301
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1851
In 1849, he was elected to the Texas Senate from the district composed of Brazoria and Galveston, but he resigned the position in 1860 to return to his law practice. In 1853, he became interested in the project of con- structing a transcontinental railroad extending to the Pacific Ocean. Thomas J. Rusk, Sam Houston and other leading men and statesmen of Texas earnestly supported him in this project, a project that after many setbacks, changing and blending of charters, and entire lapse of work for long periods, was finally completed in 1881. In 1853, too, he was elected Governor of Texas, and reelected in 1855 with Hardin R. Runnels as Lieutenant Governor. Pease's administration as Governor was one of the best Texas has had, and his messages to the Legislature show true statesmanship-a clear knowledge of the condition and needs of the country, as well as farsighted wisdom in his recommen- dations. (See Executive Record Book, No. 276, vassim, Texas State Library. This Executive Record Book contains the executive records for 1853-1857.) During the four years of his gubernatorial tenure, railroad construction was pushed; appropriations were made for the establishment of a state university; a new capitol building was erected; institutions for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the insane were founded; and with all this devel- opment, the state tax was reduced more than ten cents on the hundred dollars, and yet, left the State entirely free from debt. It was during Pease's administration that the Know Nothing, or Ameri- can Party got some headway in Texas. The Governor took a firm stand against the principles of this party, considering them a menace to free institutions. It was during Pease's administration, also, that the country became greatly aroused over sectional feelings, which were brought to a head by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854), a bill that abro- gated the Missouri Compromise Bill of 1820. Sam Houston and Pease had been somewhat alienated in politics for a few years, because of Houston's advocacy for about two years of the American Party policies. But both Houston and Pease were against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and their tem- porary coolness was forgotten, and Pease became a strong advocate for Houston's becoming a candidate for the governor's office in 1857 against Hardin R. Runnels. Runnels was elected, but two years later Houston won the office just as a great crisis was at hand-threats of secession being the order of the day if Abraham Lincoln should be elected President. Pease was strongly opposed to secession, therefore returned to private life, only to be sent as a delegate from Texas to the Convention of South- em Loyalists at Philadelphia in 1866, and there was elected one of the five vice-presidents of that body. Later that same year he was a candidate of the Union Party for the office of Governor of Texas, but was defeated by J. W. Throckmorton. In 1867, Pease was appointed Provisional Gov- ernor of Texas by General Sheridan, but resigned the position before the end of the year, because he differed with General J. J. Reynolds concern- ing the course to be pursued in: the reconstruction of the State. Pease represented Texas in the Liberal Republican Convention of 1872 that assembled in Chicago and nominated Horace Greely for the PrE>si- dency; _and in his latter days he attended various State and Nntionnl Re- publican conventions, and throughout his life continued to be a lender of the Republican party in Texas. Because of this close alignment with the
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