The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979 Page: 400
496 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
By 1861 Flake habitually supported the opposition or Houston faction
and he, too, had developed numerous animosities which reenforced his
party ties. He did this despite Houston's former association with the
Know-Nothings; probably the best explanation for Flake's actions would
seem to lie in his nationalism and love of democracy. Flake, although
he immigrated in the early i84os, resembled the refugees of the 1848
revolution. He was a liberal with a strong belief in democracy, and a
romantic who dreamed of a more perfect society. The key to this society
was a united nation. Flake, however, was a practical man who realized
the necessity of accommodating himself to the native American com-
munity of Galveston. After the referendum of February 23, democracy
and nationalism opposed each other. The question became one of loyalty
to the democratic decision of Texas or loyalty to his romantic conception
of the nation. Pragmatism and democracy won out.'
In contrast to Flake, Lindheimer never was a nationalist. His first
loyalty was to his community and his state. There were, however, other
German nationalists like Edward Degener, Hermann Spiess, and Ernst
Kapp who lived in the frontier community of Sisterdale and were lead-
ing unionists both before and after secession. What made them different
from Flake was that they did not share his accommodation with slavery,
nor his willingness to support his state. Nor were they integrated into
the business or social life of the rest of Texas. Undoubtedly it was on
men like these that Frederick Law Olmsted based his hope that West
Texas could become a free-soil state.7
It was also in part due to Degener, Kapp, Spiess, and Olmsted that the
conception that all Germans were loyal to the Union and opponents of
slavery has had such long-lasting strength. Germans first gained notoriety
for holding anti-slavery sentiments in 1854 and 1855, when the Know-
Nothings seized upon a mildly worded anti-slavery plank of a German
convention's platform and used it to gain votes. Adolf Douai, editor
of the Sarn Antonio Zeitung and author of this anti-slavery resolution,
was soon bereft of public support and, despite financial aid from Olm-
Ramsdell, "The Natural Limits of Slaxer Expansion," MiAmfipn Valley Histoical Re-
view, XVI (Sept, 1929), 159
56Die Union (Galveston), July 27, 186o, Feb. 23, 1861.
57For a description of Sisterdale see Olmsted, Journey Though Texas, 191-200. On
Olmsted's interest in these Germans see Ropei, "Olmsted and the Western Texas Free-
Soil Movement," 58-59. On Degener and Kapp, see Carl Wlttke, Refugees of Revolution:
The Forty-Eighters: Political Refugees of the German Revolution of 1848 (New York, 19io),
The German Forty-Eighters in America (Philadelphia, 1952), 119-12o; A. E. Zucker (ed.),
286; S. W. Geiser, "Dr. Ernst Kapp, Early Geographel in Texas," Field and Laboratory,
XIV (Jan., 1946), 16-31. On Spiess see Porter Collection.400
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979, periodical, 1978/1979; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101206/m1/462/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.