country from the bloody vortex of civil
war. It was this profound religious feeling, misguided, that
De. Rufus C. Burleson. 585
caused him to place such coiifidenec iu the flight of eagles that
were so abundant fifty years ago, in the Southwest.
3. Unfaltering Courage, Moral and Physical — As a
boy he charged amid showers of arrows and bullets the strong
fortifications of the Indians, at Tohopeka or Horseshoe.
There was never a moment that he would not have charged
into a cannon's mouth at the call of duty. He was the peer
of Alexander, of Caesar, of Washington. In the path of duty
he could smile at the frowns and curses of the whole world.
4. Profound Penetration — He read at a glance the se-
cret motives of men. He penetrated the depths and heights
and breadths of every question. He could banish all personal,
all local feeling, and look at the facts just as they were, strip-
ped of all colorings and all disguises, I have known men and
grappled with them on the great questions of education and
religion, from San Antonio, Texas, to Bangor, Maine, but
have never known Houston's equal in profound, far-seeing
penetration. Hence, while so many great men blundered, he
foresaw and foretold the results.
5. Love of Country — His love of country, like his love
of mother, intensified his whole being. He could ever say,
as King David : "If I forget thee, let my right hand forget
her cunning. If I prefer not thee to my chief joy, let my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." His great soul
(while an intense Southerner) embraced our whole country,
from ocean to ocean and from gulf to lakes.
6. Ivepublican Simplicity — He had a supreme contempt
for all display and extravagance in dress, equipage and build-
ings. He regarded all ' such extravagance as criminal, not
only because it wasted money, that should be used for higher
and nobler purposes, but tended to bribery, corruption and
bankruptcy.
7. Political Honesty — He would sooner have put his
arm in the fire than take one cent by fraud from the public
treasury. He would as soon have defrauded his -svidowed
mother as his mother country. He gave his blood, his toil,
his prayers and his whole life to his mother country, and died
poor, as Thomas Benton says, all honest public men should
die. But, alas ! how fearfully we have apostatized ! Oh !
whither are our millionaire congressmen driving out nation ?
586 The Life a^;d Writings of
Butj finally, let us examine still more intently what
were the causes that moulded and erected those seven grand,
golden pillars, on which rests the fame of Houston, and from
which it will grow brighter and brighter till the stars grow