fess the Roman Catholic religion ineligible to office?"-Senator Houston replied, he would not vote for such a law, and could not approve it. The proscription charged upon the "Know-Nothings" was nothing more, he said, than what formerly existed between Whigs and Democrats. He desired that every foreigner coming to live here should be endorsed by one of our consuls abroad, and he was opposed to infamous characters and paupers coming among us.

In 1854, General Houston was recommended as the people's candidate for the Presidency of the United States. The General Committee of the Democracy of New Hampshire nominated him; and his claims were advocated in an able address to the Union from that body, said to be written by Edmund Burke, of the Granite State. In 1856, he supported Fillmore and Donelson, the nominees of the "American" party for President and Vice-President. In the Thirty-Fifth Congress, Senator Houston created a wide sensation by his proposition (February 16, 1858) for a United States protectorate over the States of Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and San Salvador, in such form and to such an extent as shall be necessary to secure to the people of said States the blessings of stable republican government. He held that recent events showed the inability of those States to take care of themselves, and our Government, as the great Power of North America, should extend a helping hand to its feeble neighbors. The project was, however, deferred. Senator Houston advocated the Southern route for the Pacific Railroad, and took occasion to speak of the South as not favoring secession or disunion, and in condemnation of the slave-trade. He did not like the term "Southern Rights;" for the South had no rights which were not equally possessed by the North. Senator Iverson, of Georgia, made some remarks in response, denying the right of Houston to speak on behalf of the South, as Texas had repudiated him for favoring union when union could only be maintained at the sacrifice of the South. The next day. Houston replied, and, admitting that Texas had chosen to dispense with his services, said he was glad they were able to get along without him, for it demonstrated the increasing prosperity of the State. He reviewed the " gaseous gentlemen and street-corner politicians" who still talked of secession when there was no sentiment to

back them up, and concluded by alluding to Iverson's attack. It reminded him, he said, of the old fable of the dead lion, who being espied by a certain animal, the latter took advantage of his defenceless position to plant his heels in the lion's face. He would not name the animal, but it was the same from which Samson took the jawbone. Houston sat down amid great laughter, both on the floor of the Senate and in the galleries; and the Senator from Georgia promptly and gracefully apologized for having, in the heat of debate, wounded the sensibilities of General Houston, for whom he cherished a high regard.

Returning to Texas, Houston entered into the Gubernatorial campaign; and defined his position in a lengthy speech at Nacogdoches, which attracted general attention. He claimed to be a Democrat of the old school, and would not be shackled by conventions. He was older than platforms, and was a statesman before the days of conventions. Jefferson was not nominated by a convention. General Jackson refused to go before a convention. The people of Texas would not be dictated to by a convention calling itself Democratic, and they had called upon him to stand against the nomination of the convention which assembled at Houston. The sentiment of that convention was in favor of the reopening of the slave-trade. The result of reopening the trade would be a reduction in the price of cotton by over-production. Freights would rise, and the ship-owners of the North would make the profits. Two years ago the people of Texas abused him for his vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill; but he still maintained the correctness of that vote. In 1856, he voted against President Buchanan, because he did not approve of the Cincinnati platform; but he had since supported him, and should continue to do so, regarding him as an honest man and a patriot.

He was triumphantly elected, showing that the Texans still cling to their old leader and liberator. "Houston," said Benton, in 1836, "is the pupil of Jackson; and he is the first selfmade general since the time of Mark Antony and the King Antigonus who has taken the general of the army and the head of the Government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he has spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine."

R. M. T. HUNTER,

OF VIRGINIA.

THIS eminent statesman was born in the county of Essex, Virginia, on the 21st of April, 1809. He was educated at the University of his native State, and graduated with distinction. He afterward studied law with Judge Henry St. George Tucker, at Winchester, and joined the bar of his native county in the year 1830, where he continued in successful practice for several years.

Mr. Hunter's first vote in a Presidential election was cast for Andrew Jackson, in 1832; but he was opposed to the doctrines of the Proclamation and Force Bill, and on this issue was elected to the Lower House of the Virginia Legislature in 1834, on the very day on which he became eligible. In this body, composed of some of the first men of the State, he soon attained a high position, and enjoyed in an eminent degree the confidence and respect, not only of his associates, but of the public at large. At that early day, his speeches upon the great questions of State policy which engaged the attention of the Legislature, and especially those relating to finance and banking, exhibited strong indications of that extended historical research and profound political philosophy which have so pre-eminently distinguished his later efforts upon the broader theatre of the National Councils. He remained in the Legislature three years; during which period, while he opposed the Proclamations and the Expunging Resolutions, he supported the veto of the United States Bank, and was against Distribution and for Free-Trade.

In 1836 he voted for Judge White for the Presidency, and in the following year was elected to the National House of Representatives by the States-Rights Whigs.

When Mr. Hunter entered Congress, all the great interests of the country were suffering under the blighting influence of pecu

niary pressure, resulting from a derangement of the currency consequent upon an undue expansion of the credit system. Distress and ruin pervaded every class of society and paralyzed every department of industrial pursuit. The great question which agitated the public mind, and engaged the earnest attention of patriots, was, what measures, within the constitutional powers of Congress, were best calculated to afford relief and guard most effectively against a recurrence of the evil.

In considering this question, Mr. Hunter deemed it best first to examine into the causes which had produced the evil, when he would be better prepared to apply the remedy. In a speech delivered by him on the 10th of October, 1837, in the House of Representatives, on the bill "imposing additional duties, as depositaries in certain cases, on public officers," he traces those causes in a masterly manner. I present a couple of brief extracts, because the one is referred to by his friends as indicating the elevated tone of patriotic feeling which has so strongly marked his entire public life, lifting him above mere party considerations upon all questions involving the vital interests of the country; and because the other presents the true causes of the then existing distress.

"I feel, sir," he said, "a most painful sense of the responsibility of my position. On the one hand, I know that he cannot be justified on the plea of ignorance who lightly tampers with the important interests now concerned in our action; and, on the other, if personal or party considerations were to deter me from doing whatever may be done for the relief of the country, I feel that my name would deserve to be pursued through all posterity with execrations. I might, perhaps, escape responsibility by declaring that, as I had nothing to do in producing the present distress, so I was bound to do nothing toward restoring things to a sounder condition. Sir, I scorn the excuse. I think I see something which may be done for the good of the country, and I am willing to share the responsibility with those who will attempt it. In taking my course I form no new connections, I make no alliances: I act as I was sent here to act. I legislate not for party, but for the good of our common country. I tread all personal and party considerations into the dust, when they present themselves in competition with the most important interests of the people."

After showing that the Government had no constitutional power to extend immediate relief, and that a resort to the expedient of a United States Bank would only aggravate the evil, he says, "But I pass from the consideration of the means of

immediate relief, real or imaginary, which are not within our reach, to those which may be. And here I beg leave to pause upon our fiscal policy, and its incidental effects upon currency and trade. If it has introduced causes which disturb the natural level of circulating capital, and furnished a false excitement to currency and credit, that policy ought to be changed. Public convenience may require that the change should be gradual, but important interests demand that it shall be ultimately made." After much consideration, he arrived at the conclusion that the commercial distresses had been mainly produced by the American banking-system,—a system which precipitated its own downfall; and this catastrophe, he believed, was hastened by the connection between the system and the Government. He demonstrated these propositions by a vigor of argument and force of illustration which placed him at once in the front rank of parliamentary debaters.

On the 8th of January, 1839, Mr. Hunter introduced a series of resolutions having for their object the extension of some relief to the country at large, and on the 6th of February following, as chairman of the select committee to which said resolutions were referred, presented an able report, accompanied by a bill (No. 1133) to carry out the purposes indicated, to wit: First, to leave the public money in the hands of the public debtor until actually. wanted by the Government, and thus give that portion of the capital of the country to the uses of trade, and at the same time secure interest to the public as the consideration of its use.

Secondly, to set off periodically the liabilities to and from the Government, by fixing certain days, at intervals of three months, for receipts and disbursements, so as to concentrate as many demands to and from the United States as might be practicable at the same time and place.

Thirdly, to diminish the risk of peculation and default on the part of public officers: first, by this exchange of credit, which, so far as it could be effected, would accomplish at the same time the collection and disbursement of the revenue without affording a temptation to theft; and, next, by providing for cash. transactions, so that the money which passed through the hands of the public officers should be limited in quantity to the actual demands to be made upon them within a period of twenty days. Fourthly, to introduce greater order and facility in the adminis