~enewed evide,~ce to the world that the arms of freemen, uplifted m defense of hberly and right, are irresistible. Now is the day and now is the hour, when Texas expects every man to do his duty. Let us show ourselves worthy to be free and we shall be free. Henry Smith, Governor [2226) [TEXAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE] The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of th~ People of Texas m General Convention at the town of Washington On the 2nd day of March 1836. 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 their 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 lo 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, lo 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. When, long after the spirit of the consti- tution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is remo,•ed, 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 enforce a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet. When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abduction on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original clements, in such a cri::,is, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal lo first principles, and take
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