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| The Texas Declaration of Independence March 2, 1836 |
| Copyright ©2007 1836 Guitar Cases, LLC. All rights reserved. |
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 those
inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rules for
their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to
support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government
has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic,
composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every
interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of
civil liberty, the everready minions 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 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 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 Mexican government, by its colonization 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 constitutional liberty and republican
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, inasmuch as the Mexican nation
has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General 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 intolerable 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 Congress a republican constitution, which was,
without just cause, contemptuously 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 refuse 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 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 enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of
civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
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 citizens, 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 form the seat of government, thus depriving us of
the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military
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
desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our
citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our
conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal
interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful
property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
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 advancing, to carry on
against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and
scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and
victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic
of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, until 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 therefore 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.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn
convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition,
do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has
forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and
independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly
belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we
fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the
destinies of nations.
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 those
inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rules for
their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to
support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government
has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic,
composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every
interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of
civil liberty, the everready minions 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 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 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 Mexican government, by its colonization 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 constitutional liberty and republican
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, inasmuch as the Mexican nation
has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General 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 intolerable 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 Congress a republican constitution, which was,
without just cause, contemptuously 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 refuse 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 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 enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of
civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
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 citizens, 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 form the seat of government, thus depriving us of
the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military
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
desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our
citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our
conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal
interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful
property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
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 advancing, to carry on
against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and
scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and
victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic
of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, until 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 therefore 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.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn
convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition,
do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has
forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and
independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly
belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we
fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the
destinies of nations.