"Sir, it is an unlawful meeting, but it cannot be a contemptible one, with such men as ex-President Tyler, Roger A. Pryor, and our own Wigfall leading it."
"Is that all, Robert?" I asked, for I was always delighted to hear anything about Houston.
"Very nearly. Some one added, 'There is Jefferson Davis, also.'"
"He said, 'I know Jefferson Davis, and I did not mention him, because I know him. He is proud as Lucifer and cold as a lizard.'"
Then I had one of those unreasonable certainties, that are all-convincing to the people who have them, and sheer foolishness to all ignorant of their irresistible testimony; and I said, "Houston is right; my lips shiver if they utter his name. He will bring ill-luck to any cause."
On the eighteenth of February, General Twiggs, the United States commandant, surrendered to Houston all the national forces in Texas--twenty-five hundred men, and national property valued at $1,200,000. Five days afterwards, the vote on secession was taken. There were forty thousand for secession and fourteen thousand against it. These were anxious, eager days, and it was impossible to avoid catching the popular fever. The convention met again on the second of March, and on the fifth it at once adopted measures for entering the Southern Confederacy, to which new government all state officers were commanded to take the oath of allegiance on the fourteenth of March.
With two friends I went to the Capitol to witness the ceremony, and, as we had seats in the front of the gallery, we looked down directly upon a desk just below us, on which the Ordinance of Secession was spread out. One of my companions was a most passionate Unionist, and she pointed out the document with an unspeakable scorn and contempt. The House was crowded; it was really electrified with the fiery radiations of men tingling with passion, and glowing and burning with the anticipation of revengeful battle. And the air was full of the stirring clamor of a multitude of voices--angry, triumphant, scornful, with an occasional oath or epithet of contempt.
But when Houston appeared there was a sudden silence. It was the homage involuntarily paid to the man himself, not to his office. Firmly and clearly, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States; but the Lieutenant-Governor, a certain Edward Clarke, was eager to do so. He was an insignificant creature, whose airy conceit was a direct insult to Houston's sad countenance and dignified manner; and I remember well how contemptible he appeared, as spry and pert, he stepped up to the bar of the House to take the oath. Just as he reached the desk, on which the Ordinance of Secession lay, my Unionist friend, a bright, clever girl, of about sixteen years old, leaned forward and spit directly on the centre of it. There was a little soft laughter from the women sympathizers who saw the action, and Clarke's handkerchief lay for a moment on the historical parchment, but there was no remark, and the incident caused not the slightest interruption.