[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 7, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E300-E301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE MEANING OF THE ALAMO

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. TOM DeLAY

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 7, 2001

  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, this week we celebrate one of the defining 
moments in American history. It was 165 years ago yesterday, that 
almost 200 Texicans laid down their lives to ensure that Texas achieved 
her independence. It happened at The Alamo. And the road from Mexico 
City to the Alamo runs through Laredo, the place where I was bom. So, I 
came into this world only a few steps away from the footprints Santa 
Anna left on his march north.
  And let me tell you, on the night of March 5, 1836, things were going 
downhill fast for the Alamo's defenders. The Mexican Commander, General 
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, had the Texicans in the Alamo right where 
he wanted them. And everything was on the line.
  Santa Anna's forces had cut all the roads leading to the village of 
Bexar in what's now San Antonio, where the Alamo is still standing. 
He'd turned back a relief column that tried to make its way to help the 
Alamo's vastly outnumbered defenders. And with each passing hour more 
of Santa Anna's army arrived.
  There's a standard military rule-of-thumb, which advises that an 
attacker had better have a three-to-one advantage when assaulting a 
properly defended objective.
  Well, there weren't enough Texicans in the Alamo to property man the 
walls. As a military fortification, the Alamo left a lot to be desired. 
Its walls were incomplete and the Texicans had to throw up fences and 
earthworks to complete their perimeter. In fact, that day one

[[Page E301]]

Texican would have to fight off more than ten enemy soldiers. Tall 
odds.
  But the men of the Alamo knew it was time to stand and fight. As a 
strategic asset, the Alamo was better than nothing. That's because the 
Texicans had nothing else in place to slow Santa Anna's advance toward 
the eastern settlements where talk of independence had taken hold.
  If Texicans didn't stop him at the Alamo, Santa Anna could very well 
have carved a path of destruction across the state that effectively 
deprived its people of the means to resist and the will to continue 
their struggle for Independence. Had Santa Anna made his way across 
Texas, there might not have been anything left to fight for.
  The upshot is that conquering the Alamo appealed to Santa Anna's ego 
even though it did little to accomplish his military objective of 
suppressing the Texas Revolution. He needed to eradicate the passion 
for independence within every Texican, not simply defeat an army in the 
field.
  Viewed in that light, taking the Alamo was for him an indulgence not 
a military necessity. He fancied himself as the Napoleon-of-the-west 
and he dreamed of decisive battles to elevate his standing.
  And if Santa Anna had simply swept by the Alamo and pushed on to the 
settled fertile valleys and ranches further east, he'd have preserved 
the strength of his force. And if he didn't ultimately succeed in 
ending the dream of an independent Texas, he'd have extracted a far 
higher price from the Texicans he fought. So, even though all hands 
were lost at the Alamo, their sacrifice saved other lives that would 
have been lost beating back an unwounded Mexican Army of Operation.
  Santa Anna himself was a dangerous and daring adversary. He wasn't 
anyone to be taken lightly. He'd fought his way to the top of the 
Mexican military through a series of wars, including the fight for 
independence from Spain. Santa Anna knew a thing or two about fighting. 
He was a charismatic and compelling leader who issued orders that he 
knew would be obeyed. His army was disciplined and far better equipped 
than any comparable units then fighting for Texas.
  But we're taught that pride comes before the fall, and Santa Anna's 
pride was his Achilles'heel. Santa Anna did not begin his campaign with 
respect for his opponents. He considered the Texicans fighting for 
Independence as an ill-disciplined rabble that would be defeated by the 
first whiff of grapeshot that he sent over their heads.
  Before he marched north to Texas, Santa Anna even boasted to a group 
of visiting Frenchmen and Englishmen that defeating Texas was just the 
first step in his plans for North America. He actually said he'd 
conquer the U.S., haul down the Stars and Stripes and hoist the Mexican 
flag over this very building: The Capitol. Well, that's quite a boast, 
and I know what ol' Sam Houston must have said when he heard about it:
  ``That'll be the day. He'll have has his hands full right here in 
Texas.'' And so he did.
  Eventually, Santa Anna did learn to respect Texas, but a lot of men 
had to die first.
  And sitting here today, we ask ourselves: Why did they die? What were 
they fighting for? And is the country around us today worthy of their 
sacrifice? Some questions we can answer. Some will be answered for us.
  They weren't eager to die. They wanted to live out their years in a 
free Texas. Time and again, Alamo commander William Travis appealed for 
reinforcements and only once did 30 men answer the call by riding 
through the Mexican lines to join their fellow Texicans.
  In his famous letter to ``the People of Texas and all Americans in 
the World'', that he wrote with the Alamo surrounded and Santa Anna 
gathering strength, Travis made a last appeal for additional defenders.
  This is what he told Texas:
  ``The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the 
garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have 
answered the demand with a cannon shot and our flag still waves proudly 
from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. I call on you in 
the name of Liberty, of patriotism and every thing dear to the American 
character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. If this call is 
neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and 
die like a soldier who never forgets what is due his own honor and that 
of his country. Victory or Death.''
  The men at the Alamo died because they believed that some things are 
more important than life itself They knew that faith, family, and 
freedom were worth fighting for. And they also knew that, if they had 
to live without true independence, their lives wouldn't be worth 
living.
  They wanted the protections of a legitimate Constitution. They wanted 
their individual rights to be honored. They believed in the idea of 
self-government. They insisted that government respect their right to 
own private property. They chafed under tariffs and demanded free 
trade. They fought for democracy as the surest path to freedom.
  And it's true that the issue of slavery motivated some of the men at 
the Alamo. We must acknowledge that some of the men at the Alamo owned 
slaves and they were fighting for the right to keep them. History 
proved them wrong on that point. And that painful truth should not 
diminish the greater principles that all of the Texicans at the Alamo 
fought for. Just as our Founders did great things despite their flaws, 
so too did the Alamo's defenders ennoble themselves by the way they 
ended their lives.
  The most dramatic moment was still yet to come. It happened when 
William Travis gathered his command in the courtyard of the Alamo and 
leveled with his men about the fix they were in. They had three 
options, he told them.
  They could surrender, but they had all seen the red flag Santa Anna 
had flown. It meant no quarter. They would all be executed.
  They could make a break for it and try to fight their way through the 
Mexican lines. But this option was also doomed to failure because they 
would be fleeing across open country and Santa Anna's cavalry would 
butcher them easily.
  And they could instead defend the Alamo and, by dying in place, 
inflict enough casualties on the Mexicans to weaken Santa Anna's army. 
Travis chose the hard path.
  ``My own choice is to stay in this fort, and die for my country, 
fighting as long as breath shall remain in my body. This I will do even 
if you leave me alone,'' Travis said. But the choice was up to each of 
them, he said. Then he used his sword to draw a line across the 
courtyard.
  ``I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me 
to come across this line. Who shall be the first?''
  And one by one, the men who died at the Alamo all came across.
  Now, some people will tell you that Travis' last speech was fiction. 
They'll say it's melodramatic and too full of grand gestures. They'll 
say it's wishful thinking on the part of dreamers and romantics. But I 
believe that Travis did draw that line in the sand.
  If you read his letters and consider the convictions of those men 
holed up with him in the Alamo, I believe you'll come to the same 
conclusion. Travis knew exactly what he was doing and his men knew 
their precise and painful destiny. And they stepped across that line in 
the sand and stayed just the same. Because independence is worth it.
  And that's why men rode off from their families to join a motley band 
of committed patriots, who without training, without supplies, and 
without much hope for success gambled everything on God and Texas.
  And they won even as they spent their lives so dearly on the walls of 
the Alamo.
  And the debate goes on today. Some men don't believe that any 
principle or conviction is worth the political capital to draw a line 
in the sand. But other men still do. And it's with those like-minded 
men and women that I'll throw in my lot.
  Some things are still worth fighting for, and we'd better never 
forget it. Because if enough of us ever do forget, we'll have 
squandered our birthright to freedom and we'll be the unworthy 
beneficiaries of those proud Americans who came before us.
  The Alamo's defenders, like our Founding Fathers before them, gave 
everything to put unstoppable events in motion. Their deaths were the 
birth pains of greatness.
  ``Victory or Death,'' became Victory in Death. And that victory was 
the offspring of the courage needed to make the simple yet difficult 
choices that so often determine history. May we never forget that 
freedom demands sacrifice. God bless the men who died at the Alamo. And 
God bless America.

                          ____________________