Texas Revolution

“ The people of Texas were unwilling to submit to this usurpation. Resistance to such tyranny became a high duty. Texas was fully absolved from all allegiance to the central Government of Mexico from the moment that Government had abolished her State constitution and in its place substituted an arbitrary and despotic central government. Such were the principal causes of the Texan revolution. The people of Texas at once determined upon resistance and flew to arms. ”

“ Of course, that business doesn’t work with a people like us who’ve brought in their families, and settled according to agreement with the government, and improved the land and built houses, and done more in ten years than the Mexicans did in a hundred. So last spring while Don Santa Anna was heading a revolution in Mexico across the Rio Grande, to restore the rights of the constitution of 1824, we Texans did a little house-cleaning on our own account, and drove every monarchist and Bustamantist across the border. ”

“ But if, on the contrary, moved by rash and unwise counsels, you yield the powers of government into the hands of those who do not represent the people, and would rise superior to them, the confidence of the masses in the reign of law and order will be shaken, and gloomy forebodings will fill the hearts of the friends of regulated government, lest the reign of anarchy and confusion come upon us. We have gone through one revolution in Texas a united people. ”

“ Texas has acquired it by the right of revolution, and resistance- to oppression. She asserted this claim at the outset of her war of independence; during ten years of war she maintained her boundary, without having for one moment faltered in the assertion of her rights. But what did the United States do? That they always act honestly and honorably can not be doubted ”

“ There is little doubt that in this design they received encouragement from many men holding high places in the United States.
THE TEXAS REVOLUTION.
The ferment in Texas increased, and, on the 2d of March, 1836, a convention declared Texas independent. Santa Anna, president of the Mexican Republic, crossed the Rio Grande with a large force and advanced to San Antonio, where less than 200 Texans had taken refuge in a mission-house known as the Alamo, with their flag, consisting of a single star, floating defiantly above it. ”

“ Nowhere does that fire burn with more fervor than in the hearts of the conservative people of Texas. Satisfied that the men whom they elected at the ballot-box to represent them in Congress will bear their rights safely through the present crisis, they feel no alarm as to the result. Texas will maintain the Constitution, and stand by the Union. It is all that can save us as a nation. Destroy it, and anarchy awaits us. ”

“ The sons of freedom can never be indifferent and unconcerned, in a struggle between liberty and despotic power, however remote the theatre of action; but when such a war is waged by their neighbors and friends, and Freedom the prize to be lost or won, the deep feeling pervading American breasts, cannot be suppressed.
When Centralism was established, the State governments annihilated, and Santa Anna, by aid of the priests and the army, proclaimed himself monarch of Mexico, united Texas arose as one man, to oppose the usurpation. ”

“ The triumph of the Centralists was the [Pg 243] turning-point in the fortunes of Mexico, as it furnished a plausible pretext for American interference in her affairs, the end of which is rapidly approaching. The Texan revolt had no other justification than that which it derived from the overthrow of the Federal Constitution; but that was ample, and, had it not been for the introduction of slavery into Texas, the judgment of the civilized world would have been entirely in favor of the Texans. ”

“ A faithful history of this entire movement is yet to be written.
Mr. Adams, with his well-known and long-tried sagacity, saw at a glance the whole design of the originators of the Texas insurrection. While most people were averse to the belief that a project was seriously on foot to sever a large and free province from the Mexican Republic and annex it to the Union as slave territory, he read the design in legible characters from the beginning. ”

“ You may all go back to your homes! Santa Anna is completely overthrown! The Mexican army is destroyed! There will be no more fighting, no more fears. The independence of Texas is won! No matter where you come from, YOU ARE ALL TEXANS NOW! Victory! Freedom! ”

“ Persons who have aspired high as lovers of liberty, as eminent lovers of the Wilmot Proviso, as eminent Free Soil men, and who have mounted over our heads, and trodden us down as if we were mere slaves, insisting that they are the only true lovers of liberty, they are the men, the very men, that brought Texas into this Union. ”

“ Whenever one section of this country presumes upon its strength for the oppression of the other, then will our Constitution be a mockery, and it would matter not how soon it was severed into a thousand atoms and scattered to the four winds. If the principles are disregarded upon which the annexation of Texas was consummated, there will be for her neither honor nor interest in the Union; if the mighty, in the face of written law, can place with impunity an iron yoke upon the neck of the weak, Texas will be at no loss how to act, or where to go, before the blow aimed at her vitals is inflicted. ”

“ They had just shaken off the yoke of Spain; and they saw the Americans—people of a different race, speaking a different tongue, strong, energetic, and masterful—drawing daily nearer to the Rio Grande River. They saw this alien people settling upon rich and productive lands, but paying no taxes; giving nominal allegiance to the Mexican government, but taking no interest in her political affairs. Added to this uneasiness was a growing hatred of the United States, which wished to annex Texas and had already offered to buy the province. Mexico resolved to crush this rising power. ”

“ Whatever may be the course of Texas, the ambition of her people should be that she should take no step except after calm deliberation. A past history, in which courage, wisdom, and patriotism united to found a Republic and a State, is in our keeping. Let the record of no rash action blur its pages. If after passing through two revolutions another is upon us, let the same prudence mark our course as when we merged from an independent nation into one of the States of the Union. ”

“ Now, if our American Constitution is a compact between the State of Texas—the human beings in Texas—and the other states—the human beings in the other states—how comes it that the mere creature of the Texans, without power over them except from them, can, by combination with other servant legislatures outside Texas, give to itself and to other governments outside Texas a new power to interfere with the freedom of the human beings in Texas? ”

“ All men, of all parties, from all sections, in and out of office, Mr. Adams most conspicuous amongst them, desired the aquisition of Texas, until the clamorous interference in the affairs of the south was caught up in New England from old England. Then, for the first time, objections were made to this measure; then those very statesmen who were anxious for the acquisition of Texas for their glory, found out that it would subvert the constitution and ruin the country. ”

“ It is hoped and believed that enough is unfolded to convince the most incredulous that the colonists of Texas have been forced into this contest with the mother country, by persecutions and oppressions, as unremitting as they have been unconstitutional. That it is not a war waged by them for cupidity or conquest, but for the establishment of the blessings of liberty and good government, without which life itself is a curse and man degraded to the level of the brute. ”

“ And so with multitudes of Union men in Texas at the present day. But all of them wish to get back and establish a Free State in Texas; because, they say, no other than a Free State can ever protect them from the enemies of human freedom, and, I was going to say, of human nature. ”

“ The only good they will do us will be destroying towns, mills, &c., which is our only hope in Texas at present. If we can break Southern merchants and millers, and 113have their places filled by honest Republicans, Texas will be an easy prey, if we only do our duty. ”

“ Would such men as the Livingstons, the Carrolls, the Renselaers, or the wealthy citizens of Philadelphia or Washington have come here and fought Indians and Mexicans; and been driven about from pillar to post, living on potatoes and dry corn? Good respectable people suffer a great deal of tyranny ere they put their property in danger. But when Texas, in her desperation, rose, she was glad of the men with a brand on their body and a rope round their neck, and who did not value their lives more than an empty nut-shell. ”

“ Swords drawn from their scabbards that day were no more to be sheathed, until every link of Mexican fetters, then encircling the youthful form of Texan liberty, should be burst asunder, and Texas stand free and unfettered by despotism among the nations of the earth.
Stephen F. Austin repaired to Gonzales and was chosen commander of the forces. The little army, animated by his leadership, rescued their four-pounder, and. resolved to pursue the foe to San Antonio, and drive from the soil the miserable tools of the tyrant, Santa Anna. Texas rose everywhere, like one man. ”

“ Texas will become tired of belonging to such a discordant confederacy; and when their population shall have sufficiently increased to insure success, will throw off the yoke, and form a government of their own. But at all events, it will soon be disjoined from Cohahuila, establish its own State government, and elect its own officers. The seat of government will probably be San Felipe, on the Brazos river. ”

“ That is a country on our own borders, and its inhabitants, most of them, emigrants from the United States; and most of the brave men constituting its army, who are so heroically fighting to redeem the province, are citizens of the United States, who have engaged in this bold enterprise as volunteers. Were this government to be precipitate in acknowledging the independence of Texas, might it not be exposed to a suspicion of having encouraged these enterprises of its citizens? ”

“ A blood-red flag waves from the church of Bexar and in the camp above us, in token that the war is one of vengeance against rebels. [“Texas and liberty! Down with tyranny! Hurrah!”] These threats have had no influence upon my men but to make all fight with desperation and with that high-souled courage which characterize the patriot who is willing to die in defense of his country; liberty and his own honor; God and Texas; victory or death! ”

“ The world is interested in the experiment of this Government. There is no new continent on earth whereon to rear such another fabric. It is impossible that ours can be broken without becoming fragmentary, chaotic, and anarchical. I know of no confederacy with other States which could hold out greater inducements or stronger bonds of fraternity than were extended to us in 1844. The people of Texas are satisfied with the Constitution and the Union as they are. ”

“ The men carried a day’s supply in their canteens, but the poor beasts had no provision for quenching the burning of their fevered throats. There was not then living in the entire territory from El Paso to Santa Fe as many as three hundred sincere Southern sympathizers. The great majority of the population were poor, illiterate Mexicans, who had a traditional hatred of all Texans. The secession of Texas from Mexico in 1835, the Santa Fe expedition in 1841 and the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846, had planted in the minds of these rude frontiersmen bitter memories of the Texans. ”

“ Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. Texas was originally a state belonging to the republic of Mexico. ”

“ He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. ”

“ The scroll of the history of Texas was unrolled, her future policy was portrayed; her future destiny, if a sound policy was pursued, was set forth in prophetic speech. Good faith with all nations was solemnly enjoined, individual and national economy was inculcated, the cultivation of peace with the Indians was earnestly urged, and the people were warned against faction and the rancor of party spirit. Instead of vesting hopes in annexation or treaties, he implored the people to rely on their own public and private virtue, and be magnanimous and just with all men and all nations. ”