"Let me tell you what is coming on the heels of secession. The time will come when your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded together like sheep and cattle, at the point of the bayonet, and your mothers and wives, your sisters and daughters, will ask: Where are they? You may, after the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds and thousands of precious lives, succeed, if God is not against you, in winning Southern independence. But I doubt it. It is a bare possibility at best. I tell you that while I believe, with you, in the doctrine of state rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people, as you are, for the live in cooler climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, where great interests are involved, they move with the steady momentum of a giant avalanche, and what I fear is that they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat." During this speech a horse in a team near by grew restive, and kicked out of harness, but was soon beaten to submission by his driver. Houston seized on the incident for an illustration, saying: "That horse tried a little practical secession--See how speedily he was whipped back into the Union." This quick-witted remark brought him applause from unsympathetic hearers. Houston refused to recognize any Secession authority, and a few days subsequent to his deposition retired to his home near Huntsville, without friends, full of years, weak in body, suffering from wounds received in his country's service, but strong in soul, and wholly undismayed, though mourning his State's folly. In front of his house on the prairie he mounted a four-pound cannon, saying: "Texas may go to the devil and ruin if she pleases, but she shall not drag me along with her." History does not record another such incident. To the credit of the Secessionists, they respected the age and valor of the old hero, and did not molest, but permitted him to hold his personal "fortress" until his death, which occurred July 26, 1863 (three weeks after Vicksburg fell), in his seventy-first year. He died satisfied the Confederacy and secession would soon be overthrown and the Union preserved. (107) _Lincoln_ (N. and H.), vol. iii, pp. 180-1. (108) Con., Art. I., Sec. 9, pars. 1, 4. (109) Confederate Con., Art. I., Sec. 8, par. 1. (110) McPherson's _Hist. of the Rebellion_, pp. 4-8. XXIV ACTION OF RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS, ETC.--1860-1 Significant above all other of the great events resulting from the secession of the Southern States was the dissolution of the great religious denominations in the United States.(111)