0 comment Wednesday, December 3, 2014 | admin
March 2 this year will mark 175 years since Texans declared their independence from Mexico, and founded the Republic of Texas.
At the link, you can read the entire Declaration, and note its parallels to today's situation.
''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 removed, 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 government upon them at the point of the bayonet.
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 rights 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 towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion 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 nations of the earth.''
The declaration was written hastily, as the Lone Star Junction article indicates, because the Alamo was under siege at the time. The document is credited to a committee of writers, but it is generally thought that most of it came from the pen of George Childress.
I feel the need to call attention to the fact, mentioned in the Declaration just after the section I excerpted above, that the Anglo-American colonists were invited to settle in Texas. They did not 'invade' or 'steal' anything from Mexico, despite what people today claim or ignorantly believe. The writers of the Declaration note, too, that the colonists were promised the same degree of liberty they had enjoyed as American citizens, and they were promised they would live under a republican government. Of course these promises were not kept.
Towards the end, the writers say
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.''
I hope that today's generations, like our forefathers, recognize that self-preservation is indeed the first law of nature. Many today seem never to have thought about that most primal need.
At the link, you can read the entire Declaration, and note its parallels to today's situation.
''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 removed, 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 government upon them at the point of the bayonet.
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 rights 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 towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion 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 nations of the earth.''
The declaration was written hastily, as the Lone Star Junction article indicates, because the Alamo was under siege at the time. The document is credited to a committee of writers, but it is generally thought that most of it came from the pen of George Childress.
I feel the need to call attention to the fact, mentioned in the Declaration just after the section I excerpted above, that the Anglo-American colonists were invited to settle in Texas. They did not 'invade' or 'steal' anything from Mexico, despite what people today claim or ignorantly believe. The writers of the Declaration note, too, that the colonists were promised the same degree of liberty they had enjoyed as American citizens, and they were promised they would live under a republican government. Of course these promises were not kept.
Towards the end, the writers say
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.''
I hope that today's generations, like our forefathers, recognize that self-preservation is indeed the first law of nature. Many today seem never to have thought about that most primal need.
Labels: American Heritage, American History, Self-Determination, Sovereignty, Texas History