When the young Senator from Massachusetts John F. Kennedy took an absence from Congress in 1954 for back surgery, he took the recovery time as an opportunity to examine the nature of political courage. Sam Houston’s stance against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which eventually cost him his own Senate seat, was one of Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage .

The Sam Houston Memorial Museum , on the campus of Sam Houston State University, is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the life of Texas’ First Citizen. Houston’s famous Steamboat house is also on the grounds of the museum. Visit the next time you’re in Huntsville!

After doing as much as anyone else to achieve victory for Texans during its revolution, Sam Houston shepherded the young Republic through its turbulent decade of independence, and continued to serve his beloved Texas into the disruption of secession and the Civil War.

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