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History of Texas Part III: Sam Houston

March 02, 2017
Staff

WRITER

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes the legends who forged the state's independence.

Texas history could ever be complete without covering Sam Houston, one of the most complex and fascinating characters in American history. Born in Virginia in 1793, Houston would become the only American to serve as the governor of two separate states, a congressman, a senator and the president of a sovereign nation --- the Republic of Texas.

Revered for his military service under Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 and as the general who would defeat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, Houston fell out of favor when he refused to secede with southern states during the Civil War era. History would eventually right the wrongs done to his legacy and prove his judgment correct. Today, Sam Houston remains a beloved and giant figure in Texas history.

Listen to this segment:

Listen to all serials at glennbeck.com/serials.

GLENN: They say everything is bigger in Texas. And that includes the legends responsible for forging its independence. No discussion of Texas history could ever be complete without exploring the lives of Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie. One fact that makes us wannabe Texans feel better that none of these were born in Texas. But like the 28 million others who live there today, we all got here as soon as we could.

While Stephen F. Austin is the man without whom Texas might still be a hot, humid, swampy wasteland. In our first episode, we covered Austin's critical contributions to the founding of the state. He was, as the Spanish called him, an impresario, who was eventually responsible for at least 1200 American families immigrating to Texas. But, meanwhile, several other men, who like Austin who were from the east would also make their way to Texas.

This episode, we focus on one of the most complex and fascinating characters in American history, his name is Sam Houston, who was born in Virginia in 1793. He was 14 years old when his family moved to Tennessee. And at the age of 19, Houston joined the US Army and fought under Andrew Jackson in the war of 1812. Andrew Jackson is a guy that I like just about as much as Woodrow Wilson. I contend that the American republic as our Founders knew it, died under Andrew Jackson.

Not a good guy. But Jackson was responsible for the expansion of America in many ways. Mainly by killing the Indians. In the battle of horseshoe bend, Houston was wounded multiple times and just kept going. He was shot in the groin area with an arrow, and he bandaged himself up, then lead a charge to overtake the enemy fortification and was shot twice more by a rifle. He was hit in the shoulder and the arm.

His heroics made quite an impression on the future president, President Jackson. They became friends and close confidants for life. In 1822, Houston ran for and won election to the US Congress. And in 1827, was elected governor of the state of Tennessee.

VOICE: Within weeks, the marriage collapsed. He sent her packing back to her father. And he resigned as governor of Tennessee. This personal tragedy had great political repercussions. It ended his opportunity for a traditional political career and set him on a westward course that took him to Texas. And the beginnings of the creation of an empire.

GLENN: During his first term in office, rumors arose that Houston had developed a serious drinking problem and that he was cheating on his new wife. Because of this, he gave up plans to run for reelection. He quit politics, and for a time, went to live with the Cherokee Indians where he met and married his second wife, a woman whose heritage was half Cherokee. Houston was an outspoken advocate for the Indians, which was in direct conflict with his good friend, Andrew Jackson.

In 1832, he traveled to Washington to expose government fraud against the Cherokees. While there, a congressman from Ohio, William Stanbery made accusations against Houston on the floor of Congress.

Houston wrote repeatedly to demand satisfaction on the charges from Stanbery, but never heard back. Finally, Houston confronted Stanbery in DC on Pennsylvania Avenue and beat him senseless with a hickory cane.

Apparently, a lot of beatings with canes happened back then. Stanbery pulled his pistol and fired at Houston, but the gun misfired. Stanbery was injured because of that, and Congress ordered the arrest of Sam Houston.

He was represented in court by Francis Scott Key. Yes, that guy. He was a lawyer who authored the national anthem. But the famous representation didn't help. But if you're the opposite of Garth Brooks and you have friends in high places, including the president of the United States, President Jackson and future President James K. Polk, he was only lightly reprimanded. Yes, some things in Washington never change.

Unsatisfied with Houston's punishment, Stanbery sued him in civil court, and he won a 500-dollar judgment. But Houston left for Texas without paying a penny of it. He was later pardoned by Andrew Jackson, and the fine was erased.

So what happened to his family? Well, Houston's Cherokee wife had absolutely no interest going off to Texas with him, and she stayed behind in Tennessee.

VOICE: The hour that Sam Houston crossed the Red River in Texas in December of 1832, he became the most famous human being in Texas. He was nationally famous, as a war hero in the war of 1812, as a lieutenant of Andrew Jackson's, as congressmen in flamboyant governor of Tennessee. And the mere appearance of Sam Houston in Texas guaranteed that Sam Houston would achieve public notice, public notoriety perhaps.

GLENN: With the War of Independence on the horizon for Texas and Houston's reputation of a war hero after arriving in Texas, he was quickly appointed to commander-in-chief of the Texas Army, even though at the time there wasn't much of an army to speak of.

October 1835, the actual fighting in the Texas revolution began in Gonzalez. As a detachment of Mexican soldiers was beaten back and defeated trying to take back the Gonzalez cannon back to Mexico. The battle cry of the residents was defiant. You might have seen it on a flag from Texas recently. It just says: Come and take it.

The Mexicans couldn't. Texas won. A small group of 183 men took up the fight at the Alamo in San Antonio, as rumors spread of the approach of the 5,000 strong Mexican Army began to reach them. The men in the Alamo were determined to stay and fight even though Sam Houston told them it's foolhardy, a hopeless cause, and, quote, a trap for anyone who dared to defend it, end quote.

As we all know, he was right. The Mexican Army laid siege to the Alamo for nearly two weeks, then attacked and killed everyone inside.

The 183 men inside of the Alamo made the Mexicans pay dearly, killing between 600 and 1300 men in Santa Anna's army. Angered, Santa Anna began looking for Sam Houston, and along the way, executed the 400 Texans who had defended the garrison at Goliad, Texas, after they surrendered.

As the word trickled out about the fate of nearly 600 Texans killed at the Alamo and Goliad, more and more angry Texans joined Houston's army. It's one of the reasons why the Russian plans to invade the United States never included a single plan to enter through the Texas border.

You just don't want to make Texans angry. When Houston finally decided the time and circumstances were right to fight Santa Anna and he had enough angry Texans, he pounced on Santa Anna's forces at 3:30 at the battle of San Jacinto, winning one of the fastest, most divisive victories in all of history. The battle lasted 18 minutes. And that is when Texas won its independence.

Houston was wound again. His ankle was shattered by a bullet. And when he went to New Orleans for treatment, a huge crowd awaited him on the dock. One of those in the crowd was a 17-year-old girl named Margaret Lee who was immediately smitten with the 43-year-old war hero. But she didn't get a chance to meet him. Three years later, on a business trip to Mobile, Alabama, Houston and Lee met and were formerly introduced. The next year, the two were married. And this time, married for life. For the rest of Houston's life, Lee remained at Houston's side, until he died in his home in Huntsville in 1863.

Houston became a hero of incredible proportions in Texas. He would be elected president of the new republic twice. And when it became a state within the United States, he was elected one of the two US senators from the state.

VOICE: In 1854, as one of the two US senators from Texas, Houston performed the bravest political act of his career, when he voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have potentially opened up certain western territories to slavery.

So he alone among all US senators from the cotton states voted against the act. And, of course, he was hung in effigy. He was reviled on street corners and on the political stump. The state legislature called upon him to resign in Texas.

VOICE: Although rejected by the Texas legislature, the people remained loyal to Houston and elected him governor in 1859.

Hardly had Texas joined the Union when the issue of secession to maintain the right to hold slaves swept the southern states.

VOICE: Houston fought with all of his might against the forces of secession. But crowds now hooted him down, spat upon him, threatened his life. The man who had given birth to Texas was now hated by the people he had led. He refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy and was ousted from office.

GLENN: He had held on to his principles, even when it cost him his political career and his enormous popularity with the people. However, history would eventually right the wrongs done to his legacy and prove that his judgment was correct.

Sam Houston goes down as the only American in history to serve as the governor of two separate states, a US congressman, a US senator, and the president of a sovereign nation. He truly was one of the most unique and fascinating characters in history. Next time, Texas today.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!