Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/303

Rh 1845, Texas entered the Union, and in March, 1846, Houston entered the U. S. senate, and served till 1859. He was a pronounced Unionist, voted against and strenuously opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and voted for all compro- mise measures during the slavery agitation. He opposed the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and in 1858 voted against the Lecompton constitution of Kansas. He refused to sign the Southern address. Constantly, during his term of service, he earnestly advocated the cause of the Indians. A favorite and oft-quoted maxim of his was that no treaty, made and carried out in good faith, had ever been violated by the Indians. His availability as a presidential candidate became patent, and at one time his nomination was regarded as a foregone conclusion. In 1852 he received eight votes on the first ballot in the convention that nominated Franklin Pierce. His popularity was somewhat impaired in the Democratic party by his sympa- thetic course toward the Know-Nothings. On 11 Oct., 1854, a meeting of Democrats at Concord, N. H., had put Houston forward as the people's candidate, in opposition to caucus or convention nomination. In the American convention that met, 22 Feb., 1856, and nominated Millard Fill- more, Houston received three votes. The conven- tion of the Constitutional Union party met at Baltimore, 9 May, 1860, and on the first ballot John Bell, of Tennessee, received 68|, and Houston 5? votes. On the next ballot Bell was nominated. In November, 1857, Houston had been defeated for governor of Texas by Harrison R. Runnels, the regular nominee of the Democratic party. In 1859, as an independent candidate, he defeated Runnels. In the presidential election of 1860 his preference was for any Union man that could de- feat Lincoln, and in his message to the legislature he deeply deplored Lincoln's election, but saw in this no grounds for secession. At the election, 23 Feb., 1861, the state was carried for secession, and all state officers were required to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate states. This Hous- ton refused to do, and on 18 March he was de- posed. U. S. troops were offered him, but he re- fused their aid. On 10 May, 1861, he made a speech at Independence, Texas, in which he defined the position of southern Unionists. He said : " The voice of hope was weak, since drowned by the guns of Fort Sumter. . . . The time has come when a man's section is his country. I stand by mine. . . . Whether we have opposed this seces- sion movement or favored it, we must alike meet the consequences. ... It is no time to turn back 'now." He took no part in public life after this. See his life, anonymous (New York, 1855).

HOUSTON, William Churchill, lawyer, b. in Cabarrus county, N. C, in 1740; d. in Frankfort, Pa., 12 Aug., 1788. His father, a native of Ireland, settled in the central part of North Carolina with Lord Cabarrus. In early manhood the son went to Princeton, taught in the college grammar-school, and was graduated in 1768, and appointed a tutor. In 1771 he was elected professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, which post he held until he resigned in 1783. At the beginning of the Revo- lutionary war, he and Dr. Witherspoon were the only professors in the college, and when Princeton was invaded in 1776, and the students scattered, he commanded a scouting-party, organized in Flemington, N. J., and rendered important service in the counties of Hunterdon and Somerset. He was commissioned captain in the 2d battalion, Somerset, 28 Feb., 1776. Quiet having been re- stored in Princeton, he resigned his captaincy, 17 Aug. of the same year, and resumed the duties of his professorship. In 1777, while still connected with the college, he was elected a member of the general assembly from Somerset county, and in 1778 was chosen a member of the council of safety. In 1779 he was sent to congress as a representative of the county of Middlesex, and served during that year and in 1780-'l. In 1783 he resigned his professorship in the college, having, in the midst of his multifarious occupations, acquired sufficient knowledge of the law to be admitted to the bar. He now removed to Trenton, N. J., where he en- tered upon an extensive practice. In 1784 he was again sent to congress, and was appointed a dele- gate from New Jersey to the convention of com- missioners at Annapolis, 11 Sept., 1786, which sug- gested the convention that framed the Federal constitution. But, broken down by severe study and arduous labor, he was unable to take part in the proceedings of this convention, which met in Philadelphia the following year, and soon after- ward he abandoned all active employment.

HOUSTOUN, William, congressman. He was an agent of Georgia in the settlement of boundary- disputes with South Carolina in 1785. and a trus- tee for the state college. He was a delegate from Georgia to the Continental congress in 1784 and 1787. and a member of the convention that framed the Federal constitution, but refused to sign that document. The convention, in committee, fixed the period of the president's official term at seven years, prohibiting re-election ; but on the motion of Mr. Houstoun, supported by Roger Sherman and Gouverneur Morris, this provision for compulsory rotation was struck out by six states, against Delaware, Virginia, and the two Carolinas. He also directed the attention of the convention to the expense and extreme inconvenience of drawing together men from all the states for the single purpose of selecting the chief magistrate." He was in favor of revising and amending the constitutions of the several states.

HOVENDEN, Thomas, artist, b. in Dunroanway, County Cork, Ireland, 28 Dec, 1840. He received his early art education in the Cork school of design, came to New York in 1863, and studied in the National academy. In 1874 he went to Paris, where he studied in the Eeole des beaux arts under Cabanel, and returned to the United. States in 1880. He was elected an associate of the National academy in 1881, a national academician in 1882, a member of the Society of American artists, and a member of the American water-color society in 1882, a member of the Philadelphia society of artists in 1883, and a member of the New York etching club in 1885. His works include "The Two Lilies" (1874;; "A Brittany Woman Spinning" and "Pleasant News" (1876); "The Image-Seller " (Paris salon, 1876) ; " Thinking of Somebody " and " News from the Conscript " (1877) : ""Pride of the Old Folks " and " Loyalist Peasant Soldier of La Vendee, 1793" (1878); "A Breton Interior, 1793 " (1878) ; " In Hoc Signo Vinces " (1880, published bv Goupil and Co., Paris) ; " Dat Possum " (1880) ; " Elaine " (1882) ; and " Last Moments of John Brown," leaving the jail on the morning of his execution (1884).

HOVEY, Alvah, clergyman, b. in Greene, Chenango co., N. Y., 5 March, 1820. He spent his early life in Thetford, Vt, was prepared for college at Brandon, and was graduated at Dartmouth in 1844 and at Newton theological institution in 1848, after which he was pastor of the Baptist church in New Gloucester, Me., for a year. He was assistant teacher of Hebrew in Newton theo-