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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
the constitution of the Republic, accepted and ratified by the people in 1824, was overthrown. From such anti-popular proceedings a gen- eral discontent resulted among the people, and the citizens could not be indifferent to the outrage which they resented when they saw them- selves subjected to a bastard government, and [one] whose authority appealed only to force in the name of law; but even this beginning, was never sufficient to check the formidable torrent of political power which does not yield, nor will it ever yield to any obstacles however great may be the difficulties that are presented to it, by virtue of the fact that it is written that over the land the source of power is the people. And so passed the time until the aforementioned year, 1838; and it can be said that there was not a single day in which that Gov- ernment did not have its attention occupied in having recourse to the different points where it was necessary to contend with the patriots who were opposing themselves to it with the object of destroying it in order that they remain in full liberty as before. The people were burdened with heavy taxes and imports and this, in place of augment- ing the public Treasury in order to keep up the expenses of the Govt., had no other result than that of filling the pockets of their agents who quickly amassed great fortunes. The people were persecuted to death when by word or deed they opposed a course so reprehensible. A group of disfranchised men who were called the army of the Supreme Government, spread over the entire Republic, but particularly over the towns of the frontier, were laying waste the fields, seizing private property and that of the States, stealing the wives away from their husbands, likewise the children from their mothers, and were in short the oppressor of individual liberty, and were the Lord to whom [the people] were forced to render homage. The civil authorities, in all their acts, were held in derision by this group, and consequently the hands of the people were tied more and more every day, and so they suffered and kept silent reserving their legal right under which stand- ard they frequently manifested their complaints. In nothing were they heard or heeded. Consequently, and in accord with the general opinion it was proposed by having recourse, which was the most prac- tical way, to demand in these States, as was c1emanc1ec1 in 1838 the [reestablishment of the] system once interrupted in 1834 and sanc- tioned by the hideous constitution of 1836, that is the reestablishment of the Federal constitution granted in 1824. In order to sustain such a request, which had been many times rejected with the greatest in- justice, and to carry it out- because there was no other recourse, a force was organized to repeal in case it should that part [of the law l to which they were opposed. This was clone in the centers of popu- lation of the small towns of the frontier, i. e. the small town calling as their leader Gen. D. Pedro Lemus, who, although he accepted, did not present himself until a short time after the struggle had begun, on account of the interference of the Government which was rightly to be expectec1. Great were the measures which it [the Government] dictated for Ruppressing the revolution which in its beginning and almost until the end was upheld only by the morale-and b:y a small number of badly-armed citizens of the six towns of the frontier of the North from )f atamoras to the town of Laredo. The principal leaders were the citizens Antonio Canales, Jesus Cardenas, Antonio Zapata,
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