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on the first day of March next, unless sooner called by the Executive and Council.

ARTICLE XVIII.

All grants, sales, and conveyances of lands, illegally or fraudulently made by the legislature of the State of Coahuila and Texas, located, or to be located, within the limits of Texas, are hereby solemnly declared null, void, and of no effect.

ARTICLE XIX.

All persons who leave the country in its present crisis, with a view to avoid a participation in its present struggle, without permission from the Alcalde or Judge of their Municipality, shall forfeit all or any lands they may hold, or may have claim to, for the benefit of this Government: provided, nevertheless, that widows and minors are not included in this provision.

ARTICLE XX.

All moneys now due, or that may hereafter become due, on lands lying within the limits of Texas, and all public funds or revenues, shall be at the disposal of the Governor and General Council, and the receipt of the Treasurer shall be a sufficient voucher for any and all persons who may pay moneys into the Treasury; and the Governor and Council shall have power to adopt a system of revenue to meet the exigencies of the country.

ARTICLE XXI.

Ample powers and authority shall be delegated, and are hereby given and delegated, to the Governor and General Council of the Provisional Government of all Texas, to carry into full effect the provisions and resolutions adopted by the Consultation of the chosen Delegates of all Texas in General Convention assembled," for the creation, establishment, and regulation of said Provisional Government.

OF THE MILITARY.

ARTICLE I.

There shall be a Regular Army created for the protection of Texas during the present war.

ARTICLE 11.

The Regular Army of Texas shall consist of one MajorGeneral, who shall be Commander-in-Chief of all the forces called into public service during the war.

ARTICLE III.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Regular Army of Texas shall be appointed by the Convention, and commissioned by the Governor.

ARTICLE IV.

He shall be subject to the orders of the Governor and Council.

ARTICLE V.

His Staff shall consist of one Adjutant-General, one Inspector-General, one Quartermaster-General, one Paymaster-General, one Surgeon-General, and four Aids-deCamp with their respective ranks, as in the United States Army in time of war, to be appointed by the Major-General and commissioned by the Governor.

ARTICLE VI.

The Regular Army of Texas shall consist of men enlisted for two years, and volunteers for and during the continu

ance of the war.

ARTICLE VII.

The Regular Army of Texas, while in the service, shall be governed by the rules, regulations, and discipline, in all respects applicable to the regular army of the United States of America in time of war, so far as applicable to our condition and circumstances.

ARTICLE VIII.

The Regular Army of Texas shall consist of eleven hundred and twenty men rank and file.

ARTICLE IX.

There shall be a corps of Rangers under the command of a Major, to consist of one hundred and fifty men, to be divided into three or more detachments, and which shall compose a battalion, under the Commander-in-Chief when in the field.

ARTICLE X.

The Militia of Texas shall be organised as follows: all able-bodied men over sixteen, and under fifty years of age, shall be subject to Militia duty.

ARTICLE XI.

Every inhabitant of Texas coming within purview of the preceding article shall, on the third Monday of December next, or as soon thereafter as practicable, assemble at each precinct of their municipality, and proceed to elect one captain, one first lieutenant, and one second lieutenant to every fifty-six men.

ARTICLE XII.

When said election shall have taken place, the judges shall certify to the Governor forthwith the names of the respective officers elected, who shall, as soon as practicable, make out and sign, and transmit commissions for the same; that if there shall be found to exist in any municipality more than three companies, the Captains or Commandants, on giving due notice thereof, shall call together the subalterns of said companies, and proceed to elect one Major; if of four companies, one Lieutenant-Colonel; if of five or more companies, one Colonel for the command of said companies, which shall constitute a regiment of said municipality; that if there shall be found to exist more than one regiment in said municipality, the whole number of field and company officers shall on due notice proceed to elect a Brigadier-General out of their number, who shall command the whole Militia in said municipality.

BRANCH TANNER ARCHER, President.

2 K

VOL. II.

498

APPENDIX.-No. V.

THE

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

MADE BY THE

DELEGATES OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS,

IN

GENERAL CONVENTION, AT WASHINGTON,

ON MARCH 2, 1836.

WHEN a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the People, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted; and so far from being a guarantee for their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression-When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted Federative Republic, composed of Sovereign States, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the ever ready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrantsWhen, long after the spirit of the Constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the Constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to enforce a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and

abduction on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements-in such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable right of the People to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their welfare and happiness.

Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the general opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connexion with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.

The Mexican government, by its Colonization Laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and Republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.

In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who, having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers to us the cruel alternatives, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.

It hath 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.

It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavour to pro

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