Читать книгу With Sam Houston in Texas онлайн

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In the fall of 1845 he is elected United States senator from the state of Texas. Arrives at Washington to take his seat, March, 1846. While in Congress wears his well-known broad-brimmed white wool hat, and Mexican blanket, whittles industriously at cedar shingles while listening to the debates, and bears prominent part in national affairs. He opposes the extension of slavery in new territories, and is denounced, by the South, as a traitor. He remains a firm advocate of the rights of the Indians.

January, 1853, re-elected to congress, from Texas.

Attends the Baptist church regularly, in Washington. In 1854 is received into the Baptist faith, at Independence, Texas.

March 3, 1854, delivers a great speech against Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise bill, prohibiting slavery north of latitude 36° 30´, and opened Kansas and Nebraska territories to the extension of slavery into the North.

In 1856 is candidate for the Presidency, but at the nominating convention of the “American” party receives only three votes, his opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise bill having aroused bitter enmity toward him.