 The Texas Declaration of Independence was written overnight. It was urgent, because while it was being prepared, the Alamo in San Antonio was under siege by Santa Anna's army. The Texas Declaration of Independence was written by George Childress. Some believe that Childress brought a draft with him because he wrote it in just one day. The document was six pages long. The Declaration of Independence was approved by all the delegates. The Republic of Texas was officially declared on March 2, 1836. The document parallels that of the United States, signed almost sixty years earlier. The document contains statements on the function and responsibility of government, followed by a list of grievances. The document declares Texas a free and independent republic. The delegates declare that the political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and the people of Texas are now a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations. Source: The Texas Declaration of Independence The Texas Declaration of Independence was framed and issued by the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. As soon as the convention was organized a resolution was introduced for appointment of a committee to draw up a declaration of independence. Richard Ellis, president of the convention, appointed George C. Childress, James Gaines, Edward Conrad, Collin McKinney, and Bailey Hardeman to the committee. Childress was named chairman, and it is generally conceded that he wrote the instrument with little help from the other members. In fact there is some evidence that he brought to the convention a proposed declaration that was adopted with little change by the committee and the convention, a view which is substantiated by the fact that the committee was appointed on March 1 and the declaration was presented to the convention on March 2. The Texas edict, like the United States Declaration of Independence, contains a statement on the nature of government, a list of grievances, and a final declaration of independence. The separation from Mexico was justified by a brief philosophical argument and by a list of grievances submitted to an impartial world. The declaration charged that the government of Mexico had ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people; that it had been changed from a restricted federal republic to a consolidated, central, military despotism; that the people of Texas had remonstrated against the misdeeds of the government only to have their agents thrown into dungeons and armies sent forth to enforce the decrees of the new government at the point of the bayonet; that the welfare of Texas had been sacrificed to that of Coahuila; that the government had failed to provide a system of public education, trial by jury, freedom of religion, and other essentials of good government; and that the Indians had been incited to massacre the settlers. According to the declaration, the Mexican government had invaded Texas to lay waste territory and had a large mercenary army advancing to carry on a war of extermination. The final grievance listed in justification of revolution charged that the Mexican government had been "the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government." After the signing of the original declaration by fifty-nine delegates, five copies of the document were dispatched to the designated Texas towns of Bexar, Goliad, Nacogdoches, Brazoria, and San Felipe. The printer at San Felipe was also instructed to make 1,000 copies in handbill form. The original was deposited with the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C., and was not returned to Texas until some time after June 1896. In 1929 the original document was transferred from the office of the secretary of state to the Board of Control to be displayed in a niche at the Capitol, where it was unveiled on March 2, 1930.
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James K. Greer, "The Committee on the Texas Declaration of Independence," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 30, 31 (April, July 1927). Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones, 1944; rpt. 1959).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry. Ralph W. Steen, “Texas Declaration of Independence,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed April 23, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/texas-declaration-of-independence. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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The Texas Declaration of Independence was issued during a revolution against the Mexican government that began in October 1835 following a series of government edicts including the dissolution of state legislatures, disarmament of state militias, and abolition of the Constitution of 1824. By December 1835, Texians (Anglo-American settlers) and Tejanos (Texans of mixed Mexican and Indian descent) captured the town of San Antonio. Two months later, on February 23, 1836, Mexican troops under General Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived in San Antonio to retake the city. Although Sam Houston ordered Texans to abandon San Antonio, a group of rebels decided to defend the town and make their stand at an abandoned Spanish mission, the Alamo. For twelve days, Mexican forces laid siege to the Alamo. On March 6, four days after Texas declared independence, Mexican troops scaled the mission’s walls; 183 defenders were killed, including several Mexicans who had fought for Texas independence, and their oil-soaked bodies were set on fire outside the Alamo. The Republic of Texas won its independence on April 21, 1836, with a final battle along the San Jacinto River. A full transcript is available.ExcerptUNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, BY THE DELEGATES OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS, IN GENERAL CONVENTION, AT THE TOWN OF WASHINGTON, ON THE SECOND DAY OF MARCH, 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 tyrants. When, 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 force 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. Read the introduction and transcript and view the image. Then apply your knowledge of American history as well as the content of the document to answer the following questions:
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Where was the Texas Declaration of Independence written
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