Hunter"s personality was ideally suited for the period in which he served in the House. "Mr. Hunter is a conservative Democrat, a calm, quiet, undemonstrative, practical politician," the New York Herald wrote. "[He] speaks little and writes less.... Although strongly Southern in his sentiments ... he draws a glowing picture of the future of the republic."
Calm and undemonstrative he was, but not unfeeling nor without a sense of humor. He displayed both attributes as a college student in a letter to his widowed sister: "You seemed to be terribly in the dumps when you wrote. Are you still troubled with those thick-coming fancies, which are worse than real evils?... Have all the family feuds been appeased, so that you can no longer find amus.e.m.e.nt or occupation for your energies?... [If so] you may suppose me your opponent."
Shortly before Hunter went to college, an upheaval resulting from the Louisiana Purchase had threatened to undo the nation. At issue was whether or not slavery would be permitted in the states being created from its land. Though the dispute was resolved by the Missouri Compromise, no one in Congress wanted to endure such rancor again. Unfortunately, the nation did endure it again, and again. The next major upheaval involved the same question as applied to the land acquired in the Mexican War.
That war began within a week of Hunter"s 1846 proposal for retrocession. Everyone in Congress knew that the United States would win the war and likely acquire vast territory.7 And everyone in Congress knew that such a victory would raise the old question of whether slavery would be permitted in the newly acquired lands. Thus, when Hunter presented his resolution, it was during the calm before the storm. Members of Congress were inclined to do anything that could be done to mitigate the expected storm.
One thing Congress could do was to appease Virginia by giving back the land it had ceded to create the District of Columbia. Such an action, at that point in time, would help Virginia in two significant ways.
The first benefit would be Virginia"s acquisition of additional proslavery voters electing representatives to its legislature. These votes were needed to counter those of the increasing population in Virginia"s mountainous western region (present-day West Virginia), an area not suitable for the large plantations needed to support slave labor. When Hunter presented his proposal, Virginia"s staunchly proslavery Democrats had recently lost their majority in the state"s House of Delegates.
The second significant benefit had to do with the slave trade. As Hunter stated in Congress, Alexandria was suffering economically, in part because no federal facilities had been built on the Virginia side of the Potomac. To make matters worse, Congress had begun to contemplate a prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Were that to happen, it would be yet another blow to Alexandria"s economy.
Alexandria had been home to the nation"s largest slave-trading firm, Franklin & Armfield. Though the company had dissolved by the time Hunter proposed retrocession, its partners had sold their interests to a number of local slave traders. The size of the market served even by these smaller Alexandria companies, and by other slave dealers in the District of Columbia, was evidenced on a daily basis in the local papers: CASH FOR NEGROES-I will give the highest cash price for likely NEGROES from 10 to 25 years of age. Myself or my agent can at all times be found at the establishment formerly owned by Armfield, Franklin & Co. at the west end of Duke Street, Alexandria.-GEORGE KEPHART NEGROES WANTED-The subscriber wishes to purchase any number of Negroes for the New Orleans market, and will give at all times the highest market price in cash in likely young Negroes. Those wishing to sell will find it in their interest to call at my establishment, corner of 7th Street and Maryland Avenue, where myself or agent can be seen at any time.-THOS. WILLIAMS8 While outlawing the slave trade would be an economic blow to Alexandria, if Congress returned Alexandria to Virginia and then outlawed the slave trade in the District, the prohibition would be a boon to Alexandria, since it would eliminate the compet.i.tion. To achieve this boon required some delicacy. Hunter, with his calm, dispa.s.sionate manner, a Southerner who spoke glowingly of the future of the Union, was just the man for the job. The bill pa.s.sed the House 96 to 65 (and the Senate 32 to 14).
The legislation stipulated that a referendum be held on the southern side of the Potomac to determine whether a majority of that area"s voters (white males) wished to become Virginians. One group of Alexandrians particularly concerned about the vote"s outcome were its African Americans, since Virginia law prohibited teaching African Americans to read and write and required African American religious activities to be monitored by whites. Describing the day of the referendum, one free African American businessman in Alexandria wrote, "Whilst the citizens of this city and county were voting ... humble poor were standing in rows on either side of the court house and, as the votes were announced every quarter of an hour, the suppressed wailings and lamentations of the people of color were constantly ascending to G.o.d for help and succor."9 Today ghosts of the original District of Columbia remain on the map in the borders of present-day Arlington County, Virginia, and along the post-Revolutionary War segment of King Street in Alexandria.
As for Hunter, he was elected to the Senate later that year. While there, the antic.i.p.ated storm erupted over slavery in the region acquired in the Mexican War. It blew away the Missouri Compromise. In its place, Congress cobbled together the Compromise of 1850 and then, four years later, took cover under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left the question of slavery to the states and territories (see "Stephen A. Douglas" in this book). Amid the bitter debates over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Senator Hunter"s calm demeanor and practical arguments provided influential support for the bill-so much so that, the following year, the Cleveland Herald noted, "Clubs are forming in [New York] for the support of Robert M. T. Hunter, at present U.S. Senator from Virginia, for President of the U.S."
Ghosts of old D.C. border Though Hunter"s presidential bid failed even to get his name on the ballot at the 1856 Democratic National Convention, it succeeded in calling attention to him as a candidate for the future. Indeed, four years later, a correspondent for the Daily South Carolinian reported: I would respectfully suggest that a union of the Southern delegates might be effected upon the Honorable Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia.... Mr. Hunter is peculiarly fitted for the Presidency.... He is a man of superior natural abilities and thorough cultivation ... profoundly versed in the history of the rise and fall of empires.... However he is free from even the slightest tinge of pedantry and sentimentality. He is a plain, practical business man.
But the times no longer called for plain, practical men. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act had failed to mitigate the political storm over slavery. Inadvertently, they fed its escalation to hurricane force. In choosing a presidential candidate at the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the delegates were unable to coalesce after fifty-seven ballots. In each of those votes, Hunter placed a distant third among nine nominees. Ultimately the party shattered. Its splintered const.i.tuencies enabled the election of a visionary, Abraham Lincoln.
After Virginia"s secession, Robert M. T. Hunter was elected to the Confederate Congress-but not for long. In July 1861, three months into the Civil War, Hunter became the Confederacy"s secretary of state-also not for long. Individuals and factions were jockeying for power in the newly forming government, as San Francisco"s Evening Bulletin observed in February 1862: [Robert Toombs] was made Secretary of State for the Confederacy ... but resigned late in July, professedly that he might take the field [of battle].... Soon he was sent back to the rebel Senate, probably expecting to be chosen its presiding officer. But R. M. T. Hunter was too smart for him. That Virginian, rich in initials, was made Secretary of State after Toombs ... [then] resigned, was sent to the new rebel Senate, and has been elected its president pro tem.
Hunter served in the Confederate Senate for the duration of the war, but the center of action was on the battlefield. Near the war"s conclusion, Hunter was one of three delegates selected to meet with President Lincoln at a peace conference held behind Union lines in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The war left Hunter economically debilitated. In time, a government tidbit was thrown his way via an appointment as collector of the port of Tappahannock, Virginia. By then, Robert M. T. Hunter had become much like that section of the District he had restored to Virginia-a part of the government but hardly a partic.i.p.ant, taking whatever opportunity came his way. Under the circ.u.mstances, however, there was no place to which he could retrocede himself.
TEXAS.
SAM HOUSTON.
The Man Who La.s.soed Texas
Speaker of the House: Samuel Houston, you have been brought before this House, by its order, to answer the charge of having a.s.saulted and beaten William Stanberry, a member of the House of Representatives of the United States from the State of Ohio, for words spoken by him in debate upon a question then depending before the House.... If you desire the aid of counsel ... your request will now be received.
Samuel Houston: Mr. Speaker, I wish no counsel.
-REGISTER OF DEBATES, 22ND CONG., APRIL 17, 1832 If you think Texas is big, take a look at the man whose name is now the state"s biggest city: Sam Houston. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, and that was the least of his outsized aspects. Houston, along with Stephen Austin, are the two people most a.s.sociated with the fact that Texas is today part of the United States. While Austin followed a relatively direct path (continuing his father"s founding of a colony in Mexico"s spa.r.s.ely populated region of Tejas), Houston"s path was far more erratic. In retrospect, however, Houston"s life seems inevitably to have led to Texas. Or to being shot dead.
Houston was born in Virginia, the son of a distinguished officer in the American Revolution. When his father died in 1807, the family moved to Tennessee, where fourteen-year-old Sam was enrolled in a Christian school run by his brothers. He played hooky so often the family put him to work in their farm-based trading post. Many of its customers were Cherokees from a nearby settlement. Sam was fascinated both by them and by the novels and literary cla.s.sics he"d bring to the store from his father"s library. The only downside to being a clerk was being a clerk. So Sam took off at age sixteen and headed into the woods to live with the Cherokees. Over the next several years, he learned their language and customs and found a second father. Houston was adopted by Oolooteka, known also as John Jolly, the leader of these Cherokees and, after their relocation, chief of the Arkansas Cherokees.
Following in the footsteps of both fathers, Sam Houston fought in the War of 1812, which involved the Cherokees, allying with the Americans in response to the fact that their enemy, the Red Stick Creeks, had allied with the British. Wounded at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Houston nevertheless led a courageous charge when the battle seemed lost, only to discover that his comrades hadn"t followed. Within moments Houston was again wounded, this time, it was believed, mortally. But he defied the doctors and lived, and also came to the attention of the commanding general, Andrew Jackson, who became yet another father-or, more accurately, G.o.dfather-to Sam Houston. "Old Hickory," as Jackson was known, appointed his young protege to serve as the military"s subagent to the Cherokees. In this capacity, Houston accompanied an 1818 delegation of Cherokees to Washington, DC, where, meeting with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Lieutenant Houston wore the blanket and loincloth of his adopted brethren. Calhoun was not pleased and, following the meeting, let Houston know it. Houston, equally displeased, resigned.1 Returning to Tennessee, Houston studied law and, for a brief time, was a local attorney. In rapid succession, he was appointed by the governor to the honorary post of major general in the Tennessee militia, elected to Congress in 1823, and reelected in 1825. In 1826 a flurry of gossipy newspaper items regarding one of Houston"s numerous spats noted "information which may be relied upon has been received ... that Gen. Houston and Gen. White had gone to Kentucky to fight a duel." This item, from Richmond"s Const.i.tutional Whig, included a curiously convoluted coda: "Gen. White accompanied Col. Smith when he bore the challenge from John P. Erwin, Esq. to Mr. Houston." One might think duels the most straightforward way imaginable of resolving differences. Evidently not in this case: someone named Erwin, angry at Houston, got someone named Smith to deliver his challenge, in response to which Houston ended up dueling someone named White, who accompanied Smith.2 Honor among politicians, even then, had its intricacies.
Sam Houston (1793-1863) (photo credit 25.1) The press reported on the duel as if it were the sporting event of the year, which, in effect, it was. The New York Spectator wrote in October 1826: The parties met on Thursday morning beyond the Kentucky line. They fought at the distance of fifteen feet only, and at the first fire Houston"s aim took effect, striking White very near the center of the body, but, as he was in a walking position and the ball striking on a rib, it pa.s.sed round the back and lodged on the opposite side, from which it was easily extracted. Had the ball pa.s.sed directly through from the point of entrance to the point of extraction, it would have caused instant death.... They were accompanied by their friends on each side, who bear united testimony of the fair and chivalric conduct of the parties.
Clearly, Houston did not lack courage. But he could also tap-dance his way out of danger. Throughout his career, he was challenged to duels by numerous colleagues, including a naval commander and two of the presidents of the Republic of Texas.3 Houston accepted none of their challenges. In fact, he never dueled again, possibly because the practice was coming to entail an additional risk: one could get arrested. Kentucky charged Houston with attempted murder following his duel with White. But he nimbly managed to stay one step ahead of the law, as revealed in an exasperated editorial in Kentucky"s Frankfort Commentator: A grand jury at Nashville, Tenn. has presented Gen. Houston, of that place, for having lately fought a duel within the limits of this state with Gen. White, who was severely wounded-not as having been guilty of a violation of the laws of G.o.d and man, but as having performed a manly act, quite necessary and altogether proper for a gentleman, and which ought to have no unfavorable effect upon his election of Governor of Tennessee!!
That Houston managed to get a grand jury in Tennessee to consider an act he committed in Kentucky attests less to his guilt or innocence than to his ability to maneuver-as does Houston"s subsequent use of the Tennessee grand jury"s ruling as an a.s.set in his bid to become the governor. With the duel having become a campaign issue, outgoing Tennessee governor William Carroll opted not to decide on a response to Kentucky"s request for extradition. The decision then fell to the next governor, Sam Houston, who opted not to order himself to face trial in Kentucky.
While governor, an event took place that exploded Houston"s political plans and landed him, badly damaged, facing Texas. That event was marriage. Three months after Houston wed Eliza Allen, she returned to her parents. The most likely cause was that Eliza had revealed to Houston her love for another man. Houston was twice the age of this eighteen-year-old girl, who may have yielded to her parents" pressure that she marry the more prestigious man.4 Houston, for his part, said only that the matter was private. But he resigned as governor of Tennessee and went back into the woods, returning to his adopted father, Chief Oolooteka.
Oolooteka, now located in Arkansas, welcomed his prodigal son-though this prodigal son, as the astute chief knew, was closely connected to the new president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Initially, Chief Oolooteka sent Houston on local missions to mediate intertribal disputes. Other relationships also occupied Houston"s time-one in particular with a Cherokee widow named Diana Rogers Gentry. They soon married. How officially they were married depends on one"s cultural customs, but among the Cherokees and in their own hearts, they were wed. Houston"s relationship with the tribe also deepened as he formally became a full-fledged Cherokee.
Chief Oolooteka then sent Houston to Washington as part of a delegation working out details resulting from the Treaty with the Western Cherokee Nation of 1828. Houston was again in Cherokee garb, this time in the presence of the president. Old Hickory reacted with a grin and an embrace.
Houston"s appearance in Washington as a Cherokee fooled no one-with the possible exception of Houston. His plans at this point were a mystery, perhaps even to himself. Speculation was rampant. Friends in Tennessee began setting the table for his return to elective office. Foes in Tennessee pulled the tablecloth off. In May 1830 the Nashville Banner reported: At a meeting of sundry respectable citizens ... it was resolved that a committee draw up a report expressive of the opinions entertained of the private virtue of Mrs. Eliza Houston, and whether her amiable character has received an injury among those acquainted with her in consequence of the late unfortunate occurrence between her and her husband, Gen. Samuel Houston.... It has been suggested that ... a belief has obtained in many places that he was married to an unworthy woman and that she has been the cause of all his misfortunes and his downfall as a man and a politician. Nothing is further from the fact.... The committee has no hesitation in saying that he is a deluded man; and his suspicions were groundless.
Tennessee was not Houston"s only option. He had also been approached by friends in Texas, where the Anglo population had grown to the point that there was talk of separation from Mexico. Here too his enemies sought to undermine him, reporting that Houston planned to exploit rebellion in Texas by taking its helm. President Jackson wrote to his unpredictable protege, laughing off the rumor "that you had declared you would, in less than two years, be emperor of that country by conquest." Jackson then mentioned that the military would suppress any such effort.5 Houston responded to these efforts to confine him by placing an ad in the Nashville Banner. Knowing that the press loved every aspect of his public and private controversies, Houston was a.s.sured his ad would soon appear as a news story nationwide. Worded as it was, it did: Now know all men by these presents, that I, Sam Houston, "late governor of the State of Tennessee," do hereby declare to all scoundrels whomsoever, that they are authorized to accuse, defame, calumniate, traduce, slander, or vilify and libel me, to any extent in personal or private abuse.... Be it known ... I do solemnly promise on the first day of April next, to give to the author of the most elegant, refined, ingenious lie or calumny, a handsome gilt copy (bound in sheep) of the Kentucky Reporter, or a snug plain copy of the United States Telegraph (bound in dog).6 Houston"s humor concealed the dynamite around which it was wrapped. By detonating ridicule beneath the feet of his detractors, Houston obtained time to make a move. That move was to Texas, ostensibly as a business venture. To do so, however, Houston needed to clear the concerns of President Jackson. His move to Texas, therefore, was via Washington.
Jackson too, by dint of his flinty personality, was also an embattled man. Shortly after Houston"s arrival in Washington, Congressman William Stanberry delivered a speech on the floor regarding Jackson appointees who had, or should have been, fired. Amid those he was listing, Stanberry declaimed, "Was the late Secretary of War removed in consequence of his attempt, fraudulently, to give to Governor Houston the contract for Indian rations?" The answer to that question was yes and no. No, that was not why Secretary of War John Eaton had left office. And yes, there had been fraud-but not in Houston"s contract. The fraud was in the previous contract, the holder of which deprived the Cherokees of adequate rations while pocketing the surplus profits. Secretary of War Eaton awarded Houston the new contract knowing it would be administered honestly. In so doing, Eaton aroused the wrath of entrenched political interests.
Houston"s anger at being wrongly accused of fraud was intensified by the fact that he had no legal recourse. Congressmen and senators have immunity from slander for anything they say in session. Houston did what any man worth his salt would do; he sent Stanberry a note. To which Stanberry replied: I received this morning, by your hands, a note signed Samuel Houston, quoting from the National Intelligencer of the 2nd a remark made by me in the House. The object of the note is to ascertain whether Mr. Houston"s name was used by me in debate, and whether my remarks were correctly quoted. I cannot recognize the right of Mr. Houston to make this request.
Very respectfully yours etc., William Stanberry One might wonder what Stanberry intended to achieve. Why not stand behind his statement, rather than imply the note might not be authentic (and therefore unfair to Houston) and then insult Houston? Elsewhere, Stanberry acknowledged that he knew the note was authentic and also knew the character of the man who sent it. "It was the opinion of one of my friends that it was proper that I should be armed," he stated on the floor of the House, "that, immediately upon the reception of my note, Mr. Houston would probably make an a.s.sault upon me. Mr. [Thomas] Ewing accordingly procured for me a pair of pistols."
Houston, however, did not a.s.sault Stanberry upon receiving his reply. He a.s.saulted him ten days later. There could have been any number of reasons for the delay, including the "hot-headed" Houston"s contemplation of the political chessboard.
One thing certain is that on the evening of April 13, 1832, Stanberry crossed the street from his boarding house and, as he later testified: At the moment of stepping on the sidewalk, Mr. Houston stood before me. I think he called me by my name and instantly struck me with the bludgeon he had in his hand with great violence, and he repeated the blow while I was down.... Turning on my right side, I got my hand in my pocket and got my pistol and c.o.c.ked it. I watched an opportunity while he was striking me ... and pulled the trigger, aiming at his breast. The pistol did not go off.... He wrested the pistol from my hand and, after some more blows, he left me.
Stanberry"s testimony was not given in court. Houston"s trial took place in the House of Representatives after it voted that its sergeant-at-arms should arrest Houston. Congressman James K. Polk strenuously opposed this action: Was not the law of the District of Columbia open to the member? Was not the individual who had a.s.saulted him ... guaranteed by the Const.i.tution to a trial by jury?
But a counterargument was made by Congressman Daniel Jenifer: The Const.i.tution ... expressly declared that no member might be brought into question elsewhere for words spoken in the House.... Now, [I] would like to know, whether in the present case there had not been an attempt not only to question the words of the member a.s.saulted, but to ... deprive him altogether of the power of exercising it.... Was it credible, was it possible, that ... in such a matter the House had no right to interfere ... that their fellow-member was to be left to the courts of the District of Columbia?
All of this behooved Houston. The attack on the snooty congressman became national news, as Houston likely expected. But the decision to try him in the House of Representatives was a bonus, adding const.i.tutional importance to the story in a way that cast him in the role of victim.
During the trial, Houston"s array of skills was in peak form. Courageously declaring that he wished no counsel, he then, without fanfare, obtained the most celebrated defense attorney of the day: Francis Scott Key. From April 14 to May 14, the House of Representatives devoted nearly all its time to Houston"s trial, ultimately finding him guilty and sentencing him to hear an official reprimand.
Stanberry next chaired a special committee to investigate fraud in Houston"s government contract and brought criminal charges against him in court. Houston was fined $500. Newspapers outside of Washington, DC, devoted no more than nine lines total to the trial-far less than their concurrent coverage of the official report from Stanberry"s committee, which found no fraud.
Houston was now free to go. With his newly bolstered public esteem raising him above the rumormongers, he went where he had intended to go all along: Texas. His successful maneuver, however, was not without cost. Houston"s Cherokee wife, Diana, was unwilling to part from her people. When Houston arrived in Nacogdoches, 165 miles southeast of present-day Dallas, he was alone.
All the rumors Houston"s detractors had circulated about his ambition to lead a revolution in Texas proved true. No sooner had "businessman" Houston arrived than he wrote to President Jackson regarding American acquisition of Texas. "That such a measure is desired by nineteen-twentieths of the population of the province, I cannot doubt," Houston informed the president. "The course which Texas must and will adopt will render the transfer of Texas inevitable to some power, and if the United States does not press for it, England will most a.s.suredly obtain it by some means."
Within two months, Houston was elected to be a delegate to a convention seeking Mexican statehood for Texas (then part of the Mexican state of Coahuila). While many at the convention urged independence from Mexico, Houston (contrary to his letter to Jackson) publicly sided with Texas patriarch Stephen Austin in urging loyalty to Mexico. Houston chaired the committee drafting a Mexican statehood const.i.tution. Austin then delivered the doc.u.ment to the national government in Mexico City, where he ended up in jail.
With Mexican president Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna threatening to send troops into Texas, Houston was chosen to head the militia in Nacogdoches. Skirmishes commenced between Mexican troops and the various Texas militias. After a year in prison (and no trial), Austin returned and resumed leadership. But his health had deteriorated during his confinement, and his brilliance was in creating, not destroying. Though Austin had misgivings about Houston, he recognized him as the man most able to lead the military. In 1836 Houston was given command.
In that same year, the two battles that stand out as mileposts in the Texas War of Independence took place: the Battle of the Alamo, a stunning defeat for the Texans, and the Battle of San Jacinto, a victory that marked the end of the war and commenced the independent Republic of Texas. Houston was not at the Alamo. He had, in fact, issued orders for its abandonment and destruction, upon learning of its vulnerability as Mexican forces approached. But his orders were not obeyed. Consequently, as the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin reported: On the 6th March about midnight, the Alamo was a.s.saulted by the whole force of the Mexican army, commanded by Santa Anna in person. The battle was desperate until daylight, when only seven men belonging to the Texian garrison were found alive who cried for quarters but were told that there was no mercy for them; they then continued fighting until the whole were butchered.... The bodies of the slain were thrown into a heap at the center of the Alamo and burned.
Though the accuracy of this report is open to question, it was the version that "Texians" received. The same news report continued: Immediately after the capture, Gen. Santa Anna sent ... [a] servant to Gen. Houston"s camp ... offering the Texians peace and general amnesty if they would lay down their arms and submit to his government. Gen. Houston"s reply was, "True, sir, you have succeeded in killing some of our brave men-but the Texians are not yet conquered." The effect of the fall [of the Alamo] throughout Texas was electrical. Every man who could use a rifle and was in a condition to take the field marched forthwith to the seat of war.
Once again, an unfortunate affair ended up working in Houston"s favor. Six weeks later, with the Texans" manpower boosted, events went differently. In May Washington"s National Intelligencer reported: During the night of the 20th, after the skirmish between Mexican and Texian forces, Gen. Houston ... gained a position within rifle distance of the enemy before they were aware of his presence. Two discharges of small arms and cannon loaded with musket b.a.l.l.s settled the affair.... The officers broke and endeavored to escape; the mounted riflemen, however, soon overtook all but one.... The pursuers ... searched the woods for a long time in vain, when it occurred to an old hunter that the chase might, like a hard-pressed bear, have "taken a tree." The tree tops were examined, when lo! the game was discovered snugly ensconced in the forks of a large live oak. The captors did not know who their prisoner was until they reached the camp, when the Mexican soldiers exclaimed, "El General! El Gefe! Santa Anna!"
The captured Mexican leader signed a surrender. Though it did not include recognition of the Republic of Texas, for all practical purposes Texas was now an independent nation.
On September 5, 1836, Sam Houston became the second president of Texas, defeating the ailing Stephen Austin by a margin of nearly ten to one. Though Houston, like his mentor, Andrew Jackson, had earned a reputation for brash statements and acts, both men were capable of caution, as reflected at this politically critical moment. President Jackson"s remarks on Texas called for moderation: My friend Sam Houston, after he thrashed Stanberry of Ohio, went to Texas.... Santa Anna said to Houston ... "You must give up your arms." At this, Sam, whom I taught to fight, the rogue, stood straight up and told him, "Come and take them." On this Santa Anna ... marched into Texas, pa.s.sed the Rio del Norte and all the other rivers whose names I cannot remember, till he got as far as the San Jacinto. There Sam and his troops ... attacked the Mexicans-routed, killed, chased, and captured the whole lot-pulled Santa Anna from a tree, up which he had climbed, and thus almost equaled-not quite-my victory at New Orleans. On this the Texians have established their independence.... I am informed that they want to be admitted into the Union, but we must not let that come yet. Let their recognition be openly made. Let Mexico and Europe be persuaded that it is no use to think of stopping Texas from going her own way.7 Houston echoed this view when addressing the Texas legislature on the subject of annexation to the United States. "It is not possible to determine what are to be [our] future relations," he stated. "Texas, with her superior natural advantages, must become a point of attraction, and the policy of establishing with her the earliest relations of friendship and commerce will not escape the eye of statesmen."
Houston devoted his presidency to the mundane tasks required to bring economic stability to his deeply indebted nation. Limited by law to one term, Houston subsequently served in the Texas House of Representatives, where he counseled moderation regarding plans to expand into regions of Mexico that today include New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The initial target was an expedition to occupy Santa Fe, since the town was within the Rio Grande boundary that Texas declared to be its border. Houston declared the expedition foolhardy: the Hispanic population of Santa Fe would receive them as enemies, and the act of aggression would provide sympathy for, and justify military action from, Mexico. The bill was defeated.
Still, Houston did not completely oppose expansion; his views were simply more pragmatic. After returning to the presidency in December 1841, Houston described to the U.S. minister to Texas an astonishing vision for the future if the United States did not offer it statehood: Houston"s vision of United States without Texas The union of Oregon and Texas will be much more natural and convenient than for either separately to belong to the United States.... Such an event may appear fanciful to many, but I a.s.sure you there are no Rocky Mountains interposing to such a project. But one thing can prevent its accomplishment and that is annexation.... Most of the provinces of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Upper and Lower California, as well as Santa Fe, which we now claim, will have to be brought into the connection of Texas and Oregon. This you will see, by reference to the map, is no bugbear to those who will reflect upon the achievement of the Anglo-Saxon people.8 Such a map did indeed seem both fanciful and logical. The time had come for the United States to make up its mind about Texas.
On April 12, 1844, President John Tyler signed and sent to the Senate a treaty with the Republic of Texas that would convert the republic into an American territory. During the treaty"s negotiations, public opinion was highly divided over whether or not the nation wanted Texas. Many in the North vehemently opposed the annexation of Texas, and not simply because it would be a slave state, but because Congress gave Texas the option of becoming as many as five states more equal in size with other states. Consequently, Southerners, envisioning ten additional proslavery votes in the Senate, vehemently supported its annexation. Texans, however, had developed such a strong sense of identify that they never considered subdividing the state. To remain a slave state, though, Texas had to relinquish its land north of 3630" (the top of its Panhandle) to be in compliance with the Missouri Compromise.
Ultimately, a quest shared by Northerners and Southerners-expansion of the nation-prevailed over their slavery conflict, and Texas was admitted to the Union on March 1, 1845. Houston was elected to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, where he partic.i.p.ated in an additional boundary change. With the state still facing enormous debts from its days as a republic, Houston supported the $10 million sale to the United States of a large chunk of western Texas, which was then annexed to New Mexico.
More important was the context in which that sale took place: the Compromise of 1850, in which the central issue was slavery. Without the Compromise of 1850, the South would have seceded, as ten years later it nevertheless did. Though Sam Houston supported slavery, he opposed secession till the day he died in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. Back during the debate in 1850, he had summoned all of his oratorical skills on behalf of loyalty to the Union. Those skills, like so many of Sam Houston"s skills, were formidable. So formidable that a future president filched one of the lines from Houston"s speech: "A nation divided against itself cannot stand."9
UTAH, NEVADA, ARIZONA.
BRIGHAM YOUNG.
The Boundary of Religion Revisited
The Mormons are, at present, eliciting considerable interest and inquiry in reference to the organization of a new State in the far West under the cognomen, State of Deseret.... Ought they be admitted without strict inquiry? For a starting point, Congress might appoint a committee to inquire into and report the facts ... relative to polygamy and, if the facts are unfavorable, that they be not ... styled "the State of Deseret but "the State of Wh.o.r.edom."... And, further, to inquire whether the whole movement be more or less a mere Mormon church maneuver to create a Mormon church State, designed to be under Mormon church jurisdiction exclusively.
-NATIONAL ERA, JANUARY 24, 1850 Two hundred and fifty feet below the surface of Lake Mead is the town of Callville, Nevada, founded in 1858 at the behest of Mormon leader Brigham Young. Callville was the high-water mark of Young"s efforts to create a Mormon state. The high-water mark for Callville itself (or, as it turned out, its second highest water mark) was in October 1866, when the first oceangoing steamship arrived at its dock. Its highest-water mark was in 1936, when it was inundated by the Colorado River upon completion of the Hoover Dam. By then, however, it had been abandoned for more than fifty years, despite having played a key role in establishing the present-day boundary between Nevada and Arizona-a boundary far from Utah, the state predominated by Mormons. That distance reflects the scope of Brigham Young"s dream.
Young was a thirty-year-old carpenter and blacksmith when he joined the Mormon Church in 1832. The church itself had only recently been organized by Joseph Smith, who published the Book of Mormon in 1830. Through the energy Young devoted to the church, and his charismatic personality, he rose in its ranks over the next decade, surfacing in the national press in 1842 when the New York Herald mentioned him among the leadership of the Mormons. That article, however, was a report on the nation"s animosity toward Mormons. "The fights and quarrels in Mormon country promise to be much richer than anything that has occurred here since the days of the Revolutionary War," it began, relating that Missouri "has charged Joe [Smith, founder of the church] with instigating the man who attempted to kill Gov. Boggs."
The nation"s antagonism emanated from the Mormons" firm belief in traditional marriage-biblically traditional marriage, which is to say polygamy. But the hostility grew to include other matters. Joseph Smith had prophesied that G.o.d would soon bring "a full end of all nations." In view of the Mormon disregard of state laws prohibiting polygamy, Smith"s proclamation on "the end of nations" got Washington"s attention. Smith sought to mitigate these fears in 1838 by publishing The Political Motto of the Church of Latter-day Saints, which praised the U.S. Const.i.tution as being "founded in the wisdom of Almighty G.o.d." But not everyone believed him. Later that year he was arrested for treason. Lacking sufficient evidence, authorities in Missouri struck a face-saving deal in which Smith was allowed to escape. He relocated in Illinois, but the conflicts followed him and in 1844 he was a.s.sa.s.sinated.
A leadership crisis ensued. "There has been a feud and division among the Mormons," South Carolina"s Southern Patriot reported. "When Joe Smith, the head imposter, was killed, there was a struggle for ascendancy. Sidney Rigdon thought that he ought to be next in command.... Emma Smith, the widow, seemed disposed to be the spiritual leader.... Wm. Smith, the brother of Joe, set himself up as Patriarch.... Brigham Young and the Council of Twelve then took upon themselves the spiritual and temporal government of the Mormons."
Despite the venom in the article, it reported two facts that proved to be significant. It noted that the Brigham Young faction proposed "to remove all the Saints beyond the Rocky Mountains" and that the "ma.s.s of the Mormons appear to be disposed to adhere to Young and his party." Indeed, the majority did opt for the path proposed by Young. The area around the Great Salt Lake had the advantages of being spa.r.s.ely populated and outside the United States (the Southwest then still belonged to Mexico). Just as the Mormons were resettling, however, the United States won the Mexican War, and Young"s followers found themselves back inside the boundaries of the United States. Less than a year after that, gold was discovered at Sutter"s Mill in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west. Suddenly it was rush hour on the Mormon Trail. Before the year was out, California had become a state.
Brigham Young (1801-1877) (photo credit 26.1) Mormon proposal for state of Deseret In response, Young organized a predominantly Mormon convention that sent Congress a proposal for a state of Deseret. It stipulated boundaries that encompa.s.sed all of the Great Basin between the Rockies and the Sierras and extended to include Southern California with its Pacific ports.
Congress gave it a different border and a different name. Suspicion of the Mormon agenda had only increased with their migration outside the boundaries of the United States. With the U.S. acquisition of this land, the vast boundaries of the Mormons" proposed state of Deseret further fed the fear that they might eventually declare independence and establish their own nation-right between California and the rest of the United States.
In lieu of the state of Deseret, Congress created the Utah Territory. Its northern and southern boundaries are those that Utah possesses to this day, but at the time they extended westward from the crest of the Rockies to California. Because Utah was designated a territory rather than a state, its governorship became a presidential appointment rather than an elected office. President Zachary Taylor, however, prudently appointed Brigham Young.
Fear that the Mormons might create a separate nation was not, however, as preeminent a national security concern as fear that slave states might create a separate nation. The town of Callville ill.u.s.trated the connection between both controversies.
In the years just before Callville was founded, the Democrats had been losing ground to a newly formed abolitionist party known as the Republicans. In 1854 Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas sought to cope with slavery (and propel himself to the presidency) by convincing Congress to enact a policy known as "popular sovereignty." It removed the federal government from deciding where slavery would or would not be allowed, leaving the decision to the individual states and territories. The Mormons seized upon this principle to defend Utah"s right to allow polygamy (the practice was eventually abandoned in 1890 by the church"s main branch). The Democrats responded by, first, disagreeing, and second, making Mormon polygamy a campaign issue in the 1856 presidential election. In so doing, they hoped to disentangle themselves from the Mormons" inconvenient logic and, by fanning fears regarding marriage and morality, to divert attention from their party"s highly nuanced position regarding slavery.
They succeeded. The shift in att.i.tudes was reflected in the nationwide publication The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post. In 1849 the magazine published positive commentary regarding the proposed state of Deseret: The progress of the Mormon sect in this country, when duly considered, must be regarded as an extraordinary phenomenon of the times. From small beginnings they have gone on increasingly steadily, in spite of persecutions and hardships.... But the strangeness of the thing consists in the wonderful and rapid extension of a faith of which so little is known, and which had its origin in stories and devices apparently the most absurd that ever made mockery of human credibility. The converts to this faith, moreover, do not appear to belong to that cla.s.s of enthusiasts that give way to hallucinations. The Mormons are a practical people; they are industrious, temperate, orderly. Wherever they plant themselves in the wilderness, the aspect of a cultivated region is soon visible.
Following the 1856 election, the same magazine sounded the alarm: The accounts from Utah-or as the "saints" now insist on its being called, "Deseret"-are chock-full of fight.... It will be noticed by the threat relative to Jackson County, Missouri, that some of these fanatics really cherish the delusion of ultimate success, in the case of war with the United States.... It"s a pity that proper measures were not taken years ago to remove this cancer, when it was comparatively small and powerless.
After the Democrats won the White House in 1856, newly elected President James Buchanan had to make good on the moral outrage his party had exploited. He did so by replacing Young with a non-Mormon governor and by dispatching 2,500 troops to Utah to erect a permanent fort.
Young, in turn, prepared for war. Among those preparations, he directed Anson Call to locate a settlement on the farthest navigable point of the Colorado River. With Callville as the terminus of a string of Mormon settlements leading from the Salt Lake Valley to the Colorado River, landlocked Utah now had access to the sea via the Colorado to the Gulf of California to the Pacific.
Callville soon became a landing for food and mining supplies. It also served as a portal for immigrants recently converted to Mormonism by missionaries who had traveled to Europe, Latin America, India, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. These foreigners, arriving out of devotion to the Mormon Church as opposed to the United States, contributed to government concerns regarding an eventual Mormon nation.
Though the 185758 Utah War, as it became known, never erupted into full-fledged combat between the Mormon militia and the U.S. Army, over a hundred civilians died in various armed confrontations, and enormous amounts of public and private property were destroyed. Ultimately the Mormons accepted Buchanan"s governor in return for amnesty regarding destruction of government property. The federal troops soon left to deal with the actual present danger to national security: the formation of the Confederacy and the Civil War it triggered.
Continued growth and progress in Callville enabled the first steamship to arrive one year after the Civil War ended. Not coincidentally, that same year Congress redrew the boundary between the Arizona and Nevada Territories.
Callville before and after Nevada statehood, and after the Hoover Dam When Nevada became a state in 1864, it inherited the southern border of the Utah Territory-the straight line continuing to California. To its south, the Arizona Territory also extended west to California, and thus encompa.s.sed the navigable lower end of the Colorado River. In 1866, Congress gave Nevada that portion of the Arizona Territory west of the Colorado River, including Callville (and a region in this otherwise arid environment that Spanish explorers had called "Fruitful Plains"-or, in Spanish, Las Vegas).
Congress may have been seeking to create future states more equal in natural resources. At the time, Nevada had recently exhausted its efforts to claim the crest of the gold-rich Sierras as its rightful boundary with California. It may have also been payback time for Arizonans, who, during the Civil War, had first created Arizona (extending across the southern half, as opposed to western half, of the New Mexico Territory) and been granted territorial status by the Confederacy.
Arizona was officially outraged and baffled by the land transfer. Its outrage was expressed in a resolution pa.s.sed by its territorial legislature. "By this great river the Territory receives the most of its supplies," it protested, "and lately it has become the channel of a large part of the trade of San Francisco with Utah and Montana." The phrase "lately it has become" referred to the recently commenced steamship traffic at Callville. Its bafflement was expressed by state historian Thomas Edwin Farish when he later wrote, "For some reason, to this day unexplained, the greater portion of the land in this Arizona county [Pah Ute County] was ceded to the State of Nevada by the Congress of the United States under an act pa.s.sed on May 5, 1866."
Nevada, on the other hand, viewed the land transfer as perfectly logical. In its official state history, Beulah Hershheiser blandly noted that "the desired tract was a mining district; that Nevada was a mining State; and that the interests of the two sections were therefore identical."
To guard the important landing on the Colorado from these controversies, the Army erected Fort Callville. It was occupied only briefly, since the town soon began to lose population. Commerce dried up owing to the arrival of railroads and, more literally, because the Colorado River was increasingly being drained for irrigation. By 1869 Callville was a ghost town.
Though the dried-up town was later drowned by progress, Callville"s underwater ruins represent important American struggles-including those of a state (Utah) whose boundaries purposely never included it. Indeed, the boundary imposed on Brigham Young"s vision reveals a critical insight: national security became a boundary of religious freedom, a boundary extendable to other freedoms as well.