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" Five years since I came to this place...I have made my stand!"

Like his mentor, Andrew Jackson, Houston pursued a career in law, which opened additional political opportunities for him. After reading law in the Nashville office of Judge James Trimble, Houston passed the bar and opened his own practice in Lebanon in 1818. The support and influence of Andrew Jackson during this period were instrumental in obtaining for Houston some of his early political offices, including Adjutant General of Tennessee, to which he was appointed in 1818, and Attorney General of the District of Nashville, to which he was elected in 1819.

In 1823, after a brief return to private law practice in Nashville, Houston was elected to the US House of Representatives from the ninth Tennessee district. In a letter to then Tennessee Governor Joseph McMinn, Houston marveled at the dramatic turn of events that had taken place in his life and that had led to his rapid rise in public office.

Houston remained acutely aware of the role that alliances with established political figures, most importantly Andrew Jackson, continued to play in his political rise. He worked vigorously on behalf of Jackson's 1824 campaign for the presidency and, even though Jackson lost, Houston expressed, in an early 1825 letter to a colleague in Washington, his "confident opinion" that Jackson would be the next President of the United States.

In 1825, Houston returned to Congress for a second and final term. He then ran for the highest office in Tennessee.

Sources:

Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, eds., The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863 (Austin, Tex.: Pemberton Press, 1970).

The Sam Houston Memorial Museum, accessed June, 2003.
http://www.shsu.edu/~smm_www/

The Handbook of Texas Online, accessed June, 2003.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/HH/fho73.html

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