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.
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“The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key ... and bolt the door at once.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Itt is verry true, as the Welchman sayd,
Couetousness getts no gaine.”
—Unknown. Sir Andrew Barton. . .
English and Scottish Ballads (The Poetry Bookshelf)
“Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“When your dreams tire, they go underground
and out of kindness that’s where they stay.”
—Libby Houston (b. 1941)