an Tom
Gilligan. He fought by my side at San Jacinto. Together we buried poor
Bill Holman. But for his skill and courage I should not be here to-day.
He--"

There was a stir in front. Gilligan had thrown away his knife and gun
and was rushing unarmed through the crowd, tears streaming down his
face.

"For God's sake, Houston," he cried, "don't say another word and forgive
me my cowardly intention."

From that time to his death Tom Gilligan was Houston's devoted friend.

General Houston voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and as a
consequence lost his seat in the Senate. It was thought, and freely
said, that for good and all he was down and out. He went home and
announced himself a candidate for governor of Texas.

The campaign that followed was of unexampled bitterness. The secession
wave was already mounting high. Houston was an uncompromising Unionist.
His defeat was generally expected. But there was no beating such a man
in a fair and square contest before the people. When the votes were
counted he led his competitor by a big majority. As governor he refused
two years later to sign the ordinance of secession and was deposed from
office by force. He died before the end of the war which so signally
vindicated his wisdom and verified his forecast.

III

Stephen Arnold Douglas was the Charles James Fox of American politics.
He was not a gambler as Fox was. But he went the other gaits and was
possessed of a sweetness of disposition which made him, like Fox, loved
where he was personally known. No one could resist the _bonhomie_ of
Douglas.

They are not all Puritans in New England. Catch a Yankee off his base,
quite away from home, and he can be as gay as anybody. Boston and
Charleston were in high party times nearest alike of any two American
cities.

Douglas was a Green Mountain boy. He was born in Vermont. As Seargent
Prentiss had done he migrated beyond the Alleghanies before he came of
age, settling in Illinois as Prentiss had settled in Mississippi, to
grow into a typical Westerner as Prentiss into a typical Southerner.

There was never a more absurd theory than that, begot of sectional
aims and the sectional spirit, which proposed a geographic alignment of
Cavalier and Puritan. When sectionalism had brought a kindred people to
blows over the institution of African slavery there were Puritans who
fought on the Southern side and Cavaliers who fought on the Northern
side. What was Stonewall Jac