After the first incursion Houston directed that the government archives be moved from Austin, an order that ultimately resulted in the " Archive War ," in which residents of Austin forcibly prevented removal of the files.
After the second invasion Houston authorized a force under Gen. Alexander Somervell to pursue the enemy to the Rio Grande and, if conditions warranted, to attack Mexico. Part of Somervell's legion became the disastrous Mier expedition , an escapade that Houston opposed. In Houston approved of the abortive Snively expedition , which sought to interdict trade along the Santa Fe Trail. In Houston found it necessary to send the militia to quell the Regulator-Moderator War in Shelby County, an East Texas feud that presented one of the most vexing problems of his second administration.
Houston was succeeded to the presidency by Anson Jones , whom the electorate viewed as a "Houston man. Indeed, Texas politics during the republic had been characterized by a struggle between Houston and anti-Houston factions.
Houston served in the Senate from February 21, , until March 4, Beginning with the election, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for president. He even had a biography published in by Charles Edwards Lester entitled Sam Houston and His Republic , which amounted to campaign publicity. As senator, Houston emerged as an ardent Unionist, true to his association with Andrew Jackson, a stand that made him an increasingly controversial figure.
He stridently opposed the rising sectionalism of the antebellum period and delivered eloquent speeches on the issue. Although he was a slaveowner who defended slavery in the South, Houston again clashed with his old nemesis who led the proslavery forces when he opposed John C. Calhoun's Southern Address in Houston always characterized himself as a Southern man for the Union and opposed any threats of disunity, whether from Northern or Southern agitators.
He incurred the permanent wrath of proslavery elements by supporting the Compromise of , a series of measures designed to ensure sectional harmony. In , Houston alienated Democrats in Texas and the South even further by opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill because it allowed the status of slavery to be determined by popular sovereignty, a concept he saw as potentially destabilizing to the nation. He likewise embraced the principles of the American Know-Nothing party as a response to growing states'-rights sentiment among the Democrats.
In , he joined the Baptist Church , no doubt in partial response to the troubles of this period of his life. His career in the Senate was effectively ended when, in , the Texas legislature officially condemned his position on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. As a lame-duck senator, Houston ran for governor of Texas in He was defeated in a rigorous campaign by the state Democratic Party 's official nominee, Hardin R.
Predictably, the state legislature did not reelect Houston to the Senate; instead, in late , it replaced him with John Hemphill. The replacement took place at the end of Houston's term, in So concerned was Houston about sectional strife that during his final year in the Senate he advocated establishing a protectorate over Mexico and Central America as a way to bring unity to the United States.
Out of the Senate, Houston ran a second time for governor in Because of his name recognition, a temporary lull in the sectional conflict, and other factors, he defeated the incumbent, Runnels, in the August election and assumed office on December As governor he continued to pursue his fanciful plans for a protectorate over Mexico, and envisioned the use of Texas Rangers and volunteers to accomplish that end.
He likewise tried to enlist the aid of Robert E. Because of his staunch Unionism, Houston was nearly nominated for the presidency in May by the National Union party convention in Baltimore, but narrowly lost to John Bell.
His possible candidacy received favorable mention by people in many regions of the nation who longed to prevent sectional strife. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, the clamor of discontent in Texas prompted Houston to call a special session of the state legislature.
Adamantly opposed to secession , Houston warned Texans that civil war would result in a Northern victory and destruction of the South, a prophecy that was borne out by future events.
The Secession Convention , however, convened a week later and began a series of actions that withdrew Texas from the Union; Houston acquiesced to these events rather than bring civil strife and bloodshed to his beloved state. But when he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the newly-formed Confederate States of America, the Texas convention removed him from office on March 16 and replaced him with Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark two days later.
Reportedly, during these traumatic days President Lincoln twice offered Houston the use of federal troops to keep him in office and Texas in the Union, offers that Houston declined, again to avoid making Texas a scene of violence.
Instead, the Raven—now sixty-eight years of age, weary, with a family of small children, and recognizing the inevitable—again chose exile.
After leaving the Governor's Mansion , Houston at least verbally supported the Southern cause. Against his father's advice, Sam, Jr. Houston moved his wife and other children in the fall of to Huntsville, where they rented a two-story residence known as the Steamboat House , so called because it resembled a riverboat. Rumors abounded that Houston, though ailing and aged, harbored plans to run again for governor. But on July 26, , after being ill for several weeks, he died in the downstairs bedroom of the Steamboat House, succumbing to pneumonia at age seventy.
Dressed in Masonic ceremonial trappings, he was buried in Oakwood Cemetery at Huntsville. Randolph B. Llerena B. Frank X. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Three decades later, in , Houston was elected governor of Texas. After running away from his family as a teenager, Houston lived for nearly three years with the Cherokee tribe in eastern Tennessee.
There, the tribe formally adopted him, and he married a Cherokee woman, Tiana Rogers, in a tribal ceremony. He sometimes wore traditional Cherokee garb to government meetings in Washington, D.
As the Alamo was under siege in March , the convention of Texans that voted for independence selected Houston commander-in-chief of the Texas Army. After the disastrous defeat at the Alamo, the War of veteran ordered a series of strategic retreats. Although unpopular with his men, the tactic bought Houston time to train his ill-equipped and poorly provisioned army. The spectacular rout at the Battle of San Jacinto forced Santa Anna to surrender and sign an armistice that granted Texas independence.
After Texas gained its independence, the new country elected Houston its first president in a landslide, giving him 80 percent of the vote against opponents Stephen F. Houston was a known drinker, and following the marriage to his first wife, Eliza Allen, rumors circulated about his alcoholism and apparent infidelity.
His marriage soon fell apart, and in , Houston left Tennessee for Arkansas, where he renewed his close contact with the Cherokee Indians. In , Houston moved again, this time to the Mexican territory of Texas, where he was soon a prominent voice in pushing for secession.
As tensions mounted, Houston accepted an appointment to command a ragtag Texan army against Mexican forces. Still known for his excessive drinking, Houston nonetheless showed himself to be a brilliant military leader. Seeing his chance, Houston ordered the attack at San Jacinto. Victory proved decisive and secured Texas its independence. In this newly formed country, Sam Houston became its George Washington. The city of Houston was named in his honor in , and that same year, the newly christened Lone Star Republic elected him as its president.
Senator until If Houston had his eye on the White House, he was no doubt compromised by his personal transgressions with women and alcohol.
In addition, his views on slavery put him in conflict with the country's southern states. Although he was an enslaved person owner himself, Houston was opposed to the expansion of slavery in the new territories.
Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Houston, who'd been elected governor of Texas in , refused to pledge his allegiance to the Confederate States of America. An infuriated Texas legislature discharged him of his duties. Houston, who had married for a third time in , to Margaret Lea, with whom he had eight children, retired from politics.
He died at his home in Huntsville, Texas, on July 26,
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