Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/158

 disposing of the land, this bill came no nearer making a provision for war than a "resolution to appropriate ten millions of acres of blue sky, and conferring dictatorial powers on the north wind."

The will of the Congress was certainly good enough, and members undoubtedly thought that they had acquitted themselves like men. Will without means is worthless. While the bill was under discussion, it was apprehended that Houston would veto it, as he was the last man to make use of dictatorial powers in resisting the encroachments of a dictator. The excitement became intense as the time for constitutionally keeping the bill in his possession had nearly expired. Angry and desperate men filled the capital, whose noisy clamor excited the country. The executive was assailed with various accusations, and threats of violence were made in every quarter, and he was even told that if he vetoed the bill, his life would pay the forfeit. Apprehending his assassination, his friends gathered about him, and begged him not to hazard a veto, in the belief that it would result in his own and his country's ruin. Few of his friends, for two weeks, dared openly to approach the President's house, but secretly went there under the shadow of night. In the meantime, assassins lurked around his dwelling. It is said that even his Cabinet officers talked of resigning. While a storm raged which could be resisted by few men, the President was cheerful and calm. No guard was stationed around his house; no spies were on the alert. What was said in Congress or done on the streets was not inquired after. The blinds and windows of his house were wide open as usual. Often was he seen walking across his parlor, cheerfully conversing with his family. His young wife, one of the most accomplished and gifted of women, whom he had married in 1840, and of whom more full mention will be made hereafter, confidently reposed upon his character, and sustained him trustingly and calmly, by her placid and intellectual conversations. The cheerful voice of his wife, mingling with the tones of the harp and the piano, was heard issuing from the open windows of the President's dwelling, long after the lights had been extinguished through the town, and sullen, desperate, armed men were gathered in secret meetings to plot and counterplot.

The crisis was terrible; Sam Houston was equal to it. No act of his eventful life gave such indubitable evidence that nature had lavished upon him all those gifts which make up the really great man, as this one. In his own chosen time he sent his veto to Congress.

In that veto he demonstrated to members of Congress how utterly and totally they had failed to accomplish the object for which he had called them together. Without making provision for