Ron Rozelle's excellent new biography, "Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston," paints a portrait of the man in the last days of his career as a politician and in the last days of his life.
Throughout the biography, readers get a sense of Houston's hardy personality through his letters — many of them sent from Washington, D.C., back to Texas to his third wife, Margaret — and a sense of his legacy. "His stamp," concludes Rozelle, "is on every inch of the western United States. And his almost unbelievable résumé — commanding general of an army of liberation, twice the president of a republic, U.S. senator, governor of two states — is unparalleled by anyone in American history."
But what else does the book reveal about the man who gave this city a name?
Q: What kind of man was Sam Houston at the end of his life?
A: A very good one. He had been tried in battle, both of the sword-wielding variety and in the halls of the national and state legislatures, had had his integrity impugned, had lost many friends and supporters and he was, in his self-imposed exile in Huntsville, devoted to his wife, his eight children, to Texas and to the Union. I included one of my favorites of his many quotes in one of the first pages of the book. "I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man." He was most certainly that.
Q: One of the major themes in the book is his marriage with Margaret. In many ways, you could argue that Houston came home to himself when he married Margaret. Can you talk about what the marriage meant for Houston?
A: It meant nothing less than his salvation, not just in a religious sense — though one of her goals from the beginning of their marriage was to see him immersed, spiritually and physically, into the Christian faith that was her absolute anchor. She cured him of an addiction to alcohol that had been so strong that the Indian friends of his earlier years had changed his native name from Raven to one that translates as "Big Drunk."
But, most importantly, Margaret was his moral compass, his sounding board and his soulmate. I believe it's highly doubtful he would have become the man he needed to be to face the great moral dilemma of his life — whether to take the oath to the Confederacy as the governor of Texas or not — had it not been for Margaret and her influence on him.
Q: Another of the major themes is Houston's alienation from his party. Though Houston owned slaves, he was against the spread of slavery into new U.S. territories. But he was neither an abolitionist nor a secessionist, and this caused him political problems. How did Houston's politics impact his legacy?
A: From the moment he took his oath as one of the two senators from Texas after the state's annexation, Houston found himself virtually alone among his southern peers on several issues. He did oppose the spread of slavery into the new western states and territories, but the most volatile clash came when he opposed any discussion of the South seceding. His devotion to Andrew Jackson, his long-time mentor, and his nonwavering allegiance to Jacksonian Democracy mandated that he could conceive of no path forward for the union other than staying together through any storm that might threaten her. It finally cost him his senate seat and later, when he refused to take that oath, his governorship of Texas.
His view on slavery is the fly in the ointment when it comes to his legacy. It's hard to fathom how he could be such a vocal proponent of the inherent rights of Native Americans while he owned slaves and upheld the institution of slavery as essential to the economic infrastructure of the agrarian South. In spite of the fact that he was by all accounts a kind master of those people in his charge, and even allowing that he was a creature of his place and time, it is impossible to justify keeping human beings in bondage.
If we view Sam Houston as something of the classical tragic hero of his story — and I compare him to Odysseus more than once in the book, finally coming home at last after all his adventures and wars to face the hardest battle of all — then his tragic flaw would have to be the fact that he failed to speak out against slavery as the did against the plight of the Indians.
Q: Why is it important to revisit his legacy?
232 pages, $29.95, Texas A&M University Press
A: His importance has slipped further and further away as time has distanced modern America from him; one good example is that his biographies, if they can be found in the bookstore at all, are usually relegated to the regional or Texana sections, when they should be in American history. His resume is unique: commanding general of one of the most important armies of liberation in history, the only governor of two states, twice the president of a republic, congressman (both state and federal), U.S. senator and a viable candidate for the American presidency in three elections. His army's victory at San Jacinto and his subsequent efforts to deliver Texas into the U.S. forever changed the American southwest, and his fervent support in the Senate of the Compromise Bill of 1850, in league with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, kept the Civil War at bay for a decade. His legacy deserves to stand as tall as his statue beside Interstate 45 in Huntsville.
Q: You bring up the possibility of Houston being elected president in 1860 instead of Abraham Lincoln. What do you think a Houston presidency could have meant for the U.S.?
A: That's an impossible question to answer. In that fateful year, with a hodgepodge of candidates and with the winds of war blowing fast and strong, there's no way even to guess how Houston might have pulled together some sort of coalition from both the north and the south. But, knowing what I know about him, I can tell you this with certainty: As president he would never on any occasion have made a decision based on how he would be viewed by the electorate or the press, would never have been swayed by personal gain or political advantage and would have been guided always by what was best for the nation that held his total devotion.
Allyn West runs Gray Matters. Find him on Twitter at @allynwest and send him an email if there's something you're curious about: allyn.west@chron.com.
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