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Sam Houston's stand against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, praised by a NY abolitionist
Sam Houston's stand against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, praised by a NY abolitionist
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Houston Sam

2pp ALS by Worthington G. Snethen addressed to Sam Houston, February 24, [1854], New York, New York. 8" x 9.75". Some fire damage to right margin affecting a few words. Expected paper folds, isolated discoloration to the upper left corner of first page, and isolated chipped edges.

Senator Sam Houston of Texas made a speech in Congress on February 15, 1854 opposing Senator Stephen A. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska Bill. His opposition led many newspapers and politicians to brand Houston as a traitor to the South, but he insisted that rejecting the bill was the right thing to do. A New York abolitionist named Worthington G. Snethen wrote to Houston amidst the national controversy thanking him for his stand in favor of “ justice & right ”.

Please see below for a full transcript:

"New York / 24th Feby ’5[4]

My Dear Genl.

Your welcome favor of 20th [inst?] duly at hand, and thanks, thanks to you for yr. attention. The very day before it came I had noticed your presentation of the paper[s] on the 18th ult. to Com. on Commerce, and I had occasion to send additional proof direct to the chairman, Mr Hamlin.

Your great Nebraska speech my dear General, has won for you the actual love of every friend of justice & right, and every lover of public & private faith. It was truly a refreshing thing to find one man in the Slave States determined not to do the poor Indian further injustice, & resolved not to be the receiver of stolen goods, for such I regard Mr Douglas’ Bill. The North & West will yet come to appreciate your noble qualities of head & heart. I do not believe it possible, that the iniquitous measure will pass, if it does, it will overwhelm in ruin all its authors. It don’t require a prophet or the son of a prophet to tell you that, does it?

By the by, I wish you could have heard Henry Ward Beecher, last Sunday night upon the text of visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third & fourth generation. At the close of his sermon, in which he [rose?] step by step, he applied the text to the effort now making to violate the public faith. If Douglas would have heard him, he would have withdrawn his Bill, if he had a single spark of conscience left. Beecher will be in yr. city on the 9th of April next. Go & hear him. He is a backwoodsman speaker, just after your own heart. On the other hand, when you have a Sunday morning or afternoon to spare, go to the 5th Street Congregational Church & hear Alexander Duncan, a Scotch Divine. It will repay you. Our old friend, the lamented Gallagher, used to love to preach in that church.

Truly yours,

W. G. Snethen

Hon Sam Houston

Washington / DC."

Democratic Senator from Illinois Stephen A. Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska bill on January 4, 1854, proposing the creation of a vast Nebraska Territory that extended from Kansas north to the Canadian border. Soon, a large portion became the Dakota Territory, and other parts were later transferred to the Colorado and Idaho Territories. Most controversial in the proposal was the provision that “when admitted as a state or states, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.” This provision was the legislative enactment of Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” idea. Opponents immediately recognized that this provision amounted to a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of the 36º30' parallel.

On January 23, Douglas introduced a revised bill that repealed the Missouri Compromise and divided the territory into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Congress was divided during weeks of debate. Houston urged on March 3, “Maintain the Missouri Compromise! Stir not up agitation! Give us peace!” The Senate passed the bill on March 4 by a vote of 37 to 14, but Houston and eight other senators had already left for the night when the final vote came. In the House of Representatives, the debate was even more intense and nearly violent. The sergeant at arms had to arrest a Virginia Democrat to prevent a violent attack on an Ohio Congressman. The bill passed the House by a vote of 113 to 100 on May 22, and President Franklin Pierce signed it into law on May 30, 1854.

Douglas and his supporters believed the act would remove the divisive issue of slavery from the political arena and leave it to the states. In contrast, most Northerners were outraged by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Passage of the act further divided the nation over the question of slavery and led in part to the formation of the Republican Party.

Houston’s opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act cost him dearly in Texas. The legislature charged that he had betrayed his state, “joined the abolitionists” and “deserted the South.” This hostility led him to leave the Democratic Party for the American (Know Nothing) Party, with which he associated from 1855 to 1859. He was defeated in his 1857 campaign for governor, and the Texas legislature even dismissed him from his Senate seat in November 1857.

Worthington G. Snethen (1805-1884) was born in New York, and in 1843, he married Virginia Polk in New York City. In 1848, he compiled The Black Code of the District of Columbia, in Force September 1st 1848 for the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and two years later, he was living in a boarding house in Washington, D.C., where he worked as an attorney. An 1857 directory lists him a lawyer on Broadway in New York City. By 1860, he was living in Baltimore, where he continued his law practice. He became an important Unionist and Republican in Maryland during the Civil War. By 1870, he was an attorney in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Samuel Houston (1793-1863) was born in Virginia and left home at age 16 to live with the Cherokee. He enlisted to fight the British in the War of 1812 and came under the tutelage of Andrew Jackson. After the war, he settled in Tennessee and began to practice law. In 1822, he was elected to Congress and served from 1823 to 1827. He was a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson during his term in Congress. In 1827, he became governor of Tennessee but resigned in 1829 before his term ended after his wife left him amid rumors of alcoholism and infidelity. In the early 1830s, Houston exposed federal fraud committed against the Cherokee. When a Congressman accused him of impropriety, he beat the Congressman with a cane on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was arrested and found guilty but given a light fine, and he left for Mexico. By 1835, Houston was a major general in the Texas Army, and he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in March 1836. In the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836, Houston surprised Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and won a decisive victory that secured Texas independence. Houston served as President of the Republic of Texas from October 1836 to December 1838, and again from 1841 to 1844. After the annexation of Texas to the United States, Houston served as U.S. senator from 1846 to 1859. In 1859, Houston became governor of Texas but resigned less than two years later because he refused to take the Confederate loyalty oath. He retired from public life and died at his home.

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