Sam Houston

   Sam Houston was one of America's greatest patriots.  To give you a quick view of his life.  He was born in Rockbridge County Virginia and brought up near the Cherokee territory in Tennessee, and was adopted by one of the Indians there, they named him Co-lon-neh, the Raven.  In 1813 he enlisted as a private soldier and rose to Second Lieutenant under Andrew Jackson before the end of the war.  He must have known William Miller who was also a Lieutenant in the War of 1812.                                

    The American's were greatly out numbered by the well trained British.  But by the providence of YAHUWAH Elohim the American's were victorious.  Houston left the army in 1818, and studied law at Nashville, and was elected in 1823 and 1825 a member of Congress.  In 1827 became Governor of Tennessee.  In January of 1829 he married Eliza Allen the daughter of a former Governor, but apparently he discovered but a few days after his marriage that his young and beautiful bride had been forced to accept his hand by an ambitious father, when in truth she loved another.  She left him.  His mind and spirit shattered, Houston had abandoned civilization for the Cherokees, beyond the Mississippi, where he became a member of the tribe.

    Several years later, his balance and purpose restored General Andrew Jackson to whom he was always faithful, sent him to Texas.  The Texas war offered a new field of opportunity for him.  He was made Commander-in-Chief.  The Americans at first sustained some severe losses, but, on April 21, 1836, Sam Houston with 800 men inflicted a crushing blow on the Mexican forces of Santa Anna, on the banks of the San Jacinto, and by this one decisive blow achieved the independence of Texas.  The hero of San Jacinto was elected second President of the Republic of Texas, and was re-elected in 1841. On the annexation to the Union in 1845, he was elected Senator from Texas.  He was elected Governor of Texas in 1859.

    John F. Kennedy wrote a book called 'Profiles in Courage', a chapter is devoted to Sam Houston.  Samuel Houston as everyone knows was a rugged individualist, yet he was faithful to Andrew Jackson who was very anti-Roman Catholic.  As a matter of fact the first attempted assassination of an American President by the Jesuits was on Andrew Jackson.  But both pistols misfired.  Why did the Jesuits attempt to have him killed?  Because Andrew Jackson opposed them!  His Vice-President was John C. Calhoun, who began a newspaper in Washington called the United States Telegraph.  In this paper, he began to advocate the idea called States Rights.  The Doctrine of States Rights would lead inevitably to the complete abolishment of the United States.

    Calhoun took a festering sore and turned it into the reason for the Southern states to secede from the Union.  Jackson and Calhoun were at odds.  You see Calhoun was an infiltrator.  "The blood of the Civil War can be traced back to the Jesuit, John C. Calhoun." The Secret Terrorists p. 21  

   Sam Houston  "would have nothing to do, with Calhoun's 'hands off' slavery

resolutions and  'Southern Address', attacking that reverend sage of the South for his 'long cherished and ill-concealed designs against the Union', and insisting to the Senate that he, Sam Houston, was  'on the floor representative of the whole American people'.  But the Texas Legislature adopted Calhoun's resolutions, and cast a suspicious eye on  the ambitious former President of Texas whose name was being mentioned, in the North as well as the South, for the White House in 1852 or 1856.

    "Houston had been the first prominent Senator to attack Calhoun's opposition to the Clay Compromise of 1850, quoting the Scripture to label those threatening secession as mere  'raging waves of sea, foaming out their own shame. . .'

      Think you, sir, after the difficulties Texans have encountered to get into the Union, that you can whip them out of it?  No, sir . . . we shed our blood to get into it . . . We were among the last to come into the Union, and being in, we will be the last to get out . . . I call on the friends of the Union from every quarter to come forward like men, and to sacrifice their differences upon the common altar of their country's good, and to form a bulwark around the Constitution that cannot be shaken.  It will require manly efforts, sir, and they must expect to meet with all prejudices that will assail them from every quarter.  They must stand firm to the Union, regardless of all personal consequences." Profiles in Courage p. 92, 93

    Sam Houston's compared Calhoun with "reckless demagogues" terming Jefferson Davis  "ambitious as Lucifer and cold as a lizard."

    "In the fall of 1859, the aging warrior again ran as an independent candidate for Governor, again with no party, no newspaper and no organization behind him, and making but one campaign speech.  He would rely, he told his audience in that still fascinating voice, 'upon the Constitution and the Union, and all the old Jacksonian democracy I ever professed or officially practiced . . . In politics I am an old fogy, because I cling devotedly to those primitive principles upon which our government was founded'."  Despite all the opposition Sam Houston was elected Governor.  "It was the first setback for Southern extremists in a decade, and the Governor-elect was attacked by disgusted Texas newspapers as 'a traitor who ought to fall never to rise again' and 'one of the greatest enemies of the South - a Southern Free Soiler'.

    "With obvious reference to such enemies, Houston told the Legislature in the first general message of 1860:  notwithstanding the ravings of deluded zealots, or the impious threats of fanatical disunionists, the love of our common country still burns with the fire of the olden time . . . in the hearts of the conservative people of Texas . . . . Texas will maintain the Constitution and stand by the Union.  It is all that can save us as a nation.  Destroy it, and anarchy awaits us.

    "As sentiment grew overwhelmingly in favor of secession during the heated Presidential campaign of 1860, Governor Houston could only implore his impatient constituents to wait and see what Mr. Lincoln's attitude would be, if elected.

    "Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and immediately throughout Texas the Lone Star flag was hoisted in an atmosphere of excited and belligerent expectation.  Houston's plea that Texas fight for her rights  'in the Union and for the sake of the Union' fell on deaf ears.

    "Sam Houston, fighting desperately to hold on to the reins of government, called a special session to the State Legislature, denouncing extremists both North and South and insisting that he had 'not yet lost hope that our rights can be maintained in the Union'.  If not, he maintained, independence is preferable to joining the  Southern camp." Profiles in Courage p. 98-101

    On March 2, a special convention reassembled at Austin and declared that Texas had seceded.  The Convention declared Texas to be a part of the Southern Confederacy, and decreed that all state officers must take the new oath of allegiance on the 14th of March.

    On March 14, as an eyewitness described it, the Convention hall was crowded.  "At the appointed hour, the Convention clerk was instructed to call the roll of state officials.  Silence settled over the vast audience, and every eye peered anxiously for a glimpse of the old hero.

  "Sam Houston!" There was no response.

  "Sam Houston! Sam Houston!"   The rumbling and contemptuous voices began again.  The office of Governor of Texas, Confederate States of America, was declared to be officially vacant; and Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark, 'an insignificant creature, contemptible, spry, and pert' stepped up to take the oath.

(A close personal and political friend elected on Houston's ticket, Clark would later enter the executive office to demand the archives of the state, only to have his former mentor wheel slowly in his chair to face him with the grandly scornful question: 'And what is your name, sir?')

   "In another part of the Capital, the hero of San Jacinto, was scrawling out his last Message as Governor with a broken heart:

   Fellow Citizens, in the name of your rights and liberty, which I believe have been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath.  In the name of my own conscience and my own manhood . . .I refuse to take this oath . . .[But]  I love Texas to well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.  I shall make no endeavor to maintain my authority as Chief Executive of this state, except by the peaceful exercise of my functions.  When I can no longer do this, I shall calmly withdraw from the scene . . . . I am . . . stricken down because I will not yield those principles which I have fought for . . . The severest pang is that the blow comes in the name of the state of Texas." Profiles in Courage p. 103, 104

   What was the secret of Sam Houston's rugged individualism?  And courage to stand firm for principle?  I believe it was his personal study of the Scriptures.

    "Religion was a balm for the Houstons." Sam Houston p. 278 by John Williams

    Houston when attending church went to the Baptist church, which back then were anti-Roman Catholic.  One witness told that he always occupied a pew near the pulpit.  Much to Margaret's pleasure, his new wife, when he was back in Texas Houston began to offer prayer and read from the Bible at the end of each meal.  Which hints that he studied the statutes:  "When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless YAHUWAH thy Elohim, for the good land which he hath given thee.  Beware that thou forget not YAHUWAH thy Elohim, in not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I command thee this day." Deuteronomy 8:10, 11.

    Houston would also invite his slaves to participate in blessing the Creator.  Houston loved his slaves, especially Joshua, they worked together as a team.  "The senator permitted his slaves to earn what they could in their 'free time', and Joshua, a skilled blacksmith, generated a handsome income.  He had his own small smithy, and through careful saving amassed a great deal more cash than his master.  When the senator died, Joshua was by far the wealthiest member of the household." Sam Houston p. 279.   He must have practiced the passage "love thy neighbor as thyself." Mt 22:40. 

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