11nl elements. In such a cr1s1s, the first law· of nature, the right of self-pre~ervation, is the. inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own handfl in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred ohligation to their posterity to abolish sucft r101:er11111c11t and create another in its stead, calculated to re5- cue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future wel- fare and happiness. Nation.c;, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts, to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is, therefore, submitted to an impartial world, in justi- fication of the hazardous, but unavoidable, step now taken of sc\·- ering our politie,11 connexions with the 11foxican people, and as- s11111ing ;rn irnll•pcndent attitude among the nations of the earth. The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of 'L'exas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue t.o enjoy that constitutional liberty and re- publican government, to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America. In this ex- pectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by ge,,eral A11to11io Lopez de Sa.11la A1111a, who, having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to ab11Jldon om· homes, acqnired by so many pri- vations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyrnnny, the com-· bined despotism of the sword and the priesthood. It hath sacrificed om welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which 011r interests hnve been con!-litntionally depressed through a jeal()n,; and partial course of lei:rislation, carried on at. a far distant sent of government, by a hostile m·ajority, in an unknown tongue; and thi!- too, notwithstanding we have petitioned, in the humblest terms, for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in nccordance "·ith the provisions of the national coni:;titntion, pre- sented to the general congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected. It incarcerated in a dun~eon, for a long time. one of our citi- zens, for no other cause hut a zealous endeavor to procure the ac- ceptance of our eonstitntion, and the establishment of a state gov- ernment. It has failed and refused to !-ecnre, on a firm basis. the right of trinl by Jury, that pallarlium of civil liberty, and only safe guaran- tt'e for the> life>. liberty. 11nd property of the citizen. It has failed to establish any public system nf educatin11. although pm=sessecl of almost bouncllc>ss resomces. (the public domain) and. 1lthoug-h it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are
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