“I see Tom Gilligan over yonder. A braver man never lived than Tom Gilligan. He fought by my side at San Jacinto. Together we buried poor Bill Holman. But for his skill and courage I should not be here to-day. He—”
There was a stir in front. Gilligan had thrown away his knife and gun and was rushing unarmed through the crowd, tears streaming down his face.
“For God’s sake, Houston,” he cried, “don’t say another word and forgive me my cowardly intention.”
From that time to his death Tom Gilligan was Houston’s devoted friend.
General Houston voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and as a consequence lost his seat in the Senate. It was thought, and freely said, that for good and all he was down and out. He went home and announced himself a candidate for governor of Texas.
The campaign that followed was of unexampled bitterness. The secession wave was already mounting high. Houston was an uncompromising Unionist. His defeat was generally expected. But there was no beating such a man in a fair and square contest before the people. When the votes were counted he led his competitor by a big majority. As governor he refused two years later to sign the ordinance of secession and was deposed from office by force. He died before the end of the war which so signally vindicated his wisdom and verified his forecast.
III
Stephen Arnold Douglas was the Charles James Fox of American politics. He was not a gambler as Fox was. But he went the other gaits and was possessed of a sweetness of disposition which made him, like Fox, loved where he was personally known. No one could resist the bonhomie of Douglas.
They are not all Puritans in New England. Catch a Yankee off his base, quite away from home, and he can be as gay as anybody. Boston and Charleston were in high party times nearest alike of any two American cities.
Douglas was a Green Mountain boy. He was born in Vermont. As Seargent Prentiss had done he migrated beyond the Alleghanies before he came of age, settling in Illinois as Prentiss had settled in Mississippi, to grow into a typical Westerner as Prentiss into a typical Southerner.