Texas Almanac, 1952-1953 Page: 60
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TEXAS ALMANAC -1952-1953
by burning, "with the spirit of respect and
reverence which all Texans owe the emblem."
In addition to the foregoing from the stat-
ute of the Forty-third Legislature, Acts of
the Legislature of 1917 (third called session.
p. 81), provide a penalty for disfiguring the
Texas flag in any way, using it for advertis-
ing or commercial purposes by printing on it,.
or the flagpole, or otherwise.
Meaning of Colors in Flags.
The colors in the flags of both United
States and Texas mean as follows courage
(red), purity and liberty (white) and loyalty
(blue). The committee, headed by Oliver
Jones, which in 1839 wrote the recommenda-
tions for the present Lone Star Flag of Texas.
specified that the meanings should be peace
(white), war (red) and friendship (blue).
However, this part of the recommendation
was not adopted by the Texas Congress. and
the meanings of the colors in the national and
Texas Declaration of
The Declaration of Independence of the
Republic of Texas was adopted by the dele-
gates of the people of Texas. in general
convention at the town of Wash ington-on-the-
Brazos, March 2. 1836. (See p. 44.) The text
follows, with the names of the signers at the
end of the text'
When a government has ceased to protect
the lives, liberty and property of the people
from whom its legitimate powers are derived,.
and for the advancement of whose happiness
it was instituted, and so far from being a
guarantee for the enjoyment of their inesti-
mable and inahlenable rights, becomes an in-
strument in the hands of evil rulers for their
oppression, when the Federal Republicap
Constitution of their country, which they
have sworn to support, no longer has a sub-
stantial existence, and the whole nature of
their government has been forcibly changed
without their consent, from a restricted Fed-
erative Republic, composed of sovereign
states, to a consolidated central military des-
potism, in which every interest is disregarded
but that of the army and the priesthood, both
the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the ever-
ready minions of power, and the usual in-
struments of tyrants; when, long after the
spirit of the Constitution has departed, mod-
eration is at length so far lost by those in
power, that even the semblance of freedom is
removed, and the forms themselves of the
constitution discontinued; and so far from
their petitions and remonstrances being re-
garded, the agents who bear them are thrown
into dungeons and mercenary armies sent
forth to force a new government upon them
at the point of the bayonet; when, in conse-
quence of such acts of malfeasance and abdi-
cation on the part of the government, anarchy
prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its
original elements in such a crisis, the first
law of nature, the right of self-preservation,
the in rent and inalienable right of the peo-
ple to appeal to first principles, and take
their political affairs into their own hands
in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right toward
themselves, and a sacred obligation to their
posterity, to abolish such government, and
create another In its stead, calculated to res-
cue them from impending dangers, and to
secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amen-
able for their acts to the public opinion of
mankind. A statement of a part of our griev-
ances is therefore submitted to an impartial
world, in justification of the hazardous but
unavoidable step now taken, of severing our
political connection with the Mexican people,
and assuming an independent attitude among
the nations of the earth.
The Mexican Government, by its coloniza-
tion laws. invited and induced the Anglo-state flags are commonly accepted as being
identical.
Salute to National Flag.
The flag should be saluted when passing in
parade by the civilian removing hat and plac-
ing at left shoulder while standing at atten-
tion. Women salute by standing at attention
and placing right hand over'heart.
Pledge to Flag of United States.
With right hand over heart "I pledge alle-
giance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the Republic for which it
stands One nation, indivisible, \ith liberty
and justice to all."
Pledge to the Texas Flag.
An act of the Forty-third Legislature, 1933.
prides the following pledge to the Texas
flag
"Honor the Texas Flag,
We pledge our loyalty to thee-
Texas. ohe and indivisible "
Independence-Signers
American population of Texas to colonize its
wilderness, under the pledged faith of a writ-
ten Constitution, that they should continue to
enjoy that constitutional liberty and repub-
lican government to which they had been
habituated in the land of their birth, the
United States of America. In this expectation
they have been cruelly disappointed, inas-
much as the Mexican nation has acquiesced
in the late changes made in the government
by Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who.
having overturned the Constitution of his
country, now offers us the cruel alternative.
either to abandon our homes, acquired by so
many privations, or submit to the most intol-
erable of all tyranny, the combined despotism
of the sword and the priesthood.
It has sacrificed our welfare to the State
of Coahuila, by which our interests have been
continually depressed, through a jealous and
partial course of legislation, carried on at a
far-distant seat of government, by a hostile
majority, in an unknown tongue; and this.
too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in
the humblest terms for the establishment of
a separate state government, and have, in
accordance with the provisions of the National
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 te ccno 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-go\ -
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.i
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-60
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Texas Almanac, 1952-1953, book, 1951; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117137/m1/62/?rotate=90: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.