367
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
when cabinet councils are over and he enters the portals of home, -the sentinel, as he paces his weary watch, loves the moonlight tramp, that he may look beneath its rays at the dear memento of a mother's or a sister's love. Over man, in all his relation- ships, the influence of woman hangs like a charm. Deprive us of your influence, which dignifies us and stimulates us to noble deeds, and we become worse than barbarians. Let it be ours, and we can brave the cannon's mouth or face danger in ten thousand forms. You stimulate all that is good. You check in us ignoble purposes. You have also an important influence upon posterity. The early impressions which the child receives from you, outlive all the wisdom of later days. Sages may reason and philosophers may teach, but the voice which we heard in infancy will ever come to our ears, bearing a mother's words and a mother's counsels. Continue to instil into your children virtue and patriotism. Imbue them with proper veneration for the fathers of liberty. Learn them to love their country and to labor for its good, as the great end of their ambition. Bid them proudly maintain our institutions. Point them to the deeds of their an- cestors. Make these their escutcheon and bid them hand it down to their children as free from stain as it came to them. Do this, ladies, and your influence will not be lost in the future. In the language of the poet, it will still be said:-
"Woman is lovely to the sight,
As gentle as the dews of even,- As Bright as mornings earliest light, And spotless as the snows of heaven."
'Campaign Clwonicle, July 12, 1859 [an extra, or circular issued by the Nacogdoches Chronicle], to be found in the Swante Palm Papers-Bergstrom Gift-The University of Texas Library. The Civilian and Texas Gazette (Galveston), July 26, 1859. Also extracts in Ha1·rison Flag, July 24, and in The T1·ue Issue, July 30, 1859. The T1·ue Issue copied its synopsis of the speech from The Harrison Flag. While no copies of The Nacogdoches Chronicle are available, two issues of the Campaign Chronicle are in The University of Texas Archives. During the campaign of 1857, and again during that of 1859, Eber W. Cave, editor of the Nacogdoches Chronicle, ran a campaign extra every week to accompany the weekly issue of his paper. These extras seldom bore a date; however, that carrying the speech of July 9, 1859, was dated July 12. Eber W. Cave was a conservative in politics. He kept himself clear of the Know~Nothing entanglement with which Houston was involved in 1855- 1856; otherwise he was a staunch supporter of Houston and served him valiantly in 1857, and again in 1859. See Houston (by Cave) to E. W. Whitney, March 12, 1860.
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