The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 257
681 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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An Avenue to the Ordinary
and to increase voter turnout. Such heated campaigning in the Demo-
cratic camp suggests a similar vigor among the opposition.
The major political challenge to the Texas Democrats during the
185os was the rise of the Know-Nothing or American party, which
reached its peak in October 1855, with the election of its Austin may-
oral candidate, Edward Peck.7" The uproar over the recent influx of
Catholic immigrants, combined with a void created by the demise of
the Whigs, made the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant party a serious
threat to Democrats not just in Texas but all over the country, and this
crisis prompted a burst of political poetry in the Gazette supporting the
Democrats in the election.
"A Song for the Election" expresses hope that voters "will like-Wise /
The 'proscribing' faction defeat," an allusion to Governor Henry Wise
of Virginia, who had earlier in the year scored a victory over the Know-
Nothings.71 "O Come to the Lone Star State" celebrates the Democratic
sweep of state offices in Texas and attacks the Know-Nothings as "A
narrow-minded clan / Who held that place of birth and faith / Are tests
of free-born man," and was "a secret foe . . . [who] took the nation's
name."72 At the state level the 1855 elections not only represented a
victory of Democrats over Americans, but also a triumph of the anti-
Sam Houston faction over the pro-Houston faction, which had nativist
tendencies.
Antebellum Austinites fought their most crucial political battle over
secession; between December 186o and February 1861, Marshall's Ga-
zette used all of its resources, including poetry, to convince Austinites
that "the South can submit [to the election of Lincoln] neither in safety
or honor."7 In November 186o Marshall went to Mississippi to care
for his sick wife, but during his absence William Byrd contnued to edit
the Gazette in the spirit of Marshall. In the poetry, Byrd tried to instill
in his readers feelings of Southern nationalism, and he hoped to con-
vince Austinites that their honor was at stake.
Byrd attempted to appeal to feelings of Southern brotherhood in
poems like "A Southern Marsellaise," which urges, "Ye sons of the
South, awake to glory," fearing an invasion from the "dogs of fac-
tion." 74 The reference to Southern men as "sons" intimates a maternal
and unbreakable bond with the land, and the fear of attack necessitates
70Barkley, History of Travs County, 75.
71 Texas State Gazette (Austin), Aug. 4, 1855-
72Ibid., Sept. 22, 1855.
7 Larry Jay Gage, "The Texas Road to Secession and War: John Marshall and the Texas State
Gazette, 186o-1861," SHQ, LXII (Oct., 1958), o201.
74 Texas State Gazette (Austin), Jan. 26, 1861.257
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993, periodical, 1993; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101215/m1/301/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.