Lift your lamp beside the golden door, Break not the golden rule, avoid well the golden calf, know; not all that glitters is gold, and laissez faire et laissez passer [let do and let pass] but as a shining sentinel, hesitate not to ring the bell,
defend the gates, and man the wall
“So I”m going to reduce the deficit in a balanace way. We’ve already made a trillion dollars worth of cuts. We can make anotheter trillion or trillion two, and what we then do is and what we then do is ask the wealthy to pay a little bit more. And by the way we’ve tried that before, a guy named Bill Clinton did it, we created twenty three million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus and rich people did just fine. We created a lot of millionaires. And you know there are a lot of wealthy successful Americans who agree with me, cuz they wanna give something back. They know they didn’t.. uuh,If you’ve been successful you, you didn’t get there on your own.You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.Somebody invested in roads and bridges—If you’ve got a business, that-–you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There’s some things, like fighting fires we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That’d be a hard way of fighting fires. And so we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, ‘you know, there’re some things we do better together’. That’s how we funded the GI bill, that’s how we created the middle class, that’s how we built the golden gate bridge, The hoover dam, that’s how we invented the internet, thaat’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation, and as one people. And that’s the reason I’m running for president, because I still believe in that idea. Your not on your own, we’re in this together.”
Good morning. Thank you, thank you. I do love that music. I tell you, I do love listening to that organ music. and the piano, during the prayer hearing, the sweet hour of prayer, being played that was a wonderful thing. Good morning all of you members of the N Double A C P.
[Crowd shouts]
And thank you to Bishop Graves for his generous introduction
and thank you also to President Ben Jealous and Chairman Roslyn Brock
for the opportunity to be here this morning, and for your hospitality.
This is an honor to address you and one I had not expected, and one I value very highly.
I appreciate the chance to speak first – even before the Vice President.
Well, Vice President Biden will get his turn tomorrow.
I just hope the Obama campaign doesn’t think you’re playing favorites.
[laughter]
[video freezes from here to 0:47]
... Republicans. You have to make your case to every single voter.
We don’t count anybody out, and we sure don’t make a habit of presuming anyone’s support.
Support is asked for and earned – and that’s why I’m here today.
Now, with 90 percent of African-Americans who typically vote for Democrats, you may wonder, or some may wonder,
why a Republican would bother to campaign in the African American community, and to address the NAACP.
One reason of course is that I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed and sexual orientation,
[applause]
from the poorest to the richest and everyone in between.
But there is another reason:
I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart,
and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real,
enduring best interest of American - African American families, you would vote for me for president.
I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color
and families of any color - more than the policies and leadership of President Obama,
I would not be running for president.
Now, of course, you know, the opposition charges
that I and people in my party are running for office to help the rich.
Nonsense. The rich will do just fine whether I am elected or not.
The President wants to make this a campaign about blaming the rich.
I want to make this a campaign about helping the middle class.
I am running for president because I know that my policies and vision will help hundreds of millions of middle class Americans of all races,
will lift people from poverty, and will help prevent people from becoming poor.
My campaign is about helping the people who need help.
The course the President has set has not done that – and will not do that. My course will.
When President Obama called to congratulate me on becoming the presumptive Republican nominee,
he said that he, “looked forward to an important and healthy debate about America’s future.”
To date, I’m afraid that his campaign has taken a different course than that.
But, in campaigns at their best, voters can expect a clear choice, and candidates can expect a fair hearing –
only more so from a venerable organization like this one.
So, it is that healthy debate about the course of the nation that I want to discuss with you today.
If someone had told us in the 1950s or 1960s that a black citizen would serve as the forty-fourth president of the United States
we would have been proud and many would have been surprised.
Picturing that day, we might have assumed that the American presidency would be the very last door of opportunity to be opened.
Before that came to pass, every other barrier on the path to equal opportunity would surely have come down.
Of course, it hasn’t happened quite that way.
Many barriers remain. Old inequities persist.
In some ways, the challenges are even more complicated than before.
And across America — and even within your own ranks — there are serious, honest debates about the way forward.
If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone.
Instead, it’s worse for African Americans in almost every way.
The unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment, average income, and median family wealth are all worse for the black community.
In June, while the overall unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for African Americans actually went up, from 13.6 percent to 14.4 percent.
Americans of every background are asking when this economy will finally recover – and you, in particular, are entitled to an answer.
If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, black families could send their sons and daughters to public schools that truly offer the hope of a better life.
Instead, for generations, the African-American community has been waiting and waiting for that promise to be kept.
Today, black children are 17 percent of students nationwide – but they are 42 percent of the students in our worst-performing schools.
Our society sends them into mediocre schools and expects them to perform with excellence, and that is not fair.
Frederick Douglass observed that, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
Yet, instead of preparing these children for life, too many schools set them up for failure.
Everyone in this room knows that we owe them better than that.
The path of inequality often leads to lost opportunity.
College, graduate school, and first jobs should be milestones marking the passage from childhood to adulthood.
But for too many disadvantaged young people, these goals seem unattainable – and their lives take a tragic turn.
Many live in neighborhoods filled with violence and fear, and empty of opportunity.
Their impatience for real change is understandable.
They are entitled to feel that life in America should be better than this.
They are told even now to wait for improvements in our economy and in our schools, but it seems to me that these Americans have waited long enough.
The point is that when decades of the same promises keep producing the same failures, then it’s reasonable to rethink our approach – and consider a new plan.
I’m hopeful that together we can set a new direction in federal policy, starting where many of our problems do – with the family.
A study from the Brookings Institution has shown that for those who graduate from high school,
get a full-time job, and wait until 21 before they marry and then have their first child,
the probability of being poor is two percent.
And if those factors are absent, the probability of being poor is 76 percent.
Here at the NAACP, you understand the deep and lasting difference the family makes.
Your former executive director, Dr. Benjamin Hooks, had it exactly right.
The family, he said, “remains the bulwark and the mainstay of the black community.
That great truth must not be overlooked.”
Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country, and that must be our goal.
As President, I will promote strong families – and I will defend traditional marriage.
As you may have heard from my opponent, I am also a believer in the free-enterprise system.
I believe it can bring change where so many well-meaning government programs have failed.
I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say,
“You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank.”
What you hear, of course, is how do we bring in jobs?
How do we make good, honest employers want to move in and stay?
And with the shape this economy is in, we’re asking that more than ever.
Free enterprise is still the greatest force for upward mobility, economic security, and the expansion of the middle class.
We have seen in recent years what it’s like to have less free enterprise.
As President, I will show the good things that can happen when we have more – more business activity, more jobs,
more opportunity, more paychecks, more savings accounts.
On Day One, I will begin turning this economy around with a plan for the middle class.
And I don’t mean just those who are middle class now – I also mean those who have waited so long for their chance to join the middle class.
I know what it will take to put people back to work, to bring more jobs and better wages.
My jobs plan is based on 25 years of success in business. It's job recovery plan and it has five key steps.
First, I will take full advantage of our energy resources, and I will approve the Keystone pipeline from Canada. Low cost, plentiful coal, natural gas, oil, and renewables will bring over a million manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
Second, I will open up new markets for American goods.
We are the most productive major economy in the world, so trade means good jobs for Americans.
But trade must be free and fair, so I’ll clamp down on cheaters like China
and make sure that they finally play by the rules and don't steal our jobs. [applause].
And third, I'm going to reduce government spending.
I hope everyone understands that high levels of debt slow down the rate of growth of the GDP, of the economy.
And that means fewer jobs are created.
If our goal is jobs, we must stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we take in every year..
And so [applause] And so too do that, I going to eliminate every non-essential expensive programs I can find
that includes Obamacare, and I am gonna work to reform and save...[boo]
you know there was a survey, there was a survey of the chamber of commerce
They carried out a survey of their members, about 1500 survey.
and they asked them what effect that Obamacare would have on their plans
and three quarters of them said it made them less likely to hire people.
So I say again if our priority is jobs, and that's my priority, that's something I'd change,
and I'd replace with some of wise people, something they need in health care,
which is lower cost, good quality, a capacity to deal with people who have pre-existing conditions and I'd put that in place.
And I'll also work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security.
People keep talking about the fact that those programs are their pathway and yet nothing is done to fix it.
I will fix them and make sure there permanent and secure for seniors today and seniors tomorrow.
And I'll do that in part by means-testing the benefits, meaning higher benefits for lower income people and lower benefits for higher income folks.
[Applause]
Fourth, I mean to focus on nurturing and developing the skilled workers that our economy so desperately needs today, and the future demands.
This is the human capital with which tomorrow’s bright future will be built.
By the way, too many homes and too many schools are failing to provide our children
with the skills and education that are essential for anything other than a minimum-wage job. [Applause]
And finally and perhaps most importantly, I'll restore economic freedom.
This nation’s economy runs on freedom, on opportunity, on entrepreneurs, on dreamers who innovate and build businesses.
These entrepreneurs are being crushed by high taxation, unnecessary burdensome regulation, hostile regulators,
excessive healthcare costs, and destructive labor policies
I will go to work to make America the best place in the world for innovators, for entrepreneurs and businesses large and small.
Do these five things
open up energy, expand trade, cut the growth of government, focus on better educating tomorrow’s workers today, and restore economic freedom –
and jobs will come back to America, and wages will rise again. We have got to do it. [Applause]
And I know the President will say he is going to do those things, but he has not, he will not, he cannot, [booings]
and his last four years in the White House prove it definitively. [booings]
If I am president, job one for me will be creating jobs.
Let me say that again: my agenda is not to put in place a series of policies that get me a lot of attention and applause,
my policy will be, number one create jobs for the American people. I do not have a hidden agenda. [Applause] You take a look.
And I'm submitting to you this: if you want a president who will make things better in the African American community,
you are looking at him. [Booing and applause]
Finally, I will address the institutionalized inequality in our education system.
And I know something about this from my time as governor.
In the years before I took office our state’s leaders had come together
to pass bipartisan measures that were making a difference.
In reading and in math, our students were already among the best in the nation – and during my term, they took over the top spot.
Those results revealed what good teachers can do if the system will only let them.
The problem was, this success wasn’t shared.
A significant achievement gap between students of different races remained. So we set out to close it.
I urged faster interventions in failing schools, and the funding to go along with it.
I promoted math and science excellence in schools, and proposed paying bonuses to our best teachers.
I refused to weaken testing standards, and instead raised them.
To graduate from high school, students had to pass an exam in math and English, and I added a science requirement as well.
And I put in place a merit scholarship for all those students who excelled:
the top 25 percent of students in each high school of Massachusetts were awarded a John and Abigail Adams Scholarship:
four years tuition-free at any Massachusetts public institution of higher learning. [Applause]
And when I was governor, not only did test scores improve – we also narrowed the achievement gap.
Now, the teachers unions were not happy with a number of these reforms.
They especially did not like our emphasis on choice through charter schools,
which is a great benefit for inner city kids trapped in under-performing schools.
Accordingly, the legislature passed a moratorium on any new charter schools.
As you know, in Boston, in Harlem, in Los Angeles, and all across the country,
charter schools are giving children a chance, children that otherwise could be locked in failing schools.
I was inspired just a few weeks ago by the students in one of Kenny Gamble’s charter schools in Philadelphia.
And right here in Houston. there is another success story: the Knowledge Is Power Program,
which has set the standard, thanks to the groundbreaking work of the late Harriet Ball.
These charter schools are doing a lot more than closing the achievement gap.
They are bringing hope and opportunity to places where for years there has been none.
Charter schools are so successful that almost every politician can find something good to say about them.
But, as we saw in Massachusetts, true reform requires more than talk.
As Governor, I vetoed the bill blocking charter schools.
But my legislature was 87% Democrat, and my veto could have easily been over-ridden.
So I joined with the Black Legislative Caucus, and their votes helped preserve my veto,
which meant that new charter schools, including some in urban neighborhoods, would be opened. [Applause]
When it comes to education reform, candidates can't have it both ways
– talking up education reform, while indulging the same groups that are blocking reform.
You can be the voice of disadvantaged public-school students,
or you can be the protector of special interests like the teachers unions,
but you can’t be both.
I have made my choice:
As president, I will be a champion of real education reform in America,
and I won’t let any special interest get in the way. [Applause]
I will give the parents of every low-income and special needs student
the chance to choose where their child goes to school.
For the first time in history, if I'm president, federal education funds will be linked to a student,
so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school they choose.
And I'll make that a true choice, because I am going to ensure there are good options available for every child.
Should I be elected President, I’ll lead as I did when I was governor.
I am pleased today to be joined today by the Reverend Jeffrey Brown,
who was a member of my kitchen cabinet in Massachusetts.
That cabinet helped guide my policy and actions that affected the African American community in particular.
I'll look for support wherever there is good will and shared conviction.
And I'll work with you to help our children attend better schools
and help our economy create good jobs with better wages.
I can’t promise that I'll agree on every issue.
But I do promise that your hospitality to me today will be returned.
We will know one another [Applause] and we will work to common purpose.
I will seek your counsel.
And if I am elected president, and you invite me to next year’s convention,
I will count it as a privilege, and my answer will be yes. [Applause]
You know, the Republican Party’s record, by the measures you rightly apply, is not perfect.
Any party that claims a perfect record doesn’t know history the way you know it. [Applause]
Yet always, in both parties, there have been men and women of integrity, decency, and humility
who've called injustice by its name.
For every one of us a particular person comes to mind,
someone who set a standard of conduct and made us better by their example.
For me, that man is my father, George Romney. [Applause]
It wasn’t just that my Dad helped write the civil rights provision for the Massachusetts - excuse me - for the Michigan Constitution, though he did.
It wasn’t just that he helped create Michigan’s first civil rights commission,
or that as governor he marched for civil rights on the streets of Detroit – though he did those things, too.
More than these public acts, it was the kind of man he was, and the way he dealt with every person, black or white.
He was a man of the fairest instincts, and a man of faith who knew that every person was a child of God. [Applause]
I’m grateful to him for so many things, and above all for the knowledge of God,
whose ways are not always our ways, but whose justice is certain and whose mercy endures forever. [Applause]
Every good cause on this earth relies in the end on a plan bigger than ours.
“Without dependence on God,” Dr. King said, “our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest night."
Unless His spirit pervades our lives, we find only what G. K. Chesterton called
"cures that don’t cure, blessings that don’t bless, and solutions that don’t solve.” End of quote.
Of all that you bring to the work of today’s civil rights cause,
no advantage counts for more than this abiding confidence in the Name above every name.
Against cruelty, arrogance, and all the foolishness of man,
this spirit has carried the NAACP to many victories.
More still are up ahead,so many victories are ahead, and with each one of them, we will be a better nation.
Thank you so much, and God bless you everyone of you. Thank you. Thank you [Applause, harmonium]
In the consistent development of our previous efforts toward the saving and safeguarding of our national life, I have continued to recognize three related steps. The first was relief, becausethe primary concern of any Government dominated by the humane ideals of democracy is the simple principle that in a land of vast resources no one should be permitted to starve.
Relief was and continues to be our first consideration. It calls for large expenditures and will continue in modified form to do so for a long time to come. We may as well recognize that fact. It comes from the paralysis that arose as the after-effect of that unfortunate decade characterized by a mad chase for unearned riches and an unwillingness of leaders in almost every walk of life to look beyond their own schemes and speculations.
In our administration of relief we follow two principles: First, that direct giving shall, wherever possible, be supplemented by provision for useful and remunerative work
GOVT. SUBSIDY IS SOCIALISM
and, second, that where families in their existing surroundings will in all human probability never find an opportunity for full self-maintenance, happiness and enjoyment, we will try to give them a new chance in new surroundings.
FDR has just promised here, that its the Govt. duty to not only secure the happiness of those ill off, but deliver them to it.
The second step was recovery, and it is sufficient for me to ask each and every one of you to compare the situation in agriculture and in industry today with what it was fifteen months ago.
At the same time we have recognized the necessity of reform and reconstruction --reform because much of our trouble today and in the past few years has been due to a lack of understanding of the elementary principles ofjustice and fairness
Sound Familiar? There is no Fairness where property RIGHTS are not held equal by equal taxation, there is no Justice where govt. subsidy, regulation, and central planning interfere with citizens prosperity and failures.
by those in whom leadership in business and finance was placed -- reconstruction because new conditions in our economic life as well as old but neglected conditions had to be corrected.
FROM THE COMMISSIONERS TO JOHN JAY. Grosvenor Square, March 28, 1786. Sir, Soon after the arrival of Mr. Jefferson in London, we had a conference with the Ambassador of Tripoli at his house. The amount of all the information we can obtain from him was, that a perpetual peace was in all respects the most advisable, because a temporary treaty would leave room for increasing demands upon every renewal of it, and a stipulation for annual payments would be liable to failures of performance, which would renew the war, repeat the negotiations, and continually augment the claims of his nation; and the difference of expense would by no means be adequate to the inconvenience, since 12,500 guineas to his constituents, with ten per cent. upon that sum for himself, must be paid if the treaty was made for only one year. That 30,000 guineas for his employers, and £3,000 for himself, was the lowest terms upon which a perpetual peace could be made; and that this must be paid in cash on the delivery of the treaty, signed by his Sovereign; that no kind of merchandizes could be accepted. That Tunis would treat upon the same terms, but he could not answer for Algiers or Morocco. We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. That it was a law that the first who boarded an enemy's vessel should have one slave more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate valor and enterprize; that it was the practice of their corsairs to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand and another in his mouth, and leap on board, which so terrified their enemies that very few ever stood against them; that he verily believed the devil assisted his countrymen, for they were almost always successful. We took time to consider, and promised an answer; but we can give him no other than that the demands exceed our expectation and that of Congress so much that we can proceed no further without fresh instructions. There is but one possible way that we know of to procure the money, if Congress should authorize us to go to the necessary expense; and that is to borrow it in Holland. We are not certain it can be had there, but if Congress should order us to make the best terms we can with Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco, and to procure this money wherever we can find it, upon terms like those of the last loan in Holland, our best endeavor shall be used to remove this formidable obstacle out of the way of the prosperity of the United States. Enclosed is a copy of a letter from Paul R. Randall, Esq., at Barcelona. The last from Mr. Barclay was dated Bayonne. It is hoped we shall soon have news from Algiers and Morocco, and we wish it may not be made more disagreeable than this from Tunis and Tripoli. JOHN ADAMS, THOS. JEFFERSON.
The diplomatic correspondence of the United States of America Volume 1 [1788] page 605
Well, what Representative Cummings said was quite interesting because he said it’s a basic tenet of government that it’s not your money. It’s the taxpayers’ money.
But he is missing the point. It’s a basic tenet of human nature that if you are spending other people’s money you will be less careful than with your own. And that is the central argument against big government. Apart from the content of the program or the objective of the programs, it’s the fact that the government exists parasitically on the money of the taxpayers, and everything it spends is something that has been sucked out of the private economy. And intrinsically, that money being spent by a bureaucrat, rather than by the person who originally had the money, will be spent with more disregard for the ultimate good than if it were in the hand of the private citizens.
That’s why Obama will suffer. The Obama administration isn’t responsible for what happened in 2010 [the GSA Las Vegas extravaganza]. This undoubtedly happened in Bush years and other years…. It’s intrinsic.
However, Obama and the Democrats are the party of government who believe in expanding it, have expanded it, and want it to continue to expand. The Republicans are the party of smaller government. And as a result, when government does crazy things that are offensive to the people who support it, it will hurt the party of government. It will hurt Obama.
“As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and Aand B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or in the better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X… What I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of… He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays….”
-William Graham Sumner, Yale University, 1883
Attributed to George Washington speech of Jan. 7, 1790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle
“A free people ought not only to be armedand disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status ofindependence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
George Washington’s First State of the Union Address
“Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defence will merit particular regard.— To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.—
A free people ought not only to be armed, butdisciplined;— to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render themindependent others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.”
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mjtce 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....
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.
A free and independent Republic of Texas was officially declared March 2, 1836, when the 54 delegates -- each representing one of the settlements in Texas -- approved the Texas Declaration of Independence. After the delegates signed the original declaration, 5 copies were made and dispatched to the designated Texas towns of Bexar, Goliad, Nacogdoches, Brazoria, and San Felipe. 1,000 copies were ordered printed in handbill form.
The Texas Declaration of Independence was produced, literally, overnight. Its urgency was paramount, because while it was being prepared, the Alamo in San Antonio was under siege by Santa Anna's army of Mexico...
The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the town of Washington on the 2nd 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 the enjoyment of those 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 abdication 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 rights 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 future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.
It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.
It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.
It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.
It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.
It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, until they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therefor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.
Some believe that one of the reasons for the secession was Mexico’s abolition of slavery. In 1829 Mexico abolished slavery, but it granted an exception until 1830 to Texas. That year Mexico made the importation of slaves illegal.Anglo-American immigration to the province slowed at this point, with settlers angry about the changing rules. To circumvent the law, numerous Anglo-American colonists converted their slaves to indentured servants, but with life terms. Others simply called their slaves indentured servants without legally changing their status. Slaveholders trying to enter Mexico would force their slaves to sign contracts claiming that the slaves owed money and would work to pay the debt. The low wages the slave would receive made repayment impossible, and the debt would be inherited, even though no slave would receive wages until age eighteen. In 1832 the state passed legislation prohibiting worker contracts from lasting more than ten years. The abolition of slavery created tensions between the Mexican government and slave-holding settlers from the United States. These tensions came to a head in the Anahuac Disturbances. In August 1831, Juan Davis Bradburn the military commander of the custom station on Upper Galveston Bay gave asylum to two men who had escaped from slavery in Louisiana. The slave owner hired William Barret Travis, a local lawyer, in an attempt to retrieve the men. When Bradburn arrested Travis on suspicion of plotting an insurrection, settlers rebelled. The disturbances were resolved through a combination of arms and political maneuvering. One result was the Turtle Bayou Resolutions which were an explanation of the grievances that had led to the disturbances. One of the resolutions challenged Bradburn for "advising and procuring servants to quit the service of their masters, and offering them protection; causing them to labor for his benefits, and refusing to compensate them for the same.[7]
Others dispute this contention and argue that there is little evidence to support this assertion. Only three contemporary references have been found that indicate a potential connection between slavery and the revolution. [8] On the other hand, many other motivations for revolution have been documented, including taxation, tariffs, and lack of protection of rights that settlers had become accustomed to in the United States.[9]
"I’m
not looking to be loved. You see I think politicians get themselves in
the biggest trouble when they care more about being loved than they care
about being respected. That’s why we run up these deficits we run up,
that’s why we can’t say no to anything, because we care too much about
being loved. I’m loved enough at home, believe me, on occasion..."
“I’ve
never seen a less optimistic time in my lifetime in this country. And
people wonder why. I think its really simple. Its because government’s
now telling them ‘stop dreaming’ ‘stop striving’ ‘we’ll take care of
you’. We’re turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will
not just bankrupt us financially it will bankrupt us morally, because
when the American people no longer believe that this is a place where
only their willingness to work hard and to act with honor and integrity
and ingenuity determines their success in life, then we’ll have a bunch
of people sitting on a couch waiting for the next government check."
