Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/282

 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 (he people of Texas, until they reached that point at w^hich 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 made 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 therefor 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, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentionis, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names.

5em President and Delegate from Red River.

, Secretary.

[The names of the signers will be found on the following page.]

On the 16th March, the Convention adopted the Executive Ordinance, by which was constituted the Government ad interim of the Republic of Texas. The Constitution of the Republic of Texas was adopted at a late hour on the night of the 17th of March, but was neither engrossed nor enrolled for the signature of the members prior to the adjournment next day. The Secretary was instructed to enroll it for presentation. As I learn from the Hon. Jesse Grimes, Mr. Kimble, the Secretary, took it to Nashville, Tennessee, where it was published in one of the papers, from which it was republished in a Cincinnati paper, and from the latter copied into the Texas Telegraph of August 2d of the same year, being its first publication in Texas. No enrolled copy having been preserved, this printed copy was recognized and adopted.