Fellow citizens of Texas, proud of your Anglo-American descent, venerating the name of Washington, now in arms against Santa Anna to put down such monstrous doctrines. Have you lived thus long to be insulted, and to have your fathers' principles and your own rights thus invaded? Does no portion of the fire of 1776 animate your bosoms, that you are thus content to live and breathe the air where such doctrines are boldly avowed and will in all probability be attempted to be inforced? Are you thus content in the very commencement for your struggle for liberty, lo abandon the golden price, and surrender the temple of Liberty, with the rich legacy purchased by your patriotic sires, blood lo the hand of a traitor, and would a Despot? If you would not, I again solemnly call upon you lo sustain the Government, lo bring to its aid all your strength, and all your integrity. Its stability is now to be tested on you devolves the responsibility of sustaining it or permitting it to perish. Officers of the Government, when you entered on the discharge of your duties, you took and subscribed the following oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will support the Republican principles of the Constitution of Mexico of 1824, and obey the declaration & ordinances of the Consultation of the Chosen Delegates of all Texas in General Convention assembled, and the ordinances and decrees of the Provisional Government." Some of you resolved in public Resolutions that you would sustain Henry Smith in opposition to the decrees of the Council. In that declaration you forfeited the sacred and solemn obligation into which you entered. By assuming that position you place yourselves in the situation of insurgents to the Government. But believing you were mistaken as respects the true nature of things, and that you have unadvisedly acted, I now offer to overlook this first aberalion provided you return at once to your duty & obedience to the Government. Should you refuse and hold out in opposition, my duty constrains me to tell you that all the means in possession of the Government will be resorted lo, to bring you to obedience, and the consequences that will befal you will be of your own seeking. Fellow Citi.ze11s of Texas, let me agains remind you of your duty. "In the name of the People of Texas, Free and Sovreign" I charge you not lo be guilty of the crime of treason, to raise no parricidal arm against your Government, not yourselves to forge the chains by which your liberties are lo be manacled. But I require you to be prepared lo sustain the Go,·ernmenl whenever called upon, if necessary, with "your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor"
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