In April 1833, delegates from around Texas — with the exception of San Antonio de Bexar, which chose not to participate in the convention because it was not sanctioned by the political chiefs of Texas — met in San Felipe de Austin to begin framing a state constitution in the hopes that they could persuade the Mexican legislature to allow Texas to separate from Coahuila. In addition to the constitution, the convention drafted a memorial to the government in which they laid out the reasons why statehood for Texas was desirous. The convention elected Stephen F. Austin, William H. Wharton and J.B. Miller to deliver the memorial to Mexico City along with several other petitions. Ultimately, of the three delegates elected, Stephen F. Austin was the only one to make the trip. On his return trip to Texas, Austin was arrested and imprisoned in Mexico City.
Memorial of the Texan Convention of April, 1833, to the General Congress of the United Mexican States
The inhabitants of Texas, by their representatives elect, in convention assembled, would respectfully approach the national Congress, and present this their memorial, praying that the union which was established between Coahuila and Texas, whereby the two ancient provinces were incorporated into one free and independent state, under the name of “COAHUILA AND TEXAS,” may be dissolved, abrogated, and perpetually cease: and that the inhabitants of Texas may be authorized to institute and establish a separate state government, which will be in accordance with the federal constitution and the constitutive act ; and that the state so constituted shall be received and incorporated into the great confederation of Mexico, on terms of equality with the other states of the Union.
To explain the grounds of this application, your memorialists would respectfully invite the attention of the general Congress to the following considerations : -
The consolidation of the late provinces of Coahuila and Texas was, in its nature, provisional, and, in its intention, temporary. The decree of the sovereign constituent Congress, bearing date the 7th of May, 1824, contemplates a separation, and guaranties to Texas the right of having a state government whenever she may be in a condition to ask for the same. That decree provides that, “so soon as Texas_ shall be in a condition to figure as a state of itself, it shall inform Congress thereof, for its resolution.” The implication conveyed by this clause is plain and imperative; and vests in Texas as perfect a right as language can convey, unless it can be presumed that the sovereign constituent Congress, composed of the venerable fathers of the republic, designed to amuse the good people of Texas by an illusory and disingenuous promise, clothed in all the solemnity of a legislative enactment. Your memorialists have too high a veneration for the memory of that illustrious body to entertain any apprehensions that such a construction will be given to their acts by their patriotic successors, the present Congress of Mexico. The decree is dated anterior to the adoption of the federal constitution, and therefore, by a clear and fundamental principle of law and justice, it obviates the necessity of recurring to the correspondent provision in the fiftieth article of that instrument, which requires “the ratification of three fourths & of the other states” in order “to form a new state out of the limits of those that already exist.” And it assures to Texas — by all the sanctity of a legislative promise, in which the good faith of the Mexican nation is pledged — an exemption from the delays and uncertainties that must result from such multiplied legislative discussion and resolution. To give to the federal constitution, which is the paramount law of the land, a retrospective operation, would establish a precedent that might prove disastrous to the whole system of the nation’s jurisprudence, and subversive of the very foundations of the government.
The authority of precedents is decidedly in favor of the position which your memorialists would respectfully sustain before the general Congress. By the Constitutive Act, adopted on the 31st of January, 1824, Coahuila, New Leon, and Texas, were joined together, and denominated “the internal eastern state.” By a law passed by the constituent Congress on the 7th of May, 1824, that union was dissolved, and the province of New Leon was admitted into the confederacy as an independent state. It is on the second article of this law that the people of Texas now predicate their right to a similar admission. The constitutive act, above mentioned, consolidated the late provinces of Chihuahua, Durango, and New Mexico, under the style of “the internal northern state;” and on the 22d of May, 1824, a summary law decreed that “Durango should form a state of the Mexican confederation,” and she was admitted accordingly. The same privilege was extended to Chihuahua by a decree of the 6th of July of the same year. These conjunct provinces stood, at the period of their separation, in precisely the same relation to the federal government that Texas and Coahuila now occupy. They have been separated and erected into free and independent states in a summary manner; and the same right was guaranteed “whenever she should be in a condition to accept it.” The other case, of Sonora and Sinaloa, is materially variant in matter of fact. Those provinces were originally incorporated into the confederation as one state, without any antecedent condition or guaranty ; and, at the adoption of the present constitution, they justly became liable to all the forms and restrictions prescribed in that national pact.
We would further suggest to the honorable Congress that the present juncture is peculiarly felicitous for dispensing with interminable and vexatious forms. The federal government is wisely employed in adopting important organic improvements, and aiming at a salutary renovation of the political system. The disasters of an eventful civil convulsion are yielding to the regenerating influences of domestic concord and improved experience; and every department of the confederacy is open to such needful modifications as the wisdom of the renewed Congress may designate. Texas solicits as her portion in the general reformation, to be disenthralled from her unhappy connection with Coahuila ; and she avails herself of this opportunity, by means of her chosen delegates, who are the authorized organs of the people, to communicate “ to the general Congress” that she is now “ in a situation to figure as a state by herself,” and is profoundly solicitous that she may be permitted to do so.
The general Congress may possibly consider the mode of this communication as informal. To this suggestion we would, with great deference, reply, that the events of the past year have not only violated the established forms and etiquette of the government, but have suspended, at least, its vital functions ; and it would appear exceedingly rigorous to exact from the inhabitants of Texas, living on a remote frontier of the republic, a minute conformity to unimportant punctilios. The ardent desire of the people is made known to the Congress through their select representatives, the most direct and unequivocal medium by which they can possibly be conveyed; and surely the enlightened Congress will readily concur with us in the sentiment that the wishes and wants of the people form the best rule for legislative guidance. The people of Texas consider it not only an absolute right, but a most sacred and imperative duty to themselves, and to the Mexican nation, to represent their wants in a respectful manner to the general government, and to solicit the best remedy of which the nature of their grievances will admit. Should they utterly fail in this duty, and great and irremediable evils ensue, the people would have reason to reproach themselves alone; and the general Congress, in whom the remedial power resides, would also have reason to censure their supineness and want of fidelity to the nation. Under this view, we trust the Congress will not regard with excessive severity any slight departure which the good people of Texas may in this instance have made from the ordinary formalities of the government.
And we would further suggest to the equitable consideration of the federal Congress that, independent of and anterior to the express guaranty contained in the decree of the 7th of May, 1824, the right of having a separate state government was vested in and belonged to Texas, by the fact that she participated as a distinct province in the toils and sufferings by which the glorious emancipation of Mexico was achieved, and the present happy form of government was established. The subsequent union with Coahuila was a temporary compact, induced by a supposed expediency, arising from an inadequate population on the part of Texas “to figure as a state of itself.” This inducement was transient in its nature; and the compact, like all similar agreements; is subject to abrogation, at the will of either party, whenever the design of its creation is accomplished, or is ascertained to be impracticable. The obvious design of the union between Coahuila and Texas was, on one part at least, the more effectually to secure the peace, safety, and happiness, of Texas. That design has not been accomplished, and facts piled upon facts afford a melancholy evidence that it is utterly impracticable. Texas never has and never can derive from the connection benefits in any wise commensurate with the evils she has sustained, and which are daily increasing in number and in magnitude.
But our reasons for the proposed separation are more explicitly set forth in the subjoined remarks.
The history of Texas, from its earliest settlement to the present time, exhibits a series of practical neglect and indifference to all her peculiar interests on the part of each successive government which has had the control of her political destinies. The recollection of these things is calculated to excite the most pungent regrets for the past, and the most painful forebodings for the future. Under the several regal dominions, Texas presented the gloomy spectacle of a province, profusely endowed by nature, abandoned and consigned to desolation by the profligate avariciousness of a distant despot. The tyrants of Spain regarded her only as a convenient barrier to the mines of the adjacent provinces; and the more waste and depopulated she was, the more effectually she answered their selfish and unprincipled purpose. Her agricultural resources were either unknown, or esteemed of no value to a government anxious only to sustain its wasting magnificence by the silver and gold wrung from the prolific bosom of Mexico. To foster the agricultural interests of any portion of her splendid viceroyalty, or her circumjacent conquests, was never the favorite policy of Spain. To have done so, would have nurtured in her remote dominions a hardy and industrious population of yeomanry, who have ever proved the peculiar dread of tyrants, and the best assurance of a nation’s independence.
It was natural, then, that the royal miscreants of Spain should regard Texas, with indifference, if not with a decided and malignant aversion to her improvement. But it would be both unnatural and erroneous to attribute similar motives to the paternal government of independent, confederate, republican Mexico. She can have no interest averse to the common weal ; can feel no desire to depress the agricultural faculties of any portion of her common territory ; and can entertain no disquieting jealousies, that should prompt her to dread the increase or to mar the prosperity of any portion of her agricultural population. These are the best, the broadest, and the most durable bases of her free institutions.
We must look to other causes, therefore, for the lamentable negligence that has hitherto been manifested toward the prosperity of Texas. The fact of such negligence is beyond controversy. The melancholy effects of it are apparent in both her past and present condition. The cause must exist somewhere. We believe it is principally to be found in her political annexation to Coahuila. That conjunction was, in its origin, unnatural and constrained ; and, the longer it is continued, the more disastrous it will prove. The two territories are disjunct in all their prominent respective relations. In point of locality, they approximate only by a strip of sterile and useless territory, which must long remain a comparative wilderness, and present many serious embarrassments to that facility of intercourse which should always exist between the seat of government and its remote population. In respect to commerce and its various intricate relations, there is no community of interests between them. The one is altogether interior; is consequently abstracted from all participation in maritime concerns ; and is naturally indifferent, if not adverse, to any system of polity that is calculated to promote the diversified and momentous interests of commerce. The other is blest with many natural advantages for extensive commercial operations, which, if properly cultivated, would render many valuable accessions to the national marine, and a large increase to the national revenues. The importance of an efficient national marine is evinced, not only by the history of other and older governments, but by the rich halo of glory which encircles the brief annals of the Mexican navy. In point of climate and of natural productions, the two territories are equally dissimilar. Coahuila is a pastoral and a mining country : Texas is characteristically an agricultural district. The occupations incident to these various intrinsic properties are equally various and distinct ; and a course of legislation that may be adapted to the encouragement of the habitual industry of the one district, might present only embarrassment and perplexity, and prove fatally deleterious to the prosperity of the other.
It is not needful, therefore — neither do we desire — to attribute any sinister or invidious design to the legislative enactments or to the domestic economical policy of Coahuila (whose ascendancy in the joint councils of the state gives her an uncontrolled and exclusive power of legislation), in order to ascertain the origin of the evils that affect Texas, and which, if permitted to exist, must protract her feeble and dependent pupilage to a period coeval with such existence. Neither is it important to Texas whether those evils have proceeded from a sinister policy in the predominant influences of Coahuila, or whether they are the natural results of a union that is naturally adverse to her interests. The effects are equally repugnant and injurious, whether emanating from the one or the other source.
Bexar, the ancient capital of Texas, presents a faithful but a gloomy picture of her general want of protection and encouragement. Situated in a fertile, picturesque, and healthful region, and established a century and a half ago (within which period populous and magnificent cities have sprung into existence), she exhibits only the decrepitude of age — sad testimonials of the absence of that political guardianship which a wise government should always bestow upon the feebleness of its exposed frontier settlements. A hundred and seventeen years have elapsed since Goliad and Nacogdoches assumed the distinctive name of towns, and they are still entitled only to the diminutive appellation of villages. Other military and missionary establishments have been attempted, but, from the same defect of protection and encouragement, they have been swept away, and scarcely a vestige remains to rescue their locations from oblivion.
We do not mean to attribute these specific disasters to the union with Coahuila, for we know they transpired long anterior to the consummation of that union. But we do maintain that the same political causes, the same want of protection and encouragement, the same mal-organization and impotency of the local and minor faculties of the government, the same improvident indifference to the peculiar and vital interests of Texas, exist now that operated then. Bexar is still exposed to the depredations of her ancient enemies, the insolent, vindictive, and faithless Camanches. Her citizens are still massacred, their cattle destroyed or driven away, and their very habitations threatened, by a tribe of erratic and undisciplined Indians, whose audacity has derived confidence from success, and whose long-continued aggressions have invested them with a fictitious and excessive terror. Her schools are neglected, her churches desolate, the sounds of human industry are almost hushed, and the voice of gladness and festivity is converted into wailing and lamentation, by the disheartening and multiplied evils which surround her defenceless population. Goliad is still kept in constant trepidation; is paralyzed in all her efforts for improvement ; and is harassed on all her borders by the predatory incursions of the Wacoes, and other insignificant bands of savages, whom a well-organized local government would soon subdue and exterminate.
These are facts, not of history merely, on which the imagination most dwell with an unwilling melancholy, but they are events of the present day, which the present generation feel in all their dreadful reality. And these facts, revolting as they are, are as a fraction only in the stupendous aggregate of our calamities. Our misfortunes do not proceed from Indian depredations alone ; neither are they confined to a few isolated, impoverished, and almost-tenantless towns. They pervade the whole territory — operate upon the whole population — and are as diversified in character as our public interests and necessities are various. Texas at large feels and deplores an utter destitution of the common benefits which have usually accrued from the worst system of internal government that the patience of mankind ever tolerated. She is virtually without a government; and if she is not precipitated into all the unspeakable horrors of anarchy, it is only because there is a redeeming spirit among the people which still infuses some moral energy into the miserable fragments of authority that exist among us. We are perfectly sensible that a large portion of our population, usually denominated “the colonists,” and composed of Anglo-Americans, have been greatly calumniated before the Mexican government. But could the honorable Congress scrutinize strictly into our real condition — could they see and understand the wretched confusion, in all the elements of government, which we daily feel and deplore — our ears would no longer be insulted, nor our feelings mortified, by the artful fictions of hireling emissaries from abroad, nor by the malignant aspersions of disappointed military commandants at home.
Our grievances do not so much result from any positive misfeasance on the part of the present state authorities, as from the total absence, or the very feeble and mutile dispensation, of those restrictive influences which it is the appropriate design of the social compact to exercise upon the people, and which are necessary to fulfil the ends of civil society. We complain more of the want of all the important attributes of government, than of the abuses of any. We are sensible that all human institutions are essentially imperfect. But there are relative degrees of perfection in modes of government as in other matters, and it is both natural and right to aspire to that mode which is most likely to accomplish its legitimate purpose. This is wisely declared, in our present state constitution, to be “the happiness of those who compose it.” It is equally obvious that the happiness of the people is more likely to be secured by a local than by a remote government. In the one case, the governors are partakers, in common with the governed, in all the political evils which result to the community, and have therefore a personal interest in so discharging their respective functions as will best secure the common welfare. In the other supposition, those vested with authority are measurably exempt from the calamities that ensue an abuse of power, and may very conveniently subserve their own interests and ambition, while they neglect or destroy “ the. welfare of the associated.”
But, independent of these general truths, there are some impressive reasons why the peace and happiness of Texas demand a local government. Constituting a remote frontier of the republic, and bordering on a powerful nation, a portion of whose population, in juxtaposition to hers, is notoriously profligate and lawless, she requires, in a peculiar and emphatic sense, the vigorous application of such laws as are necessary, not only to the preservation of good order, the protection of property, and the redress of personal wrongs, but such also as are essential to the prevention of illicit commerce, to the security of the public revenues, and to the avoidance of serious collision with the authorities of the neighboring republic. That such a judicial administration is impracticable under the present arrangement, is too forcibly illustrated by the past to admit of any rational hope for the future.
It is an acknowledged principle in the science of jurisprudence, that the prompt and certain infliction of mild and humane punishment is more efficacious for the prevention of crime than a tardy and precarious administration of the most sanguinary penal code. Texas is virtually denied the benefit of this benevolent rule by the locality and the character of her present government. Crimes of the greatest atrocity may go unpunished, and hardened criminals triumph in their iniquity, because of the difficulties and delays which encumber her judicial system, and necessarily intervene a trial and conviction, and the sentence and the execution of the law. Our “ supreme tribunal of justice” holds its sessions upward of seven hundred miles distant from our central population ; and that distance is greatly enlarged, and sometimes made impassable, by the casualties incident to a “mail” conducted by a single horseman through a wilderness, often infested by vagrant and murderous Indians. Before sentence can be pronounced by the local courts on persons charged with the most atrocious crimes, a copy of the process must be transmitted to an assessor, resident at Leona Vicario (Saltillo), who is too far removed from the scene of guilt to appreciate the importance of a speedy decision, and is too much estranged from our civil and domestic concerns to feel the miseries that result from a total want of legal protection in person and property. But our difficulties do not terminate here. After the assessor shall have found leisure to render his opinion, and final judgment is pronounced, it again becomes necessary to resort to the capital to submit the tardy sentence to the supreme tribunal for “approbation, revocation, or modification,” before the judgment of the law can be executed. Here we have again to encounter the vexations and delays incident to all governments where those who exercise its most interesting functions are removed by distance from the people on whom they operate, and for whose benefit the social compact is created.
These repeated delays, resulting from the remoteness of our courts of judicature, are, pernicious in many respects. They involve heavy expenses, which, in civil suits, are excessively onerous to litigants, and give to the rich and influential such manifold advantages over the poor as operate to an absolute exclusion of the latter from the remedial and protective benefits of the law. They offer seductive opportunities and incitements to bribery and corruption, and endanger the sacred purity of the judiciary, which, of all the branches of the government, is most intimately associated with the domestic and social happiness of man, and should therefore be, not only sound and pure, but unsuspected of the venal infection. They present insuperable difficulties to the exercise of the corrective right of recusation, and virtually nullify the constitutional power of impeachment. In criminal actions they are no less injurious. They are equivalent to a license to iniquity, and exert a dangerous influence on the moral feelings at large. Before the tedious process of the law can be complied with, and the criminal — whose hands are perhaps imbrued in a brother’s blood — be made to feel its retributive justice, the remembrance of his crime is partially effaced from the public mind; and the righteous arbitrament of the law, which, if promptly executed, would have received universal approbation, and been a salutary warning to evil-doers, is impugned as vindictive and cruel. The popular feeling is changed from a just indignation of crime, into an amiable but mistaken sympathy for the criminal ; and an easy and natural transition is converted into disgust and disaffection toward the government and its laws.
These are some of the evils that result from the annexation of Texas to Coahuila, and the exercise of legislative and judicial powers by the citizens of Coahuila over the citizens of Texas. The catalogue might be greatly enlarged, but we forbear to trespass on the time of the honorable Congress (confiding to the worthy citizens, who shall be charged with the high duty of presenting this memorial, and the protocol of a constitution, which the people of Texas have framed, as the basis of their future government, the more explicit enunciation of them). Those evils are not likely to be diminished, but they may be exceedingly aggravated by the fact that that political connection was formed without the cordial approbation of the people of Texas, and is daily becoming more odious to them. Although it may have received their reluctant acquiescence, in its inception, before its evil consequences were developed or foreseen, the arbitrary continuance of it now, after the experience of nine years has demonstrated its ruinous tendencies, would invest it with some of the most offensive features of usurpation. Your memorialists entertain an assured confidence that the enlightened Congress of Mexico will never give their high sanction to anything that wears the semblance of usurpation, or of arbitrary coercion.
The idea may possibly occur, in the deliberations of the honorable Congress, that a territorial organization would cure our political maladies, and effectuate the great purposes which induce this application ; and plausible reasons may be advanced in favor of it. But the wisdom of Congress will readily detect the fallacy of these reasons, and the mischief consequent to such vain sophistry. In this remote section of the republic, a territorial government must, of necessity, be divested of one essential and radical principle in all popular institutions — the immediate responsibility of public agents to the people whom they serve. The appointments to office would, in such case, be vested in the general government ; and although such appointments should be made with the utmost circumspection, the persons appointed, when once arrayed in the habiliments of office, would be too far removed from the appointing power to feel the restraints of a vigilant supervision and a direct accountability. The dearest rights of the people might be violated, the public treasures squandered, and every variety of imposition and iniquity practised, under the specious pretext of political necessity, which the far-distant government could neither detect nor control.
And we would further present with great deference, that the institution of a territorial government would confer upon us neither the form nor the substance of our high guaranty. It would, indeed, diversify our miseries, by opening new avenues to peculation and abuse of power ; but it would neither remove our difficulties nor place us in the enjoyment of our equal and vested rights. The only adequate remedy that your memorialists can devise, and which they ardently hope the collective wisdom of the nation will approve, is to be found in the establishment of a local state government. We believe that if Texas were endowed with the faculties of a state government, she would be competent to remedy the many evils that now depress her energies, and frustrate every effort to develop and bring into usefulness the natural resources which a beneficent Providence has conferred upon her. We believe that a local legislature, composed of citizens who feel and participate in all the calamities which encompass us, would be enabled to enact such conservative, remedial, and punitive laws, and so to organize and put into operation the municipal and inferior authorities of the country, as would inspire universal confidence ; would encourage the immigration of virtuous foreigners — prevent the ingress of fugitive from the justice of other countries — check the alarming accumulations of ferocious Indians, whom the domestic policy of the United States of the North is rapidly translating to our borders; would give impulse and vigor to the industry of the people — secure a cheerful subordination and a faithful adhesion to the state and general governments ; and would render Texas what she ought to be — a strong arm of the republic, a terror to foreign invaders, and an example of peace and prosperity — of advancement in the arts and sciences, and of devotion to the Union — to her sister-states. We believe that an executive chosen from among ourselves would feel a more intense interest in our political welfare, would watch with more vigilance over our social concerns, and would contribute more effectually to the purposes of his appointment. We believe that a local judiciary, drawn from the bosom of our own peculiar society, would be enabled to administer the laws with more energy and promptitude — to punish the disobedient and refractory — to restrain the viciousness of the wicked — to impart confidence and security, of both person and property, to peaceable citizens — to conserve and perpetuate the general tranquillity of the state — and to render a more efficient aid to the coordinate powers of the government, in carrying into effect the great objects of its institution. We believe that, if Texas were admitted to the Union as a separate state, she would soon “figure” as a brilliant star in the Mexican constellation, and would shed a new splendor around the illustrious city of Montezuma. We believe she would contribute largely to the national wealth and aggrandizement — would furnish new staples for commerce, and new materials for manufactures. The cotton of Texas would give employment to the artisans of Mexico ; and the precious metals, which are now flowing into the coffers of England, would be retained at home, to reward the industry and remunerate the ingenuity of native citizens.
The honorable Congress need not be informed that a large portion of the population of Texas is of foreign origin. They have been invited here by the munificent liberality and plighted faith of the Mexican government ; and they stand pledged by every moral and religious principle, and by every sentiment of honor, to requite that liberality, and to reciprocate the faithful performance of the guaranty to “protect their liberties, property, and civil rights,” by a cheerful dedication of their moral and physical energies to the advancement of their adopted country. But it is also apparent to the intelligence of the honorable Congress that the best mode of securing the permanent attachment of such a population is, to incorporate them into the federal system, on such equitable terms as will redress every grievance, remove every cause of complaint, and insure, not only an identity of interests, but an eventual blending and assimilation of all that is now foreign and incongruous. The infancy of imperial Rome was carried to an early adolescence by the free and unrestricted admission of foreigners to her social compact. England never aspired to “ the dominion of the seas” until she had united the hardiness of Scotland and the gallantry of Ireland to her native prowess. France derives her greatness from the early combination of the Salli, the Frank, and the Burgundian. And Mexico may yet realize the period when the descendants of Montezuma will rejoice that their coalition with the descendants of Fernando Cortez has been strengthened and embellished by the adoption into their national family of a people drawn by their own gratuitous hospitality from the land of Washington and of freedom.
For these and other considerations, your memorialists would solemnly invoke the magnanimous spirit of the Mexican nation, concentrated in the wisdom and patriotism of the federal Congress. And they would respectfully and ardently pray that the honorable Congress would extend their remedial power to this obscure section of the republic ; would cast around it “ the sovereign mantle of the nation,” and adopt it into a free and plenary participation of that “constitutional régime” of equal sisterhood which alone can rescue it from the miseries of an ill-organized, inefficient, internal government, and can reclaim this fair and fertile region from the worthlessness of an untenanted waste, or the more fearful horrors of barbarian inundation.
Your memorialists, on behalf of their constituents, would, in conclusion, avail themselves of this opportunity to tender to the honorable Congress their cordial adhesion to the plan of Zavaleta; and to express their felicitations on the happy issue of the late unhappy conflict. They would also declare their gratitude to the patriot-chief and his illustrious associates whose propitious conquests have saved from profanation “the august temple in which we have deposited the holy ark of our federal constitution,” and have secured the ultimate triumph of the liberal and enlightened principles of genuine republicanism. And they would unite their fervent aspirations with the prayers that must ascend from the hearts of all good Mexicans, that the Supreme Ruler of the universe, who “doeth his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,” would vouchsafe to this glorious land the blessings of peace and tranquillity; would preserve it, in all future time, from the horrors of civil discord ; and would shed down upon its extended population the increased and increasing effulgence of light and liberty which is fast irradiating the European continent, and extirpating the relics of feudal despotism of the antiquated errors of a barbarous age from the civilized world.
David G. Burnet,
Chairman of the Committee
Source: “Memorial of the Texan Convention of April 1833, to the General Congress of the United Mexican States.” in Henderson Yoakum, History of Texas from its First Settlement in 1685 to its Annexation to the United States in 1846, Vol. I (Redfield: New York, 1856) pp. 469–482.
