The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905 Page: 241
xiii, 358 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Explanation by Stephen F. Austin.
241
founded its claim to become a state. It has already been seen
that it is to the interests of Texas to bind closer its union to
Mexico, and that the only cause of the discontent, as well as of the
desire of its inhabitants to make of their country a state of this
republic, separate from Coahuila, is the lack of local government
and the consequent danger of internal anarchy and of war with
savage Indians. The means adopted was that of assembling a
convention to present memorials, because this was most in harmony
with republican institutions and was the best that the circum-
stances permitted.
Concerning the necessity of making Texas a state and the im-
portant advantages that would result to the republic in general
and to Coahuila and the neighboring states in particular, there
was no difference of opinion among the people; because they under-
stood that country, as a part of Coahuila, to be rather an appendix
to the Mexican republic than anything else, but as a state of the
federation it would form an essential and integral portion of the
body social of the nation, and consequently its union would be as
much more binding and intimate as in the whole of a thing
that of the parts that constitute it in a material sense is [closer
than the union of an appendix to the whole]. The Texans,
therefore, desiring and striving for their separation from Coahuila
and the erection of Texas into a separate state, believed that they
were acting as faithful Mexican citizens who understood their
duties and aspired to fulfill them, and as honorable men who were
seeking their individual welfare and happiness.
The memorial of the convention is extensive. It contains a
minute exposition of the deplorable situation of that country as
regards its internal affairs; of the evils which it was suffering, and
of those that were threatening it; of the general and particular
advantages that would result from the formation of a state; and
it considers the question from the standpoint of policy. It makes
no charges or accusations against Coahuila for failures in its inten-
tions, or for bad faith in regard to Texas; on the contrary, it
attributes to it the merit of having desired to serve the interests
of Texas in general. But it shows that this is impossible through
the very nature of things, the difference in situation, climate,
products, occupations, character of inhabitants, the distance which
separates one people from the other, and the consequent difficulty
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905, periodical, 1905; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101033/m1/248/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.