Andrew Jackson Houston (June 21, 1854 – June 26, 1941) was an American politician. He was a son of the famous Texas hero and statesman Sam Houston, and was named for his father's mentor Andrew Jackson.
Houston was educated at several military academies and colleges, including West Point—from which he dropped out from the Class of 1875, and Baylor University. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876.
Houston held many interesting positions through this period including colonel in the Texas National Guard and United States Marshal for the eastern district of Texas. Houston unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Texas in 1892 as a "lily-white" Republican candidate, and in 1910 and 1918 as a Prohibition Party candidate. In 1918 he retired to study and write history.
His retirement ended in 1941, when John Morris Sheppard died while representing Texas in the United States Senate. Texas Governor W. Lee O'Daniel, knowing that the 86-year-old Houston would not try to keep the seat during the special election, appointed Houston to fill the vacancy until the term ended in 1943. At the time of his swearing in, he was the oldest man to enter the Senate (the oldest person was Rebecca Latimer Felton); it was 82 years after his father had served there. He filled that post from April 21, 1941 until his death 5 days after his 87th birthday on June 26 that year, attending only one committee meeting as a Senator. Houston is buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
Houston is one of 4 Senators (the others being William Johnson, Edmund Pettus and Strom Thurmond) to be the oldest living U.S. Senator while serving and he is the only Senator subsequent to the second U.S. Congress to become the oldest living Senator upon inauguration.
Famous quotes containing the words andrew jackson, andrew, jackson and/or houston:
“I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“I am hurt but I am not slaine;
Ile lay mee downe and bleed a-while
And then Ile rise and ffight againe.”
—Unknown. Sir Andrew Barton. . .
English and Scottish Ballads (The Poetry Bookshelf)
“This spirit of mob-law is becoming as great an evil as a servile war.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“When your dreams tire, they go underground
and out of kindness that’s where they stay.”
—Libby Houston (b. 1941)