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MANIZFSTO OP THE MEXICAN CONGRESS.
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53
even its proper name will be lost. Such is
the alternative, such the plans of your enemies,
such your future destiny: choose.
Never have you engaged in a more noble
contest, and in which decision ought to be
more invariable. Until now you have contended
either With your brothers or with your
fathers. Falling on any of these occasions,
you would have remained in the hands of your
own; you l1st the end to which you aspired,
not that which you then possessed, you did
.not gain, but your honor received no stain,
for that sufficed your efforts. Had we not
succeeded in obtaining our independence,
nations nevertheless would have respected us,
and our glory and that of our heroes would
have been noted, as having fought with justice
on our side; we should have continued a
Spanish colony, but feared by Spainl, praised
and respected by other nations. It is not so
in the present contest: here you contend with
foreign ingrates, with perfidious adventurers,
who wish to take from us the soil on which we
were born; wrench from us the country we
have conquered; give to oblivion the name
that expresses our glory, degrading us in the
eyes of the universe by subjugating us, and
presenting us to the world as unworthy of
forming a nation, incapable of governing ourselves,
and of sustaining the dignity of independent
men.
It is not only necessary that these proud foreigners
should not triumph: that alone of
triumphing over them, and bringing them
back to the order they have violated, would
cause us to lose all those inestimable treasures.
They have conceived the iniquitous project,
and they vaunt themselves to obtain very soon,
and without resistance, the possession of our
territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific; to
incorporate our Republic in what they call
theirs; and hereafter, by right of conquest, or
farther on placing in our sight, and in imnediate
conttct as a focus of eternal revolution
for the few provinces they leave us, in which
they will meet restless and denaturalized minds,
of which there are unfortunately so many
among us, a constant seduction gf which to
take advantage, and a firm prop with which
to keep us in a continual uneasiness, weakening
us every time more and more, until we
fall by inanition into the mouth of this new
dragon that will be forever open. This second
mode of destroying us by dint of time, would
have an infallible effect, though they would
not extend at present their usurpation on other
points of the Mexican territory, so that they
are permitted to be independent in that of
Texas. With this alone we ought to take
leave forever, of all order and peace in our Republic.
From thence would spring seduction;
from thence, resources for conspiracies; from
thence, destructive immorality; from thence,
finslly, would proceed the torch of discord,
with whichl the Reoublic would be reduced to
ashes. If the colonists of Texas are to be in
dependent
of Mexico, let the latter take leave
of independence also, and conform itself to the
full of becoming again a degraded colony.
Never, then, has a war more just or more
truly national presented itself, a war that affects
more our dignity and our honor, and that
more nearly compromises our political existence.
Incautious, and in good faith, we opened.
our arms and unfolded our bosoms to nurture
those whom the unsheltered state and perhaps
immoral condtict and even crimes, kept exiled
from other countries. We received them
hospitably in the most fertile part of our territory;
we conceded to them immunities and
privileges of all kinds; we even permitted
them to insult huminity, making it wretched
under the weight of slavery; we left them
perfect liberty in their municipal government,
and we only asked from them unity with benefactors
in the general government; but no
sooner warmed by our shelter did they recover
life, than they found the means of plunging in
otir bosom the venomous bite in order to devotir
us.-Not contented with the enjoyment
nor satisfied with the dignity of citizenship
with us, they resolve, at whatever cost, to be
our lords, subjecting us to their caprices, irnposing
upon us their religion, and giving us
their laws.
And who are they that have formed such a
design? Men without faith, without country,
without other tie than that of ambition; born in
different lands; differing in points of religion,
education, and in habits; exiles from the countries
which gave them birth, and which were
too small to contain them; men unaccustomed
to the hardships of war, to whom military armor
is in itself weighty and embarrassing, and
who perhaps tremble and turn away their
heads in giving impulse to the fire and detonation
of their guns; men, in fine, by no means
formed for strict military obedience, inexpert.
in the difficult science of governing, and to
whom all is contemptible excepting perversity
and mal:ce. Do not believe that the majority
is composed of industrious people, anxious to
moisten the ground with the sweat of their
brow, and who wish no other recompense for
their labor but that of the abundant harvest
with which Nature would compensate them in
these fertile lands; no: your enemies are divided
into two classes-disheartened slaves, oppressed
and deceived, and lordly, ambitious
dominators. What can be hoped, or what is
to be feared, from such people?-And will
tlhese give their laws to the noble, generous,
and free Mexicans?
In vain have they tried to disguise their perverse
intentions, and cover their ingratitude by a
change in the form of government, for which
the generality of the nation has decided. In
vain do they profess their love for the ancient
federal system:-were they quiet while they
had it? Do their revolutionary intentions date
from that time? On the contrary: has there
been any time since the year 1824, in which