Texas Independence Day March 2, 1836

     I wrote this a couple of days ago, hoping to get it ready to publish on the 2^nd, but I let it slide because I've discovered the joy of ignoring deadlines.  March 2, by the way, is not the day Houston beat Santa Anna at San Jacinto.  It is not the day the Alamo fell.  It is not the day the drunks at Gonzales fired the cannon shot through the pecan trees over the Guadalupe River.  It is none of those things.

     On this day in 1836, 179 years ago, fifty-nine elected representatives and an appointed secretary all signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.  The day was not unlike today, with the wind blowing cold and damp through the unchinked walls of a half-finished, wood-frame capitol building at Washington-on-the-Brazos, the newest designated capital city of Texas.   The delegates covered the window openings with sheets and huddled around a wood stove, attempting to keep warm as they made plans for the colony.

     Colonial conventions had been held in San Felipe in 1832 and 1833, and a “Consultation” took place there in 1835.  The chief purpose of these meetings had been to ask Mexico to honor a pledge to return to the liberal policies of the Constitution of 1824, which Santa Anna agreed to do, but then characteristically reneged on his promise.   A secondary purpose of the conventions was to convince Mexico to allow Texas affairs to be dealt with in Texas, and not govern the colony from far-off Saltillo. 
     The Texians discovered that a “hat in the hands” approach to the Mexican bureaucrats did not work.  Stephen Austin, who, hat in hand, delivered these requests, was promptly imprisoned for over two years.  The colonists decided to mail a letter next time.
      New delegates, mostly a rowdy bunch of lawyers and real estate promoters known as “War Dogs,” were elected for the convention of 1836. Many were new to Texas, trying to get in on the land grab.  Only ten members of the group had been in Texas for more than six years, and fifteen had been here less than one year.   The “War Dogs” were openly opposed to rule by Mexico and loud in their criticisms.  The stately Lorenzo De Zavala and the learned Jose Navarro represented the Tejano population, along with Francisco Ruis (spelled elsewhere as Ruiz).  All other delegates were white European males, including Thomas J. Rusk and Sam Houston.  William B. Travis did not attend the convention because of pressing business at the Alamo.
      The Convention of 1836 convened on March 1, and the president, Richard Ellis, from the Red River delegation, wasted no time.  He did away with all pretense and immediately appointed a five man committee to write a declaration of independence.  The committee was chaired by George Childress, and included Edward Conrad, James Gaines, Bailey Hardeman, and Collin McKinney.  Indications are that Childress did most of the work on the document, and probably came to the convention with a draft already prepared.  He was obviously primed for the task—the committee presented a complete draft of the declaration first thing the next morning and it was passed by a unanimous vote on the first reading, without discussion. 
       Stated in language borrowed freely from Thomas Jefferson’s American Declaration of Independence,  the Texas declaration contained a long list of real and imagined grievances.  Among examples of dire suppressions named in the Texas document are, “….our interests have been continually depressed…., carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue…” and, “It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.” 

     The document includes several examples of unwelcome intervention by the Catholic Church, corruption within the Mexican Government, and, as if the Indians needed encouragement, it accuses the Mexicans of inciting the Comanche to rape, scalp, and pillage the settlers. 

      The Mexican Government did not lie or trick these people into colonization.   Every man in the room had come to Texas knowing that it was a colony of Mexico and all official business would be conducted in Spanish.  Most of the delegates were landowners.  To own land in Texas, one had to swear allegiance to Mexico,  join the Catholic Church, and accept Spanish as the national language.

      After the list of grievances, the document continued, “We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free and incapable of self-government.”

     Having introduced the idea that the Mexican people were incapable of governing themselves, and therefore unfit to be free, the Texians announced that they were not hampered by such limitations, and would no longer submit to Mexico’s laws, “unknown tongue,” or “national religion.”   Texas was declared a free and independent nation, open to the judgment and dealings of an “impartial” world.

     Logical questions arise from many quarters.  Was this simply a land grab by a bunch of shady real estate agents?  Did these promoters really have any patriotic intentions or were they just power and profit driven scum who stole Texas from Mexico?  Is this just another example of white European males taking advantage of poor, unsophisticated, simple people?  Are we not morally obligated to give this territory back?
 
      The Mexicans are a fun-loving, happy race.  They work incredibly hard and take good care of their families.  Most attend church and, as much as is possible, help the poor.  They are honest, warm-hearted, good-natured and resourceful.  The peons laugh, drink cervesa, gamble, and fiddle around with their neighbors' wives.  On the other hand, they don’t vote.  They don’t educate themselves. They don’t pay debts. They don’t own property.  They don‘t deserve Texas.    

     Back in 1836, many of the delegates wanted to adjourn and hurry to San Antonio to help Travis and his boys at the Alamo, but Sam Houston convinced them it was more important to stay and establish a government for the new republic.  Their efforts to relieve the Alamo would have been in vain—it fell within four days.  It is doubtful they could have made the journey in time to get slaughtered by the Mexican troops under Santa Anna, so, instead of a futile attempt to save the Alamo, the delegates, quietly encouraged and nudged forward by Sam Houston, settled for a futile attempt to write a constitution.

     Some of these delegates, including Thomas Rusk and Lorenzo De Zavala, were pure and noble in their intentions.  They wanted to establish a fair and democratic nation for the betterment of all the people.  On the other hand,  delegates such as Robert Potter were simply rotten to the core, and wanted nothing more than to line their own pockets.  Most of them were between the two poles.  Politicians are no different today.   They are motivated by self-interest, and every single one of them can find moral justification for taking someone else’s property. 
        I have reached my own melancholy conclusion and wish to answer from a purely intellectual standpoint.  Screw the fun loving Mexicans.  They could not govern themselves in 1836 and they cannot do it now. Look at the condition of their country. One dictator after another moves in and seduces the populace with promises of power to the people.  He says let us share the wealth, and offer equal reward for equal effort, and so on, and so on.  Immediately upon gaining office, he executes all known or suspected enemies, raids the treasury, confiscates private property, encourages and accepts bribes, and grinds the common people under his heel.

     Give Texas back?  Pay reparations?  Feel remorse?  I take a white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant view of the situation.  Ain't  gonna happen.