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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1855
least these were the only ones of whom he spoke in terms of commendation. Some one in the crowd here asked "if the Know- Nothing log didn't get split at Philadelphia," but General Hous- ton did not hear, or did not wish to answer that question. General Houston occupied the balance of the time allotted to each speaker (an hour and a quarter) in recounting his personal history from 1812 to the present time, and in "fighting his battles o'er again," and in very moving appeals to the sympathies of his audience, referring pathetically to his wounds and services ;-said that he had been twenty years in Texas-had a family of children and was upwards of sixty years of age, was not ambitious, or aspiring, that he had not turned traitor to the South, to Texas, or to the Democratic party (which was dead) as he could not have any motive for such a course,-that he was attached to the town of Washington as it was connected with so many past rerne- niscences, &c., and that he had advised the Convention which sat there in 1836 to make a constitution for the country before ad- journing, which they did. A portion of the audience was quite affected at the General's piteous story, and the expressive looks and gestures with which it was accompanied; and one old lady who did not hear very well, was much alarmed, insisting that the "poor man had got a fit of the colic." But the excellent good lady was "not up to snuff." She didn't know the General, or that he wanted to be President. We may not have given General Houston's remarks in the exact order, but otherwise, we think the report is substantially correct. During his speech, the General was frequently applauded, but his remarks in respect to his votes on the Nebraska Act, etc., were received with attention, and by a dead ominous silence :--even his new "right or wrong" Know-Nothing friends could not swal- low that part of the speech, while "that Flag," was waving before them with its glorious Union of Stars and Stripes. We ourselves do not attach any-not the least importance, to General Houston's Know-Nothing Speech, which we thought so far as argument and TRUTH were concerned, was a very tame, and a very lame effort, addressed to the little miserable preju- dices, of the ignorant, and not to the enlightened intelligence of his audience (as all admit)-but presuming the people of Texas would feel an interest in this new rite by its chief priest, upon his officiating in public, we have been at the trouble of
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