WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
298
Williams. As soon as he received his law license, he went to Selma, Ala- bama, to set up his law practice; but he had remained there only a short time when he decided to go to Mississippi. He practiced his profession at several places in Mississippi before he went to Texas in 1837. Soon after aniving in Texas, President Mirabeau B. Lamar appointed him Attorney General of the Republic, a position he held until the latter part of 1840, when he resigned, because his private affairs interfered with his official duties. See E. W. Winkler (ed.), Secret Joio"ltals of the Senate, Rev11blic of Texas, 1836-1845, 117-118. He was well spoken of by men of reputation (Lamar Pa7Jers, II, 331,477,573; III, 530; IV, 130; V, 267, etc.) through- out the 1840's. He had numerous and complex enterprises and partnerships, none of which seems to have been eminently successful financially. In fact, we find him referred to as a "plunging speculator" in Texas lands. As a lawyer, however, he was highly regarded. After annexation, when Texas was organized as a federal judicial district, Watrous was appointed judge (see note above) ; and when the State was divided into two federal judicial districts, he was made judge over the eastern district, because his land speculations in the west had caused much dissatisfaction with his administration of federal courts in that section of the State. In fact, it was largely on account of his land speculations that efforts were begun, in 1851, to impeach him. Eventually these efforts failed, not so much because there was not abundance of proof of corrupt acts, but mostly because the United States laws and methods of impeachment proceedings were indefinite and unsettled (see the Biennial R~port of the Com11iissione1· of t'lw General Land Office of Texas, 1918-1920; also various court decisions regarding transfer of Texas lands, as well as Gammel, Laws of Texas, I, 99-106. The charges against Watrous were presented to the House of Repre- sentatives upon three memorials: the Alexander memorial of five specific charges; the Mussina memorial of thirteen charges; and the Spencer memo- rial of seven specifications. These twenty-five charges cannot be discussed in detail in this note, but Robert T. Pritchett, in a Master's thesis, The University of Texas, 1925, has analized them minutely. The title of this thesis is, "Impeachment Proceedings in Congress against Judge John C. Watrous, of Texas, 18.51-1861." Copies of this thesis are in The University of Texas Library. This impeachment case extended over the better part of ten years, and stirred up considerable interest 'in both houses of Congress, as well as among the citizenry of Texas; but it seems never to have become involved in any of the outstanding national issues of the time; such as, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska bill; or any other legislation that smacked of abolition or anti-abolition; it remained a Texas question in most of its details. During the ten years that it was before Congress, there were some ten or eleven long speeches made on the subject. These were about evenly divided for and against impeachment. During this time, Houston was a member-at times the chairman-of the Judicial Com- mittee of the Senate. In February, 1859, he made a speech (presented above) that summed up much of the argument that had been presented by the Senators who had previously spoken on the matter. This speech was highly commended by the Texas press; even papers usually anti-Houston in sentiment pronounced it "sound, powerful, and courageous," and it had
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