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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1861
or the Act of the Legislature, recognizing them to perform the function assigned, were they empowered to elect delegates to aid in the formation of a Provisional Government with other States, who after creating the Same, should constitute themselves members of Congress. The object of the Convention was declared to be to provide the mode by which the people of Texas should reassume their com- plete Sovereignty. Yet, judging from the tenor of your communi- cation, Texas was on the day provided for declaring her inde- pendence of the United States, and before any considerable por- tion of her people knew the result of the vote, again deprived of her Sovereignty, and instead of being an independent nation, became one of the Confederate States, subject to a Government which her people had had no share in making, and a Constitution which but few of them had ever even seen. Admitting even that the Convention had power to elect dele- gates and members of Congress to the Provisional Government on the 2d. day of March and that until official information is received that Texas has been admitted as one of the Confederate States, Texas maintains the independent position resulting from the vote of her people on the 23rd of February. The Convention itself did not until the 5th day of March pass an ordinance ratifying the Constitution of the provisional Government of the Confed- erate States and instructing its delegates to apply for admission of Texas. There can be no other conclusion, therefore, than that, at the time your communication was addressed to His Ex- cellency, Texas was not, even in the estimation of the Convention, one of the Confederate States, and therefore not subject to the Provisional Government, or in any way under the "Control" of its President; until, therefore, His Excellency is informed from some official source that the people of Texas have parted with their Sovereignty and become a part of the Government on whose part you write, His Excellency states herewith that he cannot recognize any obligation to the Same. The people alone have any right to say what form of Government they will have; and while His Excellency fully appreciates the fact that your communica- tion has been addressed to him with the conviction arising from the presence of delegates from Texas in the Councils of the Pro- visional Government that the people of Texas have acted, but he frankly assures you that such, in his opinion, is not the case. It also becomes my duty to inform you that His Excellency has notified the Convention, whose delegates are accredited to Mont-
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