Houston was a rare performer before a popular audience. His speech
abounded with argumentative appeal and bristled with illustrative
anecdote, and, when occasion required, with apt repartee.
Once an Irishman in the crowd bawled out, “ye were goin’ to sell Texas
to England.”
Houston paused long enough to center attention upon the quibble and
then said: “My friend, I first tried, unsuccessfully, to have the
United States take Texas as a gift. Not until I threatened to turn
Texas over to England did I finally succeed. There may be within the
sound of my voice some who have knowledge of sheep culture. They have
doubtless seen a motherless lamb put to the breast of a cross old ewe
who refused it suck. Then the wise shepherd calls his dog and there is
no further trouble. My friend, England was my dog.”
He was inveighing against the New York Tribune. Having described Horace
Greeley as the sum of all villainy—“whose hair is white, whose skin is
white, whose eyes are white, whose clothes are white, and whose liver
is in my opinion of the same color”—he continued: “The assistant editor
of the Try-bune is Robinson—Solon Robinson. He is an Irishman, an
Orange Irishman, a redhaired Irishman!” Casting his eye over the
audience and seeing quite a sprinkling of redheads, and realizing that
he had perpetrated a slip of tongue, he added: “Fellow citizens, when I
say that Robinson is a red-haired Irishman I mean no disrespect to
persons whose hair is of that color. I have been a close observer of
men and women for thirty years, and I never knew a red-haired man who
was not an honest man, nor a red-headed woman who was not a virtuous
woman; and I give it you as my candid opinion that had it not been for
Robinson’s red hair he would have been hanged long ago.”
His pathos was not far behind his humor—though he used it sparingly. At
a certain town in Texas there lived a desperado who had threatened to
kill him on sight. The town was not on the route of his speaking dates
but he went out of his way to include it. A great concourse assembled
to hear him. He spoke in the open air and, as he began, observed his
man leaning against a tree armed to the teeth and waiting for him to
finish. After a few opening remarks, he dropped into the
reminiscential. He talked of the old times in Texas. He told in
thrilling terms of the Alamo and of Goliad. There was not a dry eye in
earshot. Then he grew personal.
“I see Tom Gilligan over yonder. A braver man never lived than Tom
Gilligan. He fought by my side at San Jacinto. Together we buried poor
Bill Holman. But for his skill and courage I should not be here to-day.
He—”
There was a stir in front. Gilligan had thrown away his knife and gun
and was rushing unarmed through the crowd, tears streaming down his
face.
“For God’s sake, Houston,” he cried, “don’t say another word and
forgive me my cowardly intention.”
From that time to his death Tom Gilligan was Houston’s devoted friend.
General Houston voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and as a
consequence lost his seat in the Senate. It was thought, and freely
said, that for good and all he was down and out. He went home and
announced himself a candidate for governor of Texas.
The campaign that followed was of unexampled bitterness. The secession
wave was already mounting high. Houston was an uncompromising Unionist.
His defeat was generally expected. But there was no beating such a man
in a fair and square contest before the people. When the votes were
counted he led his competitor by a big majority. As governor he refused
two years later to sign the ordinance of secession and was deposed from
office by force. He died before the end of the war which so signally
vindicated his wisdom and verified his forecast.