Long Crockett

Davy Crockett, the celebrated hero, warrior and backwoods statesman, was born August 17, 1786.
Crockett stands for the Spirit of the American Frontier. He died at the Alamo, helping Texas win independence from Mexico. For many years he was nationally known as a political representative of the frontier.
He was a Democrat and a member of Tennessee state house of representatives.
His motto was : "Be always sure you are right, then go ahead."
Later Davy Crockett went to Congress as the Representative of the 9th District of the State of Tennessee.
Now old General Sam Houston is one of the most famous political figures of Texas. He was born on March 2, 1793.
He ran away when his older brothers' tried to get him to work on the family farm and in the family's store in Maryville.
When he was about eighteen he ran away from Indians and set up a school to make money to repay debts.
When the War of 1812 broke out with the British, he left his teaching post and debts and joined the Army. Within about a year, after most of his superiors had been killed he received a commission as a third lieutenant.
He was part of Andrew Jackson's army. He fought at the battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 26, 1814. Houston got the attention of General Jackson, who thereafter became his benefactor. Houston, in return, revered Jackson and became a staunch Jacksonian Republican.
After the war he became a land agent for the government and helped move a lot of Indians off their land.
Old Hickory, as Jackson was called by his admirers, pleased the people of the West. He moved on to the national scene as the standard-bearer of one wing of the old Republican party.
Houston resigned from the army on March 1, 1818 and left his job as a government agent because of difficulties.
General Jackson at that time was idolized by his party. All through the South and West his name was a tower of strength. Crockett had originally been elected as a Jackson-man. He abandoned the Administration, and was now one of the most inveterate opponents of Jackson.
The problems between them were over a land grant system that was being used to award land to Jackson supporters and take over previously unclaimed territory for a pittance and in some cases – for free. Davy Crockett intensified the political break with fellow Tennesseean President Andrew Jackson because of the latter's position on the Land Bill; Davy stood alone in the Tennessee delegation.
As a result of his outspoken opposition to Jackson, Davey Crockett found himself in a political contest with competitor brought in from the outside. Money and land grants were said to have changed hands in an effort to get votes away from Crockett. In the end – Crockett lost by only two hundred and thirty votes. The whole powerful influence of the Government had been exerted against Crockett and in favor of his competitor.
Crockett wrote, in a strain which reveals the bitterness of his disappointment:
"I am gratified that I have spoken the truth to the people of my district, regardless of the consequences. I would not be compelled to bow down to the idol for a seat in Congress during life. I have never known what it was to sacrifice my own judgment to gratify any party; and I have no doubt of the time being close at hand when I shall be rewarded for letting my tongue speak what my heart thinks. I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace; and if I am never again elected, I will have the gratification to know that I have done my duty. I may add, in the words of the man in the play, 'Crockett's occupation's gone.'"
It pays to note that forces loyal to President Jackson descended on the district claiming Crockett was afraid to respond to their charges; in one incident, Crockett's opponent starts to repeat the 'lying' charges, and as Davy steps forward to carry out his threat to "thrash" the man, a pistol aimed deliberately at Davy by his opponent sent him back to his seat.
In 1835 Davy Crockett set out for Texas
On March 6, 1836 he was killed along with other patriots at the Alamo. Sam Houston had refused to send reinforcements and decided instead of fighting to attend a political meeting in order to divide up the spoils of war and set up the Texas National Government.
Sam Houston's rapid rise in public office picked up in 1823, when, as a member of Jackson's political circle, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the Ninth Tennessee District. He worked unsuccessfully for the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1824. In 1825 he was returned to Congress for a second and final term. In 1827, ever the Jackson protégé, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee.
Davy Crockett took his seat in Congress and immediately began to outshine Sam Houston. Davy Crockett served in the Tennessee from 9th District 1827-31 and in the 12th District 1833-35);
On January 22, 1829, at 37 years of age, Sam Houston married nineteen-year-old Eliza Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee. After eleven weeks the marriage ended and Eliza returned to her parents' home. Houston then abruptly resigned from his office on April 16 and ran away across the Mississippi River to Indian Territory.
Houston's abrupt exit was the end of him in Tennessee politics.
Among the Indians he dressed Indian-style and, although he corresponded with Andrew Jackson, initially secluded himself from contacts with white society. He drank so heavily that he earned the nickname "Big Drunk."
Under Cherokee law, he married Diana Rogers Gentry, an Indian woman of mixed blood. Together, they established a residence and trading post called Wigwam Neosho on the Neosho River near Fort Gibson.
He made various trips East-to Tennessee, Washington, and New York and was whispered to have been dealing in whiskey and guns.
In December 1831, Houston encountered Alexis de Tocqueville, on his famous travels through the United States. Houston most likely served as an example for Tocqueville's composite description of the "nervous American," or the man-on-the-make.
On the evening of April 13, 1832, on the streets of Washington, Houston thrashed William Stanbery, United States representative from Ohio, with a hickory cane. The assault resulted from a perceived insult by Stanbery over an Indian rations contract. Houston was soon arrested and tried before the House of Representatives. Francis Scott Key served as his attorney.
He then ran away from his wife, Diana and his life among the Indians. Houston crossed the Red River into Mexican Texas on December 2, 1832, and began another, perhaps the most important, phase of his career.
He quickly became embroiled in the rebellion.
He served as a delegate from Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe, where he sided with the more radical faction under the leadership of William H. Wharton.
He also pursued a law practice in Nacogdoches and finally filed for divorce from Eliza. As prescribed by Mexican law, he was baptized into the Catholic Church under the name Samuel Pablo.
In September 1835 he chaired a mass meeting in Nacogdoches to consider the possibility of convening a consultation. By October, Houston had expressed his belief that war between Texas and the central government was inevitable. That month he became commander in chief of troops for the Department of Nacogdoches and called for volunteers to begin the "work of liberty."
After joining his army in Gonzales, Houston and his troops ran away eastward away from the Mexican army under Gen. Santa Anna. The Texas rebels had a general lack of discipline.
The citizenry ran away as well in the so-called Runaway Scrape.
Houston and his men defeated Santa Anna's forces at San Jacinto on the afternoon of April 21, 1836.
The Mexican Army had stopped to rest. They had let down their guard. Their horses were grazing. The families of Mexican soldiers often traveled with the Army and this time was no different.
The Army was at their ease in fields and groves below the hills from where Houston watched them. The Texans did nothing as the women prepared the midday meal and the men took their leisure – their weapons stacked about.
When the families began to eat the Texans came storming out of the trees and shot and stabbed anyone or anything in their way – horses, men, women and children.
The Mexican Army surrendered quickly in the face of this barbaric attack by a smaller force.
During this engagement Houston was wounded just above the right ankle.
General Santa Anna surrendered the next day. At San Jacinto, Sam Houston became forever enshrined as a member of the pantheon of Texas heroes and a symbol for the age.
Following this, some time later on May 9, 1840, Houston married another woman, twenty-one-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea of Marion, Alabama.
He was a slaveowner who defended slavery in the South. Houston characterized himself as a Southern man for the Union. He likewise embraced the principles of the American (Know-Nothing) party. In 1854, he joined the Baptist Church.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, the clamor of discontent in Texas prompted Houston to call a special session of the state legislature. Adamantly opposed to secession, Houston warned Texans that civil war would result in a Northern victory and destruction of the South
The Secession Convention convened a week later and began a series of actions that withdrew Texas from the Union.
Houston acquiesced to these events. He refused to take the oath of loyalty to the newly formed Confederate States of America and the Texas convention removed him from office on March 16.
President Lincoln twice offered Houston the use of federal troops to keep him in office and Texas in the Union, offers that Houston declined
Sam, Jr., eagerly joined the Confederate Army and was wounded at the battle of Shiloh.
When Crockett with his companions arrived, Colonel Bowie, of Louisiana, was in the church. Colonel Travis was in command.
According to Crockett's account, many shameful orgies took place in the little garrison. Scouts brought in the tidings that Santa Anna, President of the Mexican Republic, at the head of sixteen hundred soldiers, and accompanied by several of his ablest generals, was within six miles of Bexar.
Early in the month of February, 1836, the army of Santa Anna appeared before the town, with infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The Texan invaders, seeing that they would soon be surrounded, abandoned the town to the enemy, and fled to the protection of the citadel. There were only about one hundred and fifty of them. Almost without exception they were desperate men.
Santa Anna sent a summons to Colonel Travis, demanding an unconditional surrender.
The only reply Colonel Travis made was to throw a cannon-shot into the town. The Mexicans then opened fire from their batteries, but without doing much harm.
In the night, Colonel Travis sent a message to Colonel Fanning at Goliad to come to his aid. Goliad was about four days away. The next morning the Mexicans renewed their fire from a battery about three hundred and fifty yards from the fort.
On March 3, Travis sent out a final request for help. Houston moved slowly through the countryside and finally on March 11 received the information he had been waiting for. The Alamo had fallen and of his political enemies were dead. Without Crockett Texas would become an independent nation and Houston its leader.
Speech by Crockett Before the Congress
"The broken fenced state o' the nation, the broken banks, broken hearts, and broken pledges o' my brother Congressman here around me, has riz the boiler o' my indignation clar up to the high pressure pinte, an' therefore I have riz to let off the steam of my hull hog patriotism, without round-about- ation, and without the trimmins. The truth wants no trimmins for in her clar naked state o' natur she's as graceful as a suckin colt i' the sunshine. Mr. Speaker! What in the name o' kill-sheep-dog rascality is the country a- comin' to? Whar's all the honor? no whar! an thar it'll stick! Whar's the state revenue? Every whar but whar it ought to be!
"Why, Mr. Speaker, don't squint with horror, when I tell you that last Saturday mornin' Uncle Sam hadn't the first fip to give to the barbet! The banks suspend payment, and the starving people suspend themselves by ropes! Old Currency is flat on his back, the bankers have sunk all funds in the safe arth o' speculation, and some o' these chaps grinnin' around me are as deep in the mud as a heifer in a horse-pond!
"Whar's the political honesty o' my feller congressmen? why, in bank bills and five acre speeches! Whar's all thar patriotism? in slantendicular slurs, challenges, and hair trigger pistols! Whar's all thar promises? every whar! Whar's all thar perfomances on 'em? no whar, and the poor people bellering arter 'em everywhere like a drove o' buffaloes arter their lazy keepers that, like the officers here, care for no one's stomach, but their own etarnal intarnals!
"What in the nation have you done this year? why, waste paper enough to calculate all your political sins upon, and that would take a sheet for each one o' you as long as the Mississippi. and as broad as all Kentucky. You've gone ahead in doin' nothin' backwards, till the hull nation's done up. You've spouted out a Mount Etny o' gas, chawed a hull Allegheny o' tobacco, spit a Niagary o' juice, told a hail storm o' lies, drunk a Lake Superior o' liquor, and all, as you say, for the good o' the nation; but I say, I swar, for her etarnal bankruptification!
"Tharfore, I move that the ony way to save the country is for the hull nest o' your political weasels to cut stick home instanterly, and leave me to work Uncle Sam's farm, till I restore it to its natural state o' cultivation, and shake off these state caterpillars o' corruption. Let black Dan Webster sittin there at the tother end o' the desk turn Methodist preacher; let Jack Calhoun settin' right afore him with his hair brushed back in front like a huckleberry bush in a hurrycane, after Old Hickory's topknot, turn horse- jockey. Let Harry Clay sittin' thar in the corner with his arms folded about his middle like grape vines around a black oak, go back to our old Kentuck an' improve o' lawyers an' other black sheep. Let old Daddy Quincy Adams sittin' right behind him thar, go home to Massachusetts, an' write political primers for the suckin' politicians; let Jim Buchanan go home to Pennsylvania an' smoke long nine, with the Dutchmen. Let Tom Benton, bent like a hickory saplin with ull rollin', take a roll home an' make candy "mint drops" for the babies:--for they've worked Uncle Sam's farm with the all-scratchin' harrow o' rascality, 'till it's as gray as a stone fence, as barren as barked clay, and as poor as as turkey fed on gravel stones!
"And, to conclude, Mr. Speaker, the nation can no more go ahead under such a state o'things, than a fried eel can swim upon the steam o' a tea kettle; if it can, then take these yar legs for yar hall pillars."