GOVT 2306

The Texas Declaration of Independence

As with the United States, the nation of Texas, started with a Declaration of Independence.

Oh ok, there had to be a war with Mexico to make it really happen, but the Declaration got the ball rolling.

The document stated the rationale behind the effort to become an

independent nation. It also articulated governing principles, so

its worth a look.

Note that this overview will not be as comprehensive historically as

the overview of the US Declaration of Independence covered in GOVT

2305.

Before specifics, here are a few resources that might give you detailed information on the

document and the circumstances surrounding its drafting.

The Texas Declaration of Independence was written in early March of 1836

during the Convention of 1836 which met at Washington-on-the-

Brazos.

I’ll provide a few details regarding the political issues leading to the declaration. This is will be very brief, superficial look at them.

Click here for a detailed timeline of the Texas Revolution.

TSHA: Texas RevolutionWikipedia: Texas Revolution

The conflict begins, in many ways, when Mexico achieves its independence from Spain in 1821

and, because it was close to bankruptcy, invites settlers to come to Mexican Texas. Some has

already settled illegally.

The settlers were allowed to have their own militias and were expected to help protect

Mexico from the raids from the Plains Indians. They were also expected to be a source of food

– crops – for the rest of the nation.

Its worth pointing out that Mexico had problems with separatist

movements in many places, not just Texas.

It’s also worth pointing out that Anglo expeditions into Texas

preceded Austin’s Colony. Click here to read up on the Filibusters.

The settlers to Mexican Texas came primarily from Southern States in the US,

and were used to different cultural environment than what they entered into

in Mexico. The most famous of these settlers were the Old Three Hundred who

came with Stephen F. Austin.

Here are two principle differences:

1 - Mexico did not allow slavery, or more accurately banned it in 1829.

2 - Mexico had an established religion, the Catholic Church.

The settlers considered the right to own slaves a natural right (their

slaves disagreed, but they had no legal status and could not make that claim in a court of law) and

religious conscience to be an individual matter, separate form

the coercion of the state.

The settlers had agreed to raise corn and beef, but opted instead to grow cotton – a labor intensive

crop – instead.

Exceptions were granted the settlers because Mexico saw an initial

advantage in having them in northern Mexico. They were permitted to start militias in order to protect themselves

from the Comanche Indians.

There would be later attempts to remove these exception.

Click here for a history of the Texas – Indian Wars, and here for

Comancheria.

The settlers were also used to self rule.

Being from America – though they had given up their American citizenship in

order to emigrate to Mexico – the settlers were used to self rule. Initially, distance allowed them to do so, but changes in

Mexico were making self rule more difficult.

Here are a few factors making self government difficult:

The Mexican Constitution of 1824 combined the state of Texas with

Coahuila and the capital was Saltillo which was – is – deep in

Mexico. This made it more difficult for Texas to seek redress.

Texans made efforts to have Texas made a separate state so they

would be better able to control their affairs. This was rebuffed by Mexico, but Texans continued to

try to set up their own government.

Anglo Texans would soon outnumber and over power native

born – Latino – Texans.

Ethnic tension was common. Anglo Texas tended to live apart from

Mexican Texans.

The 1824 Constitution – which established a federal system – was altered to allow for a centralized

governing system, which of course limited state autonomy.

This led the Texans to form committees to discuss how to move

forward against the Mexican government.

The Mexican government feared these groups since they had been authorized

to act as militias. This authorization was rescinded and efforts were made

to disarm the militias, as well as dissolve legislatures and other state

institutions. The resulting conflict, in a nutshell, sparked the war.

The Mexican Government also passed laws in 1830 to expand their power over all

Mexican states, especially Texas. Mexico, which had always been suspicious of the intentions of

the Texans, was concerned about their separatism and refusal to follow contractual

agreements.

These laws were attempts to reign in the Texans. Exemptions to the payment of property

taxes were removed, as well as limitations on further American settlements. This was

especially controversial.

Click here for the text of The Law of April 6, 1830.

Simply put, the Mexican government was undergoing

internal struggles that ended up with a greater concentration of

power on the national level.

The first military conflict happens on June 26, 1832 with the

Battle of Velasco.

Click here, and here for a timeline of the revolution, here for the Wikipedia page on the

Texas Revolution, and here for a list of Texas Revolution Battles.

As a consequence, two conventions were held to discuss

grievances with the Mexican government.

Convention of 1832Convention of 1833

The Convention of 1832 was noteworthy because it was the first time Texans had

gathered (see list of delegates), but it was attended only by Anglo Texans which fueled the

notion that they wanted independence from Mexico. The meeting was declared unlawful

because it did not follow standard procedure for such meetings. Grievances were to be taken to local authorities first, before being sent up to

higher level officials.

Also important during this time:

The Turtle Bayou Resolutions (1832)

The Convention of 1833 was called because requests – grievances –

that had been sent to the Mexican government has not been

addressed.

In the convention a constitution was proposed, but not passed.

Click here for various documents related to the Conventions of 1832

and 1833.

Though war had broken out, Texas was not ready to fully declare independence and issued a

Declaration on November 7, 1835 that stated a desire to return to

the federal form established in the 1824 Constitution.

The result of the Battle of the Alamo coincided with

the Convention of 1836 and the decision to fully declare

independence and write a document stating so.

All this happened in early March 1836.

And as all Texas school kids learn, the whole affair was over by late April with

victory by the Texas in the Battle of San Jacinto.

Now a quick look through the Texas Declaration of Independence

itself:

The structure of the document is similar to that of the US Declaration of

Independence.

It reads more like a proclamation, which start with several “whereas” clauses and then conclude with a “therefore,” which states what is intended to be done in a

particular matter.

The structure is very similar to that of the US Declaration.

1 - It begins by stating the nature of government.

2 - The provides a list of grievances meant to prove that Mexico was

violating basic governing principles.

3 - The concludes by stating that Texas is now an independent state.

Let’s run through it.

Click here for the text from the Avalon Project.

It begins with four “whereas” statements (they use the word

“when”) which contain statements regarding the purpose of

government.

Note: the actual text is italicized. Commentary is not.

1 - 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.

2 - 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 ever ready minions of power, and the

usual instruments of tyrants.

3 - 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.

4 - 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.

Each of these relates to a specific event, some covered in the previous slides. Note the themes are similar to those in the US document. The importance of individual

rights and the objection to tyrannical forms of government.

Next comes the claim that they appeal to an impartial world:

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.

This is followed by a series of grievances.

It is in many ways a review of the history of Anglo settlement in the

north of Mexico.

1 - 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.

2 - 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.

3 - 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.

4 - 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.

5 - 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.

6 - 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.

7 - 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.

8 - 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.

9 - 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.

10 - 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.

11 - 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.

12 - 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.

13 - 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.

14 - It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our

defenseless frontiers.

15 - 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.

Each of these grievances refer to a specific event.

Notice the similarity many have with those made in the US document. The

point being that the Mexican government was denying Texans basic rights, limiting their ability to govern

themselves and establishing tyrannical control over the nation.

So the conclusion:

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 defense 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.

This, of course, is simply a declaration of independence, it does not establish independence. That had to be done on the battlefield. As mentioned above – actual independence would have to

wait about six weeks.

Of course, while nominal independence was established in 1836, the battle over the status of

Texas, and where its southern border was, would not be over until the end of the Mexican-American War ended in 1848. Mexico didn’t recognize the

independence of Texas until then.

The United States – under Andrew Jackson – recognized the republic of Texas on March 3, 1837 when it appointed an ambassador to Texas

.

In addition to writing the Declaration of Independence, the members of the

Convention also drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.

We will look more thoroughly at that document in the following section, but

let’s have a preliminary look at it and also at the fate of the Republic of Texas.

Click here for further links to early Texas documents from the Avalon

Project:

Texas From Independence to Annexation 1836-1846

Once accomplished, Texas begins its brief life as

an independent nation.

That only lasts nine years however.

Why so short?

Let’s consider a few points regarding that subject before

concluding.

Click here for TSHA’s look at the document.

And here for the document itself. It is similar in design to the US Constitution,

but a chief justice appointed by the president and four associate justices elected by the Congress. It also has a

popularly elected president, along with other differences.

It also explicitly denied citizenship to African-Americans and Native-

Americans, and made the emancipation of slaves illegal,

unless Congress consented to it.

By the way, the Republic of Texas wasn’t the only independent

republic Mexico had to deal with.

Click here for the short life of The Republic of the Rio Grande

The Republic was in existence from March 2, 1836 (when the Texas

Declaration of Independence was signed) to December 29, 1845

(when Texas was annexed to the United States).

Click here for a timeline of the Republic.

The First Texas Congress met in Columbia in 1836.

David Burnett would become the first interim

President of the Republic, Sam Houston would become the

first elected president.

As is usually the case following revolutions, the unity that existed during the revolution ended and two principle factions developed.

One under the leadership of Sam Houston, the other under

Mirabeau Lamar.

Sam Houston’s faction supported annexation to the United States and peace treaties with Native

Americans.

Lamar’s supported aggressive expansion of the Texas Republic westward and the expulsion of

Native Americans.

The question here was whether Texas could actually do this.

The Republic of Texas also faced two problems all independent

nations faced – including the US under the Articles of

Confederation.

How to provide security and foster economic development?

External security was a huge problem.

Comanche raids were common, as were raids from Mexico. Battles

were common with each of these, and they were costly.

Commercial development was also a problem.

Interesting point: No incorporated or private bank operated in the

Republic of Texas.

Native businesses were rare in Texas, so it imported more than it exported. Gold and

silver in the state fled. Texas was never able to coin its own currency, it issued

paper money and promissory notes that lost their value. Inflation was a problem, as it tends to be in nations with undeveloped

commercial sectors.

For further detail read TSHA’s entry on the Money of the Republic of Texas.

The Republic developed a great deal of debt. It would total over $12 million. Bonds were issued to generate funds

but these were only occasionally purchased because the nation was not

seen as a safe investment.

See the TSHA entry on the Debt of the Republic of Texas.

Interesting trivia: the debt of the Republic of Texas would not be

fully paid off until 1902.

The simple point here is that the republic of Texas was unable to provide for internal

and external security, or for commercial development.

Gradually support for annexation to the US increased, and opposition to the

annexation of Texas within the US decreased.

James Polk ran for the presidency in 1844 on a platform that included

the intention to annex Texas.

Polk was a Democrat, which helps explain why the state was

dominated by the Democratic Party for over a century.

Polk was noted for strong positions on foreign policy, which at that point meant acquiring western lands. He aggressively pursued

both Texas and Oregon and initiated the Mexican-American War which ended up in the US

laying claim to California and the southwest in general.

Polk is regarded by scholars as one of the better presidents, he usually in listed among the top quartile of

presidents.

“the least known consequential president of the United States”

The joint resolution authorizing the annexation of Texas allows the state to be split into four more

states, it does not authorize secession.

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having

sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof,

which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Interesting side note – a dispute over ownership of the bonds acquired to settle the debt of

Texas by selling the land in the western part of the state led to the post-Civil War case Texas v White where the Supreme Court stated that secession was illegal an that

the South had never really seceded.

The selling of the land was part of the Compromise of 1850.

And a final point. Texas went from being an independent republic to a

state without taking the intermediate step of being a

national territory.

This means that public lands that belonged to the republic were directly transferred to state. Had Texas been a territory – even if

only for a moment – those lands would have been transferred to the US and would

not belong to the state now.

Texas has very little federal land – especially in comparison with western

states – as a result.