Texas Almanac, 1947-1948 Page: 89

TEXAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Constitution, presented to the General Con-
gress, a Republican Constitution, which was
without just cause, contemptuously rejected.
It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long
time, one of our citizens, for no other cause
but a zealous endeavor to procure the accept-
ance of our Constitution and the establish-
ment of a state government.
It has failed and refused to secure, on a
firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that
palladium of civil liberty and only safe guar-
antee for the life, liberty and property of the
citizen.
It has failed to establish any public system
of education, although possessed of almost
boundless resources (the public domain), and
although it is an axiom in political science
that, unless a people are educated and en-
lightened, it is idle to expect the continuance
of civil liberty, or the capacity for self-gov-
ernment.
It has suffered the military commandants
stationed among us to exercise arbitrary acts
of oppression and tyranny, thus trampling
upon the most sacred rights of the citizen,
and rendering the military superior to the
civil power.
It has dissolved by force of arms the State
Congress of Coahulla and Texas, and obliged
our representatives to fly for their lives from
the seat of government, thus depriving us of
the fundamental political right of representa-
tion.
It has demanded the surrender of a number
of our citizens, and ordered military detach-
ments to seize and carry them into the inte-
rior for trial, in contempt of the civil authori-
ties, and in defiance of the laws and the
Constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our
commerce by commissioning foreign despera-
does, and authorizing them to seize our ves-
sels and convey the property of our citizens
to far-distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshiping the
Almighty according to the dictates of our own
consciences, by the support of a national reli-
gion calculated to promote the temporal in-
terests of its human functionaries rather than
the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms,
which are essential to our defense, the right-
ful property of freemen, and formidable only
to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country, both by sea and
by land, with intent to lay waste our terri-
tory, and drive us from our homes; and has
now a large mercenary army advancing to
carry on against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the
merciless savage, with the tomahawk and
scalping knife, to massacre the Inhabitants
of our defenseless frontiers.
It has been, during the whole time of our
connection with it, the contemptible sport and
victim of successive military revolutions, and
hath continually exhibited every character-

istic of a weak, corrupt and tyrannical gov-
ernment.
These and other grievances were patiently
borne by the people of Texas, until they
reached that point at which forbearance
ceases to be a virtue. They then took up
arms in defense of the National Constitution.
They appealed to their Mexican brethren for
assistance. Their appeal has been made in
vain; though months have elapsed, no sympa-
thetic response has yet been heard from the
interior. They are, therefore, forced to the
melancholy conclusion that the Mexican peo-
ple have acquiesced in the destruction of
their liberty, and the substitution therefor of
a military despotism; that they are unfit to
be free, and incapable of self-government.
The necessity of self-preservation, there-
fore, now decrees our eternal political separa-
tion.
We, therefore, the delegates, with plenary
powers, of the people of Texas, in solemn
convention assembled, appealing to a candid
world for the necessities of our condition, do
hereby resolve and declare that our political
connection with the Mexican nation has for-
ever ended, and that the people of Texas do
now constitute a free, sovereign and inde-
pendent Republic. and are fully invested with
all the rights and attributes which properly
belong to independent states; and, conscious
of the rectitude of our intentions, we fear-
lessly and confidently commit the issue to
the decision of the Supreme Arbiter of the
destinies of nations.
RICHARD ELLIS, President.

Charles B. Stewart.
Thomas Barnett.
James Collinsworth.
Edwin Waller.
John S. D. Byrom.
Francisco Ruiz.
Jose Antonio Navarro.
Jessie B. Badgett.
William D Lacey.
William Menifee.
John Fisher.
Mathew Caldwell.
J. William Mottley.
Lorenzo de Zavala.
Stephen H. Everitt.
George W. Smyth.
Elijah Stapp.
Clalborne West.
William B. Scates.
M. B. Menard.
A. B. Hardin.
J. W. Bunton.
Thomas J. Gazley.
R. M. Coleman.
Sterling C. Robertson.
George C. Childress.
Bailey Hardeman.
Robert Potter.
Thomas Jefferson
Rusk.

Charles S. Taylor.
John S. Roberts.
Robert Hamilton.
Collin McKinney.
Albert H. Latimer.
James Power.
Sam Houston.
David Thomas.
Edward Conrad.
Martin Parmer.
Edward O. LeGrand.
Stephen W. Blount.
James Gaines.
William Clark Jr
Sydney O. Pennington
William Carroll
Crawford.
John Turner.
Benjamin B. Goodrich
G. W. Barnett.
James G. Swisher.
Jesse Grimes.
S. Rhoads Fisher.
John W. Moore.
John W. Bower.
Samuel A. Maverick.
Sam P. Carson.
A. Briscoe.
James B Woods.
Asa Brigham.

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