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INDIAN FWARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
181
alone be secured through perfect party organizations,
he was of too manly and independent a spirit
and too clear-headed and wise a man to erect party
into a fetich, to be bowed down before and worshiped.
He did not hesitate to criticise platforms,
candidates and oficials
from the highest to the
lowest-when he deemed such criticism necessary
to the goo(l of tile country or party. He believed
in the great cardinal principles upon which rests
the school of political economy that claimed his
allegiance. If party leaders violated those principles
he sought, as far as his influence extended, to
whip them back into line. If his views upon public
questions were not accepted and enunciated in the
platform utterances of his party, he did not cease
to advocate their adoption, neither did he quit his
party, for, with the author of Lacon, he believed
" that the violation of correct principles offers no
excuse for their abandonment," and was sure that
the Democratic masses would in time force their
leaders to adopt the correct course and retrace the
false and dangerous steps that were being taken.
He believed that if the principles enunciated by Mr.
Jefferson, Calhoun and their associates were practically
applied to the administration of our national
and State affairs, we would have one of the most
enduring, freest and happiest governments that it
is possible for human geniusSo construct and human
patriotism and wisdom sustain. Party, with him,
was merely a necessary means to a desirable endgood
government and constitutional integrity and
freedom -and he combated every movement, utterance,
or nomination that promised to impair its
strength or usefulness.
He was devoted to the Democratic flag with a
devotion akin to that of a veteran for his flag. His
was a bold aggressive personality, fitted for times
of storm and struggle.
Comparatively early in his career it was charged
that Hon. Lewis T. Wigfall wrote the editorials for
the Texas Republican, but this piece of malicious
whispering was soon forever silenced, as he and
Wigfall became engaged in a newspaper controversy,
in which Wigfall was placed hors de combat.
He was born in Nashville, Tenn., February 2,
1820, and was educated at St. Josephl's College at
Bardstown, Ky., to which place his parents, Robert
and Sarah Ann Loughery (from the north of Ireland)
removed during his infancy. At ten years
of age he was left an orphan and not long after
entered a printing office, where he learned the
trade.
News of the revolution in progress in Texasthe
massacres at the Alamo and Goliad and the
victory won at the battle of San Jacinto
fired himwith a desire to join the patriot army and strike a blow
for liberty and, although but sixteen years of age, he
went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and there joined a military
company and started with it for Texas. A frail,
delicate lad, he was taken sick en route to New
Orleans and was left in that city, where he remained
a year and a half, and then went to Monroe, La.,
where he remained until 1846, part of the time conducting
an influential newspaper, and then again
went to New Orleans. On the 11th of February,
1841, he married, at Monroe, Miss Sarah Jane Ballew,
an estimable young lady, the daughter of a
leading pioneer settler in Ouachita parish. In
1847, lie removed to Texas and during that year
edited a paper at Jefferson. He spent 1848 in
traveling over the State, often traversing solitudes
of forest and prairie for days together. He said
in after life that some of the most pleasant hours
that he ever spent were in the wilderness in silent
and solitary meditation as he rode along, far from
the haunts of men.
In May, 1849, he and Judge Trenton J. Patillo
established the Texas Republican at Marshall, one
of the most famous newspapers ever published in
Texas, and certainly the most widely influential and
by far the ablest conducted in the State before the
war. The paper was named the Texas Republican
in honor of the party which advocated the adoption
of the American constitution. Judge Patillj sold
his interest to his son, Mr. Frank Patillo, in 1850,
and in 1851 Col. Loughery obtained sole control
of the paper by purchase, and conducted it alone
until August, 1869. The file3 of the Texas Republican
were purchased a few years since by the State
of Texas, and are now preserved in the archlives of
the State I)epartment of Insurance, Statistics and
History. Before the war this paper was the recognized
organ of the Democratic party in Texas. It
led the hosts in every contest. The fiery KnowNothing
campaign of 1855 gave full scope for the
exercise of his varied abilities. The Know-Nothing
party was a secret, oath-bound organization, hostile
to Catholicism and opposed to immigrants from foreign
lands acquiring right of citizenship in this
country. Largely, if not mainly, through the
efforts of Col. Loughery, a Democratic State Convention
was called (the first in the State),assembled,
nominated candidates for State offices, and drew
the Democracy up in regular array to contest the
State with the opposition. He was bitterly opposed
to the metliods and tenets of the Know-Nothing
party.
The following incident is illustrative of the temper
of the times. Hon. Pendleton Murrab, afterwards
Governor of the State, was a candidate for Con
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/201/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.