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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.

Crossfire wrote:God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,
That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.

"Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible."

The Annoyed Man wrote:Those are eloquent and beautiful words. We ought to repeat them every 200 years or so.

old farmer wrote:

Crossfire wrote:God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,
That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.

Texian by choice.

Crossfire wrote:

old farmer wrote:

Crossfire wrote:God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,
That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.

Texian by choice.

For those of us who have been here since elementary school, that song with be in your head for the rest of the day!