The Texas Almanac for 1869 and Emigrant's Guide to Texas. Page: 42
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42 THE TEXAS ALMAN'AC.
enlightened Congress will readily concur with us in the sentiment, that the
wishes and the wants of the people form the best rule for legislative guid-
ance. The people of Texas consider it not only an absolute right, but a
most sacred and imperative duty to themselves and to the Mexican nation to
represent their wants in a respectful manner to the general government; and
to solicit the best remedy of which the nature of their grievances will admit.
Should they utterly fail in this duty, and great and irremediable evils ensue,
the people would have reason to reproach themselves alone; and the general
Congress, in whom the remedial power resides, would also have reason to cen-
sure their supineness and want of fidelity to the nation. Under this view, we
trust the Congress will not regard with excessive severity any slight.depar-
ture which the good people of Texas may, in this instance, have made from
the ordinary formalities of the government.
And we would further suggest to the equitable consideration of the Federal
Congress that, independent of and anterior to,the express guarantee contained
in the decree of the 7th of May, 1824, the right of having a separate State
government was vested in and belonged to Texas, by the fact- that she parti
cipated as a distinct province in the toils and sufferings by which the glorious
emancipation of Mexico was achieved, and the present happy form of govern-
ment was established. The subsequent union with Coahuila was a temporary
compact, induced by a supposed expediency, arising from the want of an ade-
quate population on the part of Texas " to figure as a State of itself." This
inducement was transient in its nature, and the compact, like all similar agree-
ments, is subject to abrogation at the will of either party, whenever the de-
sign of its creation is accomplished, or is ascertained to be impracticable. The
obvious design of the union between Coahuila and Texas was, on one part at
least, the more effectually to secure the peace, safety, and happiness of Texas.
That design has not been accomplished; and facts piled upon facts afford a
melancholy surplussage 6f evidence that it is utterly impracticable. Texas
never has, and never can, derive from the connection benefits in any wise com-
mensurate with the evils she has sustained, and which are daily increasing in
number and in magnitude.
But our reasons for desiring the proposed separation are more explicitly set
forth in the subjoined remarks.
The history of Texas, from its earliest settlement to the present time, ex-
hibits a series of practical neglect and indifference to all her peculiar interests
on the part of each successive government which has had the control of her
political destinies. The recollection of these things is calculated to excite the
most pungent regrets for the past, and the most painful forebodings for the
future. Under the several regal dominations, Texas presented the spectacle
of a province profusely endowed by nature, abandoned and consigned to deso-
lation by the profligate avariciousness of a distant despot. The tyrants of
Spain regarded her only as a convenient barrier to the mines of the adjacent
provinces; and the more waste and depopulated she was, the more effectually
she answered their selfish and unprincipled purpose. Her agricultural re-
sources were either unknown or esteemed of no value to a government anx-
ious only to sustain its wasting magnificence by the silver and gold wrung
from the prolific bosom of Mexico. To foster the agricultural interests of any
portion of her splendid vice-royalty, or of her circumjacent conquests, was
never the favorite policy of Spain. To have done so, would have nurtured
in her remote dominions a hardy and industrious population of yeomanry--
the peculiar dread of tyrants and the best assurance of a nation's iiidepen-
dence.
It was natural, then, that the royal miscreants of Spain should regard
Texas with indifference, if not with a decided and malignant aversion to he
improvement. But it would be both unnatural and erroneous to attribute
similar motives to the paternal government of independent, confederate, re
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The Texas Almanac for 1869 and Emigrant's Guide to Texas., book, 1869~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123774/m1/34/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.