Happy Texas Independence Day

[ELB]

I think the drama of the fall of the Alamo on 6 March overshadows 2 March:


The Unanimous
Declaration of Independence
made by the
Delegates of the People of Texas
in General Convention
at the town of Washington
on the 2nd day of March 1836.


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 rulers 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 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 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 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 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 tyrrany, 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 from 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 own 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 tyrranical government.

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.

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.






Richard Ellis, President
of the Convention and Delegate
from Red River.

Charles B. Stewart
Tho. Barnett




John S. D. Byrom
Francis Ruis
J. Antonio Navarro
Jesse B. Badgett
Wm D. Lacy
William Menifee
Jn. Fisher
Matthew Caldwell
William Motley
Lorenzo de Zavala
Stephen H. Everett
George W. Smyth
Elijah Stapp
Claiborne West
Wm. B. Scates
M. B. Menard
A. B. Hardin
J. W. Burton
Thos. J. Gazley
R. M. Coleman
Sterling C. Robertson

James Collinsworth
Edwin Waller
Asa Brigham



Geo. C. Childress
Bailey Hardeman
Rob. Potter
Thomas Jefferson Rusk
Chas. S. Taylor
John S. Roberts
Robert Hamilton
Collin McKinney
Albert H. Latimer
James Power
Sam Houston
David Thomas
Edwd. Conrad
Martin Parmer
Edwin O. Legrand
Stephen W. Blount
Jms. Gaines
Wm. Clark, Jr.
Sydney O. Pennington
Wm. Carrol Crawford
Jno. Turner



Benj. Briggs Goodrich
G. W. Barnett
James G. Swisher
Jesse Grimes
S. Rhoads Fisher
John W. Moore
John W. Bower
Saml. A. Maverick (from Bejar)
Sam P. Carson
A. Briscoe
J. B. Woods
H. S. Kimble, Secretary

[joe817]

This is indeed a special day in the history of our great State. Thanks ELB for posting that.

5 years ago, I was doing a daily "This Day In Texas History" on this forum. So many important events in history happened every day in this State, and I brought some of the events to the forum's attention.

From March 2, 2010 I bring you a small portion of what I wrote that day, if I may:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Day In Texas History - March 2

1793 - Sam Houston, first President of the Republic of Texas, was born in Rockbridge Co., Virginia. He is the fifth of nine children born of Sam and Elizabeth (Paxton) Houston.

1836 - Texas became a republic. On March 1 delegates from the seventeen Mexican municipalities of Texas and the settlement of Pecan Point met at Washington-on-the-Brazos to consider independence from Mexico. George C. Childress presented a resolution calling for independence, and the chairman of the convention appointed Childress to head a committee of five to draft a declaration of independence. In the early morning hours of March 2, the convention voted unanimously to accept the resolution. After fifty-eight members signed the document, Texas became the Republic of Texas. The change remained to be demonstrated to Mexico. In December, Goliad had already passed such a declaration which was also circulating around Texas. But this convention made it official. Among reasons for freedom, the document cited the denial of freedom of religion and the lack of a system of public education. Settlers were also denied the right to trial by jury and the right to keep and bear arms.

1836 - While Alfred Calvin Grimes was standing at his station in the besieged Alamo his father, Jesse Grimes, was signing the Texas Declaration of Independence.

1836 - The battle of Agua Dulce Creek, an engagement of the Texas Revolution and an aftermath of the controversial Matamoros expedition of 1835–36, occurred twenty-six miles below San Patricio . Dr. James Grant and his party of twenty-three Americans and three Mexicans were surprised and defeated by a Mexican force under José de Urrea. Six of the volunteers escaped, five of whom joined James W. Fannin, Jr., at Goliad. Six were captured and taken to Matamoros as prisoners; all others were killed in the engagement.

1842 - Robert Potter, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, is murdered in the Regulator-Moderator War. It was a feud in Harrison and Shelby counties in the Redlands of East Texas from 1839 to 1844. The principal leaders of the Regulators were Charles W. Jackson and Charles W. Moorman, and the principal leaders of the Moderators were Edward Merchant, John M. Bradley, and Deputy Sheriff James J. Cravens. The roots of the conflict lay in the frauds and land swindling that had been rife in the Neutral Ground, the lawless area between the American and Mexican borders.

1886 - the Semicentennial of Texas Independence celebrations began. Scattered meetings included orations at Brenham, a ball in Fort Worth, and a small gathering of Galveston County veterans. The major events occurred on April 21--San Jacinto Day--in most Texas towns. Parades, picnics, and speeches were typical. Waco and Belton used the occasion to break ground for new college buildings. Militia drills and athletic contests were frequent attractions. The Texas Veterans Association met in Dallas for the most important single celebration of the semicentennial. More than 200 old soldiers received an elaborate welcome, which added musical presentations to the other forms of entertainment. Semicentennial speakers drew several comparisons between the Texas Revolution and the American Revolution, such as the relation of both to the growth of liberty and stable government. Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and others were compared to the Founding Fathers. The emphasis remained, however, on honoring the living veterans.

1922 - WBAP radio began broadcasting in Fort Worth. For many years, WBAP and WFAA in Dallas alternated use of 570AM and 820 AM. 820 AM was licensed for 50,000 Watts clear channel broadcasting, which reached most of the contiguous United States.

1942 - The USS Aulick, the first combatant ship constructed in the state of Texas, was launched at Orange. The Aulick was 376 feet long and had a displacement of 2,050 tons. It carried 329 men, had a capacity of 35.2 knots, and was armed with five five-inch cannons and ten twenty-one-inch torpedo tubes. The Aulick participated in many battles in the Pacific, and for her action in the Pacific, the Aulick received five battle stars.

1949 - The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, TX. The American plane had completed the first non-stop around-the-world flight.

God Bless Texas!

[powerboatr]

thanks for the great detailed post

[Syntyr]

Thanks for the post. I love history.

A quick picture of my office building on Texas Independence Day. Sorry quality is not better.

[brhalltx]

Is that the Marathon Oil (if it's still named that) building?

[Syntyr]

Is that the Marathon Oil (if it's still named that) building?

Good Catch brhalltx!

Yes it is. Although I don't work for Marathon Oil. It is still called the Marathon Oil Tower. They always put out US flags on the appropriate holidays like July 4th and Veterans day. However, this is the first time they put out Texas flags for Texas Independence day.