[1840) [BORDEN to VOTERS]
To The Voters Of The Municipality of Austin. Fellow-Citizens,-ln coming before the public, as a candidate for so important an office as member to the Convention, I feel it a duty I owe lo the people freely to express my sentiments on the question al this time so much agitated throughout Texas, whether the next Convention ought or ought not to make a declaration of independence. My opinion is that Texas ought, al the next convention, unless a great and mighty change takes place in the policy of Mexico, to declare itself independent of that nation. IL is true, that at the beginning of the present struggle, we aimed not at a separation from the Mexican people: in the late battles, we cried and fought for the Constitution of 1824, and, I believe, it was the wish of a majority of our citizens, to see the federal party prevail. But the federal Constitution, as we see by the decree of the General Congress of the 3d of October, is dead; centralism is established, and we are threatened with annihilation. By this instrument we are told, in article first, that governors are no longer dependent on the Constitution; in article second, that the legislators shall immediately cease their functions; and article third dispenses with the constitutional mode of electing representatives. Thus has been established, "a central and a despotic government, where all the authority is concentrated in one person or a few persons, in the city of Mexico, sustained by military and ecclesiastical power." The people of Texas have not been consulted in this change; and "the decree of the 3d of October, however beneficial it may be to some parts of Mexico, would be ruinous to Texas; and carried into effect, evidently leaves no remedy for her, but resistance, seccession from Mexico, and a direct resort lo natural rights." All the intelligence from the interior goes to show that we are threatened with a war of extermination, and it is now a struggle of life or death. Our position now is quite different from what it was at the time of the late Convention, and should, I
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