ad a personal history as romantic as
that of an ancient crusader. He was a native of Virginia, a
representative in Congress from Tennessee, and Governor of that
State before he was thirty-five. He was the intimate and trusted
friend of Jackson. Having resigned his governorship on account of
domestic trouble, he fled from civilized life, joined the Indians
of the Western plains, roved with them for years, adopted their
habits, and was made chief of a tribe. Returning to association
with white men, he emigrated to Texas and led the revolt against
Mexico, fought battles and was victorious, organized a new republic
and was made its President. Then he turned to his native land,
bearing in his hand the gift of a great dominion. Once more under
the Union flag, he sat in the Capitol as a senator of the United
States from Texas. At threescore years he was still in the full
vigor of life. Always a member of the Democratic party he was a
devoted adherent of the Union, and his love for it had but increased
in exile. He stood by Mr. Clay against the Southern Democrats in
the angry contest of 1850, declaring that "if the Union must be
dismembered" he "prayed God that its ruins might be the monument
of his own grave." He "desired no epitaph to tell that he survived
it." Against the madness of repealing the Missouri Compromise he
entered a protest and a warning. He notified his Southern friends
that the dissolution of the Union might be involved in the dangerous
step. He alone, of the Southern Democrats in the Senate, voted
against the mischievous measure. When three thousand clergymen of
New England sent their remonstrance against the repeal, they were
fiercely attacked and denounced by Douglas and by senators from
the South. Houston vindicated their right to speak and did battle
for them with a warmth and zeal which specially commended him to
Northern sympathy. All these facts combined--his romantic history,
his unflinching steadiness of purpose, his unswerving devotion to
the Union--would have made him an irresistibly strong candidate
had he been presented. But the very sources of his strength were
the sources of his weakness. His nomination would have been a
rebuke to every man who had voted for the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, and, rather than submit to that, the Southern Democrats,
and Northern Democrats like Pierce and Douglas and Cass, would
accept defeat. Victory with Houston would be their condemnatio