[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3293]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today, March 2 marks Texas 
Independence Day, and this morning at the Texas State Cemetery in 
Austin, Texas, Texans paid tribute with a musket volley salute in full 
costume to the Texas veterans who are buried there.
  Texas cities and towns across the State are holding many important 
Memorial events in honor of the fact that 169 years ago today, the 
Texas Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Constitutional 
Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos.
  Less than 100 years after American patriots declared independence 
from the tyrannical British Empire's military domination, Texas 
declared its independence from Mexico. After July 4, 1776, democratic 
government became a birthright for the people of the new world, but one 
that we would have to fight for.
  Like the American patriots driven to revolution by heavy-handed 
British intervention, Texas declared its independence after many years 
of living peacefully as part of the Mexican federal republic because 
Mexico became dominated by military dictatorships.
  The seeds of Texas independence were sown in 1824, when a military 
dictatorship abolished the Mexican constitution.
  In the words of the Texas declaration of independence, the Texas 
people's government have been forcibly changed without their consent 
from a restricted federative republic composed of sovereign states to a 
consolidated central military despotism.
  The Texas Declaration of Independence also based the justification 
for revolution on the grounds that the government of Mexico had ceased 
to protect the lives and liberty and property of the people.
  The military dictatorships that had unfortunately captured the 
Mexican government also did not provide for trial by jury, freedom of 
religion or public education.
  Failure to provide these essential services violates the sacred 
contract between government and the people.
  It is important to remember that the struggle for Texas independence 
was a political struggle, not an ethnic conflict. In fact, many Texas 
Hispanics consider themselves Tejanos and not Mexicanos.
  Tejanos lived in Texas long before Mexico existed and they moved 
there for the same reasons Anglos later moved there, freedom to run 
their own affairs and a wild but productive landscape.
  So we are inspired by so many Tejanos that joined the fight for 
independence when the Mexican government became an exploitive military 
regime, including Captain Juan Sequin, Lorenzo de Zavala, a future 
republic of Texas vice president.
  When Texans and Tejanos protested the undemocratic changes to 
Mexico's government, they were thrown in jail and the Mexican Army 
marched to war on Texas to enforce the decrees of the military 
dictatorship at the point of a bayonet.
  While future President Sam Houston and other delegates signed the 
Texas Declaration of Independence, Santa Anna's army was besieging the 
Texans and Tejanos at the Alamo in San Antonio.
  The Alamo fell on the morning of March 6, 1836 when Lt. Colonel 
William Barrett Travis, Tennesseean congressman David Crockett and 
approximately 200 other Texan and Tejano defenders were killed in 
action a heroic sacrifice for Texan freedom. On March 27, this same 
Army massacred over 300 unarmed Texans at Goliad.
  Fortunately, Texans and Tejanos achieved their independence several 
weeks later on April 21, 1836 when approximately 900 Texans and Tejanos 
of the Texas Army overpowered a much larger Mexican army in the 
surprise attack at the Battle of San Jacinto.
  Texas Independence Day is important to all Americans because it is 
the event that show the brotherhood of freedom can be stronger than the 
brotherhood of ethnicity or nationality, as Tejanos proved at Gonzalez, 
Bexar, Goliad and the Alamo and along the banks of the San Jacinto 
River and the government of the republic of Texas.
  People sometimes wonder what makes Texas and Texans so different and 
I believe part of that answer is the passion for freedom that gave us 
the first Texas Independence Day is still alive today. Something about 
being raised in Texas or even living there for an extended period of 
time makes Texans less willing to put up with the infringement on our 
rights, more willing to fight for them. I believe part of that passion 
comes from knowing Texas history.
  Today we give thanks to the many Texans of all backgrounds that 
sacrificed for the Texas freedom we enjoy. God bless Texas and God 
bless America.

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