1927 The Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide Page: 270
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270 THE TEXAS ALMANAC.
'Unanimous Declaration of Independence
By the delegates of the people of Texas, in general convention at the town of Wash-
ington, on the 2d day of March, 1836.When a Government has ceased to pro-
tect 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 en-
joyment of their inestimable and inalien-
able rights, becomes an instrument in the
hands of evil rulers for their oppression;
when the Federal Republican Constitution
of their country, which they have sworn
to support, no longer has a substantial ex-
istence, and the whole nature of their
Government has been forcibly changed
without their consent, from a restricted
Federative Republic, composed of sov-
ereign States, to a consolidated central
military despotism, in which every inter-
est is disregarded but that of the army
and the priesthood, both the eternal ene-
mies of civil liberty, the ever-ready min-
ions of power, 'and the usual instruments
of tyrants; when, long after the spirit of
the Constitution has departed, moderation
is at length so far lost by those in power,
that even the semblance of freedom is re-
moved, and the forms themselves of the
Constitution discontinued; and so far from
their petitions and remonstrances being
regarded, the agents who bear them are
thrown into dungeons and mercenary
armies sent forth to force a new Govern-
ment upon them at the point of the bayo-
net; when, in consequence of such acts of
malfeasance and abdication 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 inherent and inalienable- right of the
people 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 ob-
ligaton to their posterity, to abolish such
Government, and create another in its
stead, calculated to rescue them from im-
pending dangers, and to secure their fu-
ture welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are
amenable for their acts to the public opin-
ion of mankind. A statement of a part of
our grievances 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 na-
tions of the earth.
The Mexican Government, by its coloni-
zation laws, invited and induced the
Anglo-American population of Texas to
colonize its wilderness, under the pledged
faith of a written Constitution, that they
should continue to enjoy that constitu-
tional liberty and republi-can government
to which they had been habituated in the
land of their Lirth, the United States of
America. In this expectation they have
been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as
the Mexican Nation has acquiesced in the
late changes made in the Government by
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, who,
having overturned the Constitution of his
country, now offers us the cruel alterna-
tive, either to abandon our homes, ac-quired by so many privations, or submit
to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the
combined despotism of the sword and the
priesthood.
It hath sacrificed our welfare to the
State of Coahuila, by which our interests
have been continually depressed, through
a jealous and partial course of legisla-
tion, carried on at a far-distant seat of
government, by a hostile majority, in an
unknown tongue; and this, too, notwith-
standing we have petitioned in the hum-
blest terms for the establishment of a sep-
arate State Government, and have, in ac-
cordance with the provisions of the Na-
tional Constitution, presented to the Gen-
eral Congress a Republican Constitution,
which was, without just cause, contempt-
uously 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 acceptance of our Constitution and
the establishment 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 guarantee for the life, liberty and
property of the citizen.
It has failed to establish any public sys-
tem 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 enlightened, it is idle to ex-
pect the continuance of civil liberty, or
the capacity for self-government.
It has suffered the military comman-
dants stationed among us to exercise ar-
bitrary 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 Coahuila and Texas, and
obliged our representatives to fly for
their lives from the seat of government,
thus depriving us of the fundamental po-
litical right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a
number of our citizens, and ordered mili-
tary detachments to seize and carry them
into the interior for trial, in contempt of
the civil authorities, and in defiance of
the laws and the Constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our
commerce by commissioning foreign des-
peiadoes, and authorizing them to seize
our vessels and convey- the property of
our citizens to far-distant ports for con-
fiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping
the Almighty according to the dictates of
our own consciences, by the support of a
national religion calculated to promote
the temporal interests of its human func-
tionaries 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 rightful property of freemen, and
formidable only to tyrannical Govern-
ments.
It has invaded our country, both by sea
and by land, with intent to lay waste our
territory, and drive us from our homes;
and has now a large mercenary army ad-
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1927 The Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, book, 1927~; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123785/m1/274/?rotate=270: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.