Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/45

Rh Texans insisted, as has always been contended by the slave states in the American Union, that it was a subject wholly of municipal regulation. An attempt was made, however, to put an end to the immigration from the United States, by the passage of a law in the Mexican Congress, on the 6th of April, 1830, totally prohibiting the admission of American settlers into Texas)

Military posts were established by the central government, and the civil authorities interrupted in the discharge of their duties under the state laws. These proceedings were regarded as being arbitrary and oppressive in the extreme, and calculated to destroy the separate sovereignty guaranteed to Texas by the constitution and laws; and the act of prohibition was openly evaded and disregarded.

Centralism was temporarily established by Busta— mente in 1832, and the Texans took up arms in defence of the federal constitution. They captured the garrisons at Velasco, Anahuac, and Nacogdoches; but hostilities were soon after suspended by the defeat of the centralists, and the elevation of Santa Anna to the presidency. In the spring of 1833, the citizens of Texas held a convention at San Felipe de Austin, and adopted a constitution as a separate state, in conformity with the decree of the 17th of May, 1824. The population was now almost exclusively American, and their habits, feelings, associations, and ideas of government, were totally at variance with those of the citizens of other Mexican states; yet they appear to have been willing to continue under the same federal head, provided there was no interference with their internal affairs. Stephen F. Austin was commissioned by the Texan convention to present the constitution to the