an arduous and difficult contest: our enemy is powerful in number and in means; but we also are strong in the rectitude of our cause and in that indestrictible inheritance of gallantry which we derive from the illustrious conquerors of 1776. If the highest courage were alone sufficient to accomplish our great enterprise, then would Texas be . safe, and her independence established, beyond the utmost efforts of her enemies to impair it. But courage is only one among many virtues, and will not alone avail us in this solemn crisis in our affairs. The desultory efforts of brave men may be easily defeated, when their united energies would triumph over all resistance. Let us, then, gentlemen, lay our heads, our hearts, and our hands together; and, like a band of brothers, feeling one interest and one affection, look wilh a single eye, and press forward with a single zeal, to one common object, the redemption of Texas. We have redeemed her, fellow-citizens, from the derelict and desolate wilderness, and conducted her, through many difficulties, to this springtime of her civilization. But at the moment we were about to repose from our toils, and partake of the peaceful rewards of our many privations, the revolution of Mexico burst upon us. The federal republican government, under which we hoped to elevate our favorite Texas to a primary rank among the united Mexican states, was suddenly and violently subverted, and the government of the sword, combined with the insidious power of the mitre, always cruel and intolerant, when perverted to the purposes of secular ambition, was attempted to be fastened upon us. By a series of victories scarcely paralleled in the annals of war, in the facility and cheapness of their accomplishment, the first. horde that ventured into our territory to enforce the new system upon us, was driven back, and compelled to relinquish their only strong hold on the soil of Texas. But the minions of despotism are as easily rallied as dispersed; they are equally servile and inefficient. Again they have invaded our soil; and they come with a more numerous and a better appoinled force. The master-spirit of the revolution urged to desperation by the resistance his scheme of despotism has encountered among the free-born colonists of Texas, has resolved to stake his fame, his power, and his life, in the conquest and depopulation of our beautiful country. Such, fellow citizens, is the character of the war that is waged upon us; it is emphatically a war of extermination. And let no American lay the secret hope to his
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