Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 11.djvu/20

6 the office of governor, and F. R. Lubbock for that of lieutenant-governor.

One of those events was when, upon the passage of the Kansas and Nebraska bill in Congress, in 1854, Senator Houston of Texas voted against the bill, with the Northern Free Soilers, and Senator Rusk of Texas voted for the bill, with the Democratic and Whig senators of the South, except John Bell, of Tennessee, who also voted against it. This, with other votes given by Senator Houston, caused a strong opposition to be made against him politically in Texas. That, however, did not prevent him from openly and vigorously defending his course in the Senate, which drew to him large numbers of adherents, who became alienated from the regularly organized Democratic party.

Another political event was the advent, from the North into Texas, of the * Know Nothing order, a secret or ganization, afterward called the American party, that crept almost unknown to the public into the different parts of the State, and embraced a large number of citizens who organized as a political party, advocating the extension of time to twenty-one years for the naturalization of foreign immigrants, and opposition to Catholicism. As a party they did not publicly nominate a candidate for the various offices from the lowest to the highest in the State; but their concerted action in voting for particular candidates, generally in opposition to the nominees of the Democratic party, when nominations were made, soon exhibited a strong influence in county, district and State elections.

Still another dangerous event was the formation in the North of the Republican party with a platform, as it was regarded in the South, embracing all the leading principles of the Northern States, as held by different portions of their people ; they being centralism, federal ism, free-soilism and abolitionism, upon which Colonel Fremont ran as a candidate for President in 1856.