Texas: A Brief Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with MexicoWharton, William H. (William Harris)
History
Texas: A Brief Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with Mexico
Wharton, William H. (William Harris)
Texas -- History -- Revolution, 1835-1836
unaccustomed to think or legislate for themselves, and so long under the
complete dominion of their liberty-hating Priests, they must have been
totally unacquainted with the plainest principles of self-government. Let
us examine what their subsequent opportunities of improvement have been.
At the close of the revolution, Iturbide, by fraud and force, caused
himself to be proclaimed Emperor, who after much commotion, was dethroned,
banished and shot. After this Victoria was elected President, during all
of whose administration the country was distracted with civil wars and
conspiracies, as is evidenced by the rebellion and banishment of Montano,
Bravo, and many others. Victoria's term having expired, Pedraza was
constitutionally elected, but was dispossessed by violence, and Guerero
put in his stead. Guerero was scarcely seated before Bustamente with open
war deposed him, put him to death and placed himself at the head of the
government. Bustamente was hardly in the chair before Santa Anna, warring,
as he pretended, for the constitution and for making it still more liberal,
dispossessed him by deluging the country in a civil war, the horrors of
which have not at this moment ended. Since his accession we have been
woful witnesses that nothing but turmoil, anarchy and revolution have
overshadowed the land, and that at last he has at one fell stroke, with
an armed soldiery, turned congress out of doors, dissolved that body
and proclaimed that the constitution is no more. Here, then, we have a
lamentable verification of the fears and predictions of that great apostle
of human liberty, Mr. Jefferson. His prophecy in relation to the result of
their governmental experiment, implies in him an almost superhuman forecast
and knowledge of the elements essential to self-government. He knew that
they were too ignorant and too much under the dominion of their priests at
the period of their declaration, and he but too truly foresaw that owing to
the unhallowed ambition of their military aspirants, the country would be
too continually distracted with revolutions to admit of their advancement
in education or any useful knowledge whatever. Time has developed it. There
has been no attention on the part of government to schools or other useful
institutions. The present generation are as ignorant and bigoted as the
past one, and so will continue each succeeding one to the end of time,
unless some philanthropic and enlightened citizen shall arrive at power
with a purity of patriotism and reach of intellect unexampled among his
countrymen, and with energies of character sufficiently commanding to
emancipate the nation from the thraldom of her priests--to curb or kill her
countless military aspirants, thereby preventing incessant revolutions, and
thereby enabling a new generation to experience the benefits of education
and to qualify themselves in other respects for complete self-government.
I have now gone through with the administration, or rather
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