Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 310 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
267
Again in the year 1860, after the election c
President Lincoln, and the adoption by South Cai
olina of her celebrated resolutions announcing th
fact that that State had seceded from the Ameri
can Union, he furnished another evidence of th
soundness and reliability of his judgment. As
member of a committee on resolutions at a seces
sion meeting held at Beaumont he refused to sub
scribe to and vote for the adoption of a copy ol
the South Carolina resolutions, taking the position,
first, that Mr. Lincoln, being an honest statesman,
would under his oath of office maintain
and enforce all existing laws enacted in accorddance
with constitutional provisions for the protection
of the rights of the South, more efficiently
than his Democratic predecessors had succeeded
in doing, antagonized as they were by the people
of the North; and, second, that a resort to secession,
as a cure of the ills that existed, was then
premature, inasmuch as the abolition forces had
secured possession alone of the executive department
of the national government, and control of
both branches of Congress, and the Supreme Court
of the United States remained in the hands of the
Democrats, rendering it impossible that existing
laws would be changed, the constitution amended,
or constitutional guarantees further invaded, during
the Lincoln administration, while it was altogether
probable that the fanatical disregard of the
organic laws and the rights of the people of the
Southern States thereunder, would be allayed and
finally subside, if cooling time were allowed, and
then the rights of the South would be accorded
for the future, or the slavery question would be
compromised, by the adoption of a just and peaceable
system of gradual emancipation.
His opposition proved of no avail. A large
majority of his fellow-citizens dissented from his
views. When threatened and condemned at this
meeting for the position he had taken, he, without
subscribing to the resolutions, gave the extreme
politicians present to unequivocally understand
that if they and others precipitated upon our State,
secession and consequent civil war, as he believed
prematurely, he would stand by his people and be)f one of the first to shoulder a musket, and, from
r
the beginning to the end of the struggle, would
e seek to do his full duty in the ranks of the soli
diery of Texas, as there existed no difference of
e opinion between him and other members of the
a meeting as to the fact that the Southern States had
-suffered outrages at the hands of the abolitionparty that furnished ample justification for such a
f course. He maintained, however, to the end of
,the discussion, the unwisdom of secession at the
time.
I Capt. O'Brien lost his first wife in 1873, and was
married again in 1874 to Miss Ellen P. Chenault,
then a resident of Orange, Texas. She is a sister
of Hon. Stephen Chenault, then a citizen of that
place, now of Goliad, and a daughter of Felix
Chenault, Esq., a resident and for nearly thirty
years county clerk of Gonzales County. She was
born in De Witt County, where her father and
mother (nee Miss Anna Trigg) formerly resided. By
this marriage two children have been born to them:
Chenault O'Brien and Robert O'Brien.
The population as shown by the census of 1850,
was about 212,000. There were no railway or
telegraph lines between the borders of the State, and
by far the greater part of her domain was a primeval
waste. While of a modest and retiring disposition,
in the period that has supervened, no man, according
to his opportunities and abilities, has been more
zealous, or labored more effectively, in the noble
work of developing the resources of the State, and
none feel a deeper pride in her present and future
greatness.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, and Masonic and Knights of Honor
fraternities.
He has aided every worthy enterprise established
in his section, and has championed every worthy
cause.
Of spotless fame, cultured and refined in manner,
kindly and generous, and a worthy type of the true
gentleman, he enjoys the unfeigned friendship and
esteem of not only his immediate neighbors, but a
wide circle of personal and political friends, extending
throughout the State.
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Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Book)
A history of pioneers in Texas and their confrontations with local American Indians.
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/310/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.