The Mexican government was willing to settle Texas and promised a written constitution similar to that of the United States Constitution. After all, Houston’s army did defeat the Mexican military at San Jacinto, gaining independence. However, Santa Ann disregarded the promise and defeat. Santa Anna was determined to get the people to leave Texas, or his military would continue to sabotage and push their religious dictatorship on the people.
Texans wanted to publish a written constitution as a form of security. This would be the official claim of independence from Mexico, as the Texas citizens did not like laws made by the Mexican government. The Mexican laws were against slavery, but Texas was home to many slaves brought from Americans. The Texas Declaration of Independence was to secure the rights of the citizens life, liberty, and property from the Mexican governments, religious dictatorship, and violence.
The Texas Declaration of Independence states, “It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.” This statement is referring to Stephen F. Austin going to Mexico to ask for independence, where he ends up being arrested by the Mexican government. Stephen F. Austin, one of Texas’s most respected citizens, was imprisoned for a year and a half, without the right of trial. This left the convention, which he was the president of, to make calls without him being present.
The Texans also stated, “It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected,” in the Texas Declaration of Independence.
Coahuila, the capital, being too far and mostly a non-English speaking state, the government took advantage of Texans. Every time the Texans cordially asked for independence from Mexico, they were uncivilly rejected.
I do believe that “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,” (Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836) is a reasonable complaint made by the Texans. The Mexican government forced the Texans to join their religion, not allowing them to decide what religion they would like to follow and worship. This was a huge part of Texans wanting to gain independence from Mexico, as they did not have the same beliefs.
On March 1, 1836, George C. Childress, Edward Conrad, James Gaines, Bailey Hardeman, and Collin McKinney began writing the Texas Declaration of Independence. On March 2, 1836, the Texas Declaration of Independence was adopted, at the Convention of 1836, in Washington-on-the-Brazos. The document was officially signed the next day after making adjustments.
The document was very similar to the United States Declaration of Independence. It stated all the wrongdoings by the Mexican government and reasons it wished to become an independent republic. Today, only one of the five original copies of the Declaration still exist. Before Austin became the official capital of Texas, it had five other capitals: Washington on the Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco and West Columbia.
