Fifteenth. The sure and certain defence of a free people is a well regulated militia; and it shall be the duty of the legislature to enact such laws as may be necessary for the organizing of the rnili Lia of this republic. Sixteenth. Treason against this republic shall consist only in levying war against it, or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and support. No retrospective or ex-post facto law, or laws impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made. Seventeenth. Perpetuities or monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free government, and shall not be allowed; nor shall the law' of primogeniture or entailments ever be in force in this republic. The foregoing constitution was unanimously adopted by the delegates of Texas, in convention assembled, at the town of Washington, on the seventeenth day of l\·larch, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, and of the Independence of the Republic, the first year. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.
. Richard Ellis President and Delegate from Red River. Albert H. S. Kimble, Secretary,
C. B. Stewart, James Collinsworth, Edwin Waller, A. Brigham, John S. D. Byrom, Francis Ruis, J. Antonio Navarro, William D. Lacy, William Menifee, • John Fisher, Matthew Caldwell, William Motley, Lorenzo de Zavala, George W. Smyth, Stephen H. Everett, Elijah Stepp, Claiborne West, William B. Leates,
John S. Roberts, Robert Hamilton, Collin McKinney, A.H. Latimore, James Power, Sam. Houston, Edward Conrad,
Martin Palmer, James Gaines, William Clark, jun., Sydney 0 . Pennington, Samuel P. Carson, Thomas J. Rusk, William C. Crawford, John Turner, Benjamin Briggs Goodrich,
James G. Swisher, Georges W. Barnet,
M. B. Menard, A. B. Hardin, John W. Bunton,
Jesse Grimes, E. 0. Legrand, David Thomas,
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