Andrew Jackson Houston

Andrew Jackson Houston (1941)

Andrew Jackson Houston (born June 21, 1854 in Independence , Washington County , Texas , †  June 26, 1941 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was an American lawyer and politician . His father was former President of the Republic of Texas , Sam Houston .

Life

Houston, named by his father after his mentor, former US President Andrew Jackson , received training at several military academies and universities, including West Point and Baylor University . He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876. As a lawyer, he worked first in Tyler , then in Dallas and Beaumont . Subsequently, however, he also exercised numerous other activities; among other things, he served as a Colonel in the Texas National Guard and as the United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Texas.

politics

He became politically active for the first time in 1892 when he was offered the candidacy for governor of the Lily-White Republicans , a faction of the then internally divided Republicans . Houston accepted the offer, knowing that he had no chance; with 0.3 percent of the vote, he took fifth place. In 1898 and 1904 he was a candidate of the reunited Republicans for Congress , but was clearly defeated in each case. He later went twice (1910 and 1918) as a candidate for the governorship of Texas; both times he ran unsuccessfully for the Prohibition Party . After the second candidacy, which earned him fifth place, he retired and devoted himself to his private historical studies.

This retirement suddenly ended in 1941 when the Texas US Senator Morris Sheppard passed away and a provisional successor was sought. The choice of Governor W. Lee O'Daniel fell on Andrew Jackson Houston, who had since moved to Democrats , as he knew that the 86-year-old would have no interest in running in the subsequent by-election. When Houston was sworn in on April 21, 1941, he was the oldest man to ever serve in the Senate; Only Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton, who was 87 when she took office, was older . At that point, it had been 82 years since his father had served on the Senate.

Houston should have ended Sheppard's term of office, which lasted until 1943, but died on June 26 of the same year, five days after his 87th birthday. Until then, he had only attended one Senate committee meeting. He was one of four politicians who were members of the Chamber at the time they were the oldest living US Senator; the others were William Samuel Johnson , Edmund Pettus, and Strom Thurmond ; In contrast to them, this was already the case for Houston at the time of his entry into the Senate.

Web links

• Andrew Jackson Houston in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Andrew Jackson Houston in the Handbook of Texas (English)