[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 30 (Thursday, March 4, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. GENE GREEN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 4, 2010

  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 
marked Texas Independence Day: 174 years ago, the Texas Declaration of 
Independence was ratified by the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-
the-Brazos.
  This is an important day for Texas identity and patriotic Texans 
observe this occasion with great pride. If it were not for the Texas 
Primaries, I would have been on the floor, paying tribute to Texas 
Independence Day Tuesday.
  In 1824, a military dictatorship took over in Mexico abolishing the 
Mexican constitution. The new military dictatorship refused to provide 
trial by jury, freedom of religion, public education for their 
citizens, and allowed the confiscation of firearms, this last one being 
the most intolerable, particularly among Texans.
  The Texas Declaration of Independence states that Texas' government 
had been ``forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted 
federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated 
central military despotism.''
  It stated that because of the injustice of Santa Anna's tyrannical 
government, Texans were severing their connection with the Mexican 
nation and declaring themselves ``a free, sovereign, and independent 
republic . . . fully invested with all the rights and attributes'' that 
belong to independent nations; and a declaration that they ``fearlessly 
and confidently'' committed their decision to ``the Supreme Arbiter of 
the destinies of nations.''
  The Texas Declaration of Independence was fully justified because 
this military dictatorship had ceased to protect the lives, liberty, 
and property of the people of Texas.
  Failure to provide these basic rights violated the sacred contract 
between a government and the people, and Texans did what we still do 
today--stand up for our rights by declaring our independence to the 
world.
  In response, the Mexican army marched to Texas waging war on the land 
and the people, enforcing the decrees of a military dictatorship 
through brute force and without any democratic legitimacy.
  As delegates signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at 
Washington-on-the-Brazos, General Santa Anna's army besieged 
independence forces at the Alamo in San Antonio.
  Four days after the signing, the Alamo fell with her commander Lt. 
Colonel William Barrett Travis, Tennessee Congressman David Crockett, 
and approximately 200 other Texan defenders.
  All these men were killed in action, a heroic sacrifice for Texan 
freedom. If this tragedy were not enough, later Santa Anna's army 
massacred over 300 unarmed Texans at Goliad on March 27.
  In a dramatic turnaround, Texans achieved their independence several 
weeks later on April 21, 1836. Roughly 900 members of the Texan army 
overpowered a much larger Mexican army in a surprise attack at the 
Battle of San Jacinto.
  That battle is memorialized along the San Jacinto River with the San 
Jacinto Monument in Texas in our district. The monument is larger than 
the Washington Monument here in DC.
  Today we give thanks to the many Texans that sacrificed for the 
freedom we now enjoy. God bless Texas and God bless America.

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