Independence Day

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ? That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.? Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

* He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
* He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
* He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
* He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
* He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
* He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
* He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
* He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
* He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
* He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
* He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
* He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
* He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
* For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
* For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
* For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
* For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
* For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
* For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
* For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
* For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
* For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
* He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
* He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
* He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
* He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
* He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration were:

Connecticut:
Samuel Huntington
Roger Sherman
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

Delaware:
Thomas McKean
George Read
Caesar Rodney

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman-Hall
Geroge Walton

Massachusetts:
John Adams
Samuel Adams
Elbridge Gerry
John Hancock
Robert Treat Paine

Maryland:
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
Matthew Thornton
William Whipple

New Jersey:
Abraham Clark
John Hart
Francis Hopkinson
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon

New York:
Francis Lewis
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Lewis Morris

North Carolina:
Joseph Hewes
William Hooper
John Penn

Pennsylvania:
George Clymer
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Morris
John Morton
George Ross
Benjamin Rush
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson

Rhode Island:
William Ellery
Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina:
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Edward Rutledge

Virginia:
Carter Braxton
Benjamin Harrison
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
George Wythe

Have a glorious Independence Day and remember these words each and everyday:

"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

--WP

April 19th

Much I let pass over the last month without posting and to remind everyone, I list the following:

• Anonymous' had a child who came of age.
• Mr. Sharkey had another birthday.
• Leonard and Dorothy Saye Day
• Platt & Matix Day
• Two-years since the Idiot Lee Paige Sued the DEA
• One hundrd and Forty-Seven Years since the taking of Fort Sumter
• Anniversary of Justice for Lincoln

And of course a whole host of idiocies and atrocities since I last posted.

However, today is April 19th, and I will not post my yearly reminder of this day in American History as it has MANY occasions to recall:

• In 1933 - The traitor FDR announced he was further working towards destroying the economy by announcing the US will leave the Gold Standard.
• In 1861 - Riots occurred in Baltimore, Maryland and the illegal union blockade of the Confederate states starts.
• In 1995 - The Alfred P. Murray Feral Building, in Oklahoma City is nearly destroyed. (That took extra feral demolition teams to finish the job.)
• In 1939 - After 148 years, Connecticut approves the Bill of Rights.
• In 1989 - USS Iowa's gun turret explodes killing 47 crewmen.
• In 1943 - Though, not US history, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising happens and the starving Jews kick some Nazi ass.
• In 1993 - The might of the united States government sweeps in with the winds and ends their 51-day siege upon a Church, founded and run by it's citizens in Waco, Texas. Seventy-four (74) men, women and children died from gas, gunshot, and fire by feral agents acting in the name of "We the People." These feral agents received NO punishment for the crimes, as "We the People", though filled with righteous indignation, did nothing, even unto this day.
• In 1775 - Feral agents of the government came to take our arms away and the "Shot heard round the World" was answered by many great men. One in particular needs mentioning, as I am sure if he had been alive in 1993, he would have done the same thing.

His name was Sam Whittemore and:

"There, before the eyes of his astonished family, Sam methodically loaded his musket and both of his famed dueling pistols, put his powder and ball inside his worn and well-traveled military knapsack, strapped his French saber around his waist, squared his grizzled jaw and, as he strode briskly out the door, simply informed his worried family that he was "going to fight the British regulars" and told them to remain safely indoors until he returned.

Whittemore walked to a secluded position behind a stone wall on Mystic Street, near the corner of what is now Chestnut Street in Arlington, and calmly settled in. Some of the Minutemen pleaded with Whittemore to join them in their safer positions, but he ignored their admonitions. Soon the 47th Regiment of Foot, followed by the main body of British troops, appeared in view. On both sides of Whittemore, Minutemen were shooting at the approaching Redcoats and then sprinting away to where they could reload in safety.

Waiting until the regiment was almost upon him, Whittemore stood up, aimed his musket carefully and fired, killing a British soldier. He then fired both dueling pistols, hitting both of his targets, killing one man outright and mortally wounding another. Not having time to reload his cumbersome weapons, he grabbed his French saber and flailed away at the cursing, enraged Redcoats who now surrounded him. Some of those infuriated soldiers were probably less than one quarter of Sam's 80 years; few, if any, were even half his age.

One Englishman fired his Brown Bess almost point-blank into Whittemore's face, the heavy bullet tearing half his cheek away and knocking him flat on his back. Undaunted, Whittemore attempted to rise and continue the fight, but received no less than 13 bayonet wounds from the vengeful Redcoats. They also mercilessly clubbed his bleeding head and drove their musket butts into his body as they ran by.

When the last Britisher had left the scene and was far enough away for them to come out in safety, the villagers who had seen Whittemore's last stand walked slowly toward the body. To their astonishment, he was still alive and conscious--and still full of fight! Ignoring his wounds, he was feebly trying to load his musket for a parting shot at the retreating regiment.

A door was used as a makeshift stretcher and Whittemore was carried to the nearby Cooper Tavern. Doctor Nathaniel Tufts of Medford stripped away Sam's torn, bloody clothing and was aghast at his many gaping bayonet wounds, the other numerous bruises and lacerations, and his horrible facial injury. According to every medical text Tufts had ever studied and all of his years of experience treating injured people, the old man should have bled to death from internal injuries."

That old glorious bastard did not die though, he lived another eighteen (18) years and when asked if he ever regretted his actions, Sam replied:

"No! I would take the same chance again!"

WP

Heller -vs- DC: SCOTUS listens to orals.

The bets are all on and so many are really wondering if they have cowed the masses into believing their word whilst their true desire is to take the Republic's Eye-teeth thus killing it.

I say to you fellow citizens of the Republic, remember that the 2nd Amendment only ENUMERATES- thus always keeping foremost in mind the four boxes...

WP

Lou Dobbs Part 1 on Olofson w/out Len Savage

A thank you to DJ Moore- he has both video links at his blog RicketyClick.

And after going and giving him his due, you can always access it Lou Dobbs first part on Olofson without Len Savage via my link.

Thanks again DJ.

WP

Lou Dobbs 2nd Part of Interview on Olofson

Found via Of Arms & the Law.

Of Arms & the Law is always a great site to spend some time reading, studying and finding great stuff so after you visit what he has to say and are wanting another direct link, then use this following Lou Dobbs second part on Olofson with Len Savage link.

Still looking for part one so if anyone has the address, then post it in the comments or E-mail me.

WP

Very curious hits regarding post about David Codrea being threatened

Well, the hits to the blog spiked yesterday and I found three (3) very curious hits in relation to yesterdays post about David Codrea being threatened. The three hits are direct links without referrer links. Now, a no referrer link is not unusual and fairly easy to turn off in many browsers, but not IE7, which in fact I do not think can be done. You may ask why is this important, and it may not be, but considering the following three (3) hits were ALL done with IE7 and via a direct link with no referrer (which can be done with copy and paste) is usually done to hide originating source. In other words if someone was doing a Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, etc. search and did not want the site hit to record this information.

Take a look at the following three and pay REAL CLOSE ATTENTION to the first image.


LINK TO FULL SIZE


LINK TO FULL SIZE


LINK TO FULL SIZE

The second is proxied via AOL and the third not, but again, all three are direct links which is a tad unusual.

Yes David, they just may be serious- watch your back.

WP

David Codrea Gets Warned by a US Marshal

Taking the Bait

An Open Response to

US Marshal Judicial Security Inspector

David A. Meyer

dave.meyer@usdoj.gov


I understand you took Ryan Horsley aside at the conclusion of trial testimony and instructed him to advise me of the Court Security Improvement Act of 2007, specifically, "Inspector Meyer asked me to contact you in regards to posting any information with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that covered official... "

Hit the title link and go read the rest of the post, and as for responses, Nimrod45 said it best:

Are the words "Fuck Off You Jack-Booted Thug" out of line?

I just wish I had said it before he did.

WP

Remember the Alamo! March 6th, 1836

ALAMO DEFENDERS

Alabama
Buchanan, James
Fishbaugh, William
Fuqua, Galba
White, Isaac

Arkansas
Baker, Isaac G.
Thompson, Jesse G.
Warnell, Henry

Connecticut
Jennings, Gordon C.

Georgia
Grimes, Albert (Alfred) Calvin
Melton, Elice (Eliel)
Shied, Manson
Wells, William
Wills, William

Illinois
Lindley, Jonathan L.

Kentucky
Bailey, Peter James III
Bowie, James
Cloud, Daniel William
Darst, Jacob C.
Davis, John
Fauntleroy, William H.
Gaston, John E.
Harris, John
Jackson, William Daniel
Jameson, Green B.
Kellogg, John Benjamin
Kent, Andrew
Rutherford, Joseph
Thomas, B. Archer M.
Washington, Joseph G.

Louisiana
Despallier, Charles
Garrand, James W.
Kerr, Joseph
Ryan, Isaac

Maryland
Smith, Charles S.

Massachusetts
Flanders, John
Howell, William D.
Linn, William
Pollard, Amos

Mississippi
Clark, M.B.
Millsaps, Isaac
Moore, Willis A.
Pagan, George
Parker, Christopher Adams

Missouri
Baker, William Charles M.
Butler, George D.
Clark, Charles Henry
Cottle, George Washington
Day, Jerry C.
Tumlinson, George W.

New Hampshire
Cochran, Robert E.

New Jersey
Stockton, Richard Lucius

New York
Cunningham, Robert W.
Dewall, Lewis
Evans, Samuel B.
Forsyth, John Hubbard
Jones, John
Tylee, James

North Carolina
Autry, Micajah
Floyd, Dolphin Ward
Parks, William
Scurlock, Mial
Smith, Joshua G.
Thomson, John W.
Wright, Claiborne

Ohio
Harrison, William B.
Holland, Tapely
Musselman, Robert
Rose, James M.

Pennsylvania
Ballentine, John J.
Brown, James Murry
Cain (Cane), John
Crossman, Robert
Cummings, David P.
Hannum, James
Holloway, Samuel
Johnson, William
Kimble (Kimbell), George C.
McDowell, William
Reynolds, John Purdy
Thurston, John M.
Williamson, Hiram James
Wilson, John

Rhode Island
Martin, Albert

South Carolina
Bonham, James Butler
Crawford, Lemuel
Neggan, George
Nelson, Edward
Nelson, George
Simmons, Cleveland Kinloch
Travis, William Barrett

Tennessee
Bayliss, Joseph
Blair, John
Blair, Samuel C.
Bowman, Jesse B.
Campbell, James (Robert)
Crockett, David
Daymon, Squire
Dearduff, William
Dickerson (Dickinson), Almeron
Dillard, John Henry
Ewing, James L.
Garrett, James Girard
Harrison, Andrew Jackson
Haskell, Charles, M.
Hays, John M.
Marshall, William
McCoy, Jesse
McKinney, Robert
Miller, Thomas R.
Mills, William
Nelson, Andrew M.
Robertson, James Waters
Smith, Andrew H.
Summerlin, A. Spain
Summers, William E.
Taylor, Edward
Taylor, George
Taylor, James
Taylor, William
Walker, Asa
Walker, Jacob

Texas
Abamillo, Juan
Badillo, Juan Antonio
Espalier, Carlos
Esparza, Gregorio (Jose Maria)
Fuentes, Antonio
Jimenez, Damacio
King, William Phillip
Lewis, William Irvine
Lightfoot, William J.
Losoya, Jose Toribio
Nava, Andres
Perry, Richardson

Vermont
Andross, Miles Deforest

Virginia
Allen, Robert
Baugh, John J.
Carey, William R.
Garnett, William
Goodrich, John Camp
Herndon, Patrick Henry
Kenny, James
Main, George Washington
Malone, William T.
Mitchasson, Edward F.
Moore, Robert B.
Northcross, James

Denmark
Zanco, Charles

England
Blazeby, William
Bourne, Daniel
Brown, George
Dennison, Stephen (or Ireland)
Dimpkins, James R.
Gwynne, James C.
Hersee, William Daniel
Nowlan, James
Sewell, Marcus L.
Starr, Richard
Stewart, James E.
Waters, Thomas
Wolfe, Anthony (Avram)
Wolfe, son age 12
Wolfe, son age 11

Ireland
Burns, Samuel E.
Duvalt, Andrew
Evans, Robert
Hawkins, Joseph M.
Jackson, Thomas
McGee, James
Rusk, Jackson J.
Trammel, Burke
Ward, William B.

Germany
Courtman, Henry
Thomas, Henry

Scotland
Ballentine, Richard W.
McGregor, John
Robinson, Isaac
Wilson, David L.

Wales
Johnson, Lewis

Unknown Locale
Brown, Robert
Day, Freeman H.K.
Garvin, John E.
George, James
McCafferty, Edward
Mitchell, William T.
Mitchell, Napoleon B.
Roberts, Thomas H.
Smith, William H.
Sutherland, William Depriest
White, Robert
John (last name unknown)

Newly Discovered Defenders
Baxter, Joseph
Edwards, Samuel
Edwards, William
Gordon, Pelitiah
McClelland, Ross

Known Survivors
Joe, Travis' slave
Alsbury, Juana Gertrudis
Dickerson (Dickinson), Angelina Elizabeth
Dickerson (Dickinson), Susanna Wilkerson
Esparza, Anna Salazar
Esparza, Enrique
Esparza, Francisco (child)
Esparza, Manuel (child)
Esparza, Maria de Jesus Castro (child)
Gonzales, Petra
Guerrero, Brigido
Navarro, Gertrudis
Perez, Jr., Alejo Alsbury
Saucedo, Trinidad

Unproven Participants
Rose, Louis (Moses)
Villanueva, Andrea Castanon

Surviving Couriers & Foragers
Allen, James L.
Baylor, John Walker
Brown, Robert
Coy, Trinidad
Cruz y Arocha, Antonio
De La Garza, Alexandro
Desauque, Francis L.
Dimmitt (Dimitt), Phillip
Highsmith, Benjamin Franklin
Johnson, William P.
Lockhart, Byrd
Nobles, Benjamin F.
Oury, William Sanders
Patton, William Hester
Seguin, Juan Nepomuceno
Smith, John William
Smither, Launcelot
Sowell, Andrew Jackson
Sutherland, John

I want to thank ALAMO DEFENDERS DESCENDANTS ASSOCIATION for having the only page, that was readily accessible, for the names listed above, and of course, those that died this day one hundred and seventy-two years ago...

--WP

William Barret Travis - Alamo Letters (March 3rd)

To the President of the Convention
March 3, 1836

COMMANDANCY OF THE ALAMO, BEJAR: In the present confusion of the political authorities of the country, and in the absence of the commander-in-chief, I beg leave to communicate to you the situation of this garrison. You have doubtless already seen my official report of the action of the 25th ult. made on that day to General Sam Houston, together with the various communications heretofore sent by express. I shall, therefore, confine myself to what has transpired since that date.

From the 25th to the present date, the enemy have kept up a bombardment from two howitzers (one a five and a half inch, and the other an eight inch) and a heavy cannonade from two long nine-pounders, mounted on a battery on the opposite side of the river, at a distance of four hundred yards from our walls. During this period the enemy has been busily employed in encircling us with entrenchments on all sides, at the following distance, to wit -- in Bexar, four hundred yards west; in Lavilleta, three hundred yards south; at the powder-house, one thousand yards east by south; on the ditch, eight hundred yards north. Notwithstanding all this, a company of thirty-two men from Gonzales, made their way into us on the morning of the 1st inst, at three o'clock, and Col. J.B. Bonham (a courier from Gonzales) got in this morning at eleven o'clock without molestation. I have so fortified this place, that the walls are generally proof against cannon-balls; and I shall continue to entrench on the inside, and strengthen the walls by throwing up dirt. At least two hundred shells have fallen inside our works without having injured a single man; indeed, we have been so fortunate as not to lose a man from any cause, and we have killed many of the enemy. The spirits of my men are still high, although they have had much to depress them. We have contended for ten days against an enemy whose numbers are variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to six thousand, with Gen. Ramirez Sesma and Col. Bartres, the aid-de-camp of Santa Anna, at their head. A report was circulated that Santa Anna himself was with the enemy, but I think it was false. A reinforcement of one thousand men is now entering Bexar from the west, and I think it more than probable that Santa Anna is now in town, from the rejoicing we hear. Col. Fannin is said to be on the march to this place with reinforcements; but I fear it is not true, as I have repeatedly sent to him for aid without receiving any. Col. Bonham, my special messenger, arrived at Labahia fourteen days ago, with a request for aid; and on the arrival of the enemy in Bexar ten days ago, I sent an express to Col. F. which arrived at Goliad on the next day, urging him to send us reinforcements -- none have arrived. I look to the colonies alone for aid; unless it arrives soon, I shall have to fight the enemy on his own terms. I will, however, do the best I can under the circumstances, and I feel confident that the determined valour and desperate courage, heretofore evinced by my men, will not fail them in the last struggle, and although they may be sacrifieced to the vengeance of a Gothic enemy, the victory will cost the enemy so dear, that it will be worse for him than a defeat. I hope your honorable body will hasten on reinforcements, ammunition, and provisions to our aid, as soon as possible. We have provisions for twenty days for the men we have; our supply of ammunition is limited. At least five hundred pounds of cannon powder, and two hundred rounds of six, nine, twelve, and eighteen pound balls -- ten kegs of rifle powder, and a supply of lead, should be sent to this place without delay, under a sufficient guard.

If these things are promptly sent, and large reinforcements are hastened to this frontier, this neighborhood will be the great and decisive battle ground. The power of Santa Anna is to be met here or in the colonies; we had better meet them here, than to suffer a war of desolation to rage our settlements. A blood-red banner waves from the church of Bexar, and in the camp above us, in token that the war is one of vengeance against rebels; they have declared us as such, and demanded that we should surrender at discretion or this garrison should be put to the sword. Their threats have had no influence on me or my men, but to make all fight with desperation, and that high-souled courage which characterizes the patriot, who is willing to die in defense of his country's liberty and his own honour.

The citizens of this municipality are all our enemies except those who have joined us heretofore; we have but three Mexicans now in the fort; those who have not joined us in this extremity, should be declared public enemies, and their property should aid in paying the expenses of the war.

The bearer of this will give you your honorable body, a statement more in detail, should he escape through the enemy's lines. God and Texas! --
Victory or Death!!

P.S. The enemy's troops are still arriving, and the reinforcements will probably amount to two or three thousand.

To Jesse Grimes
March 3, 1836

Do me the favor to send the enclosed to its proper destination instantly. I am still here, in fine spirits and well to do, with 145 men. I have held this place for ten days against a force variously estimated from 1,500 to 6,000, and shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my country or I will perish in its defense. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon balls continually falling among us the whole time, yet none of us has fallen. We have been miraculously preserved. You have no doubt seen my official report of the action of the 24th ult. in which we repulsed the enemy with considerable loss; on the night of the 25th they made another attempt to charge us in the rear of the fort, but we received them gallantly by a discharge of grape shot and musquertry, and they took to their scrapers immediately. They are now encamped in entrenchments on all sides of us.

All our couriers have gotten out without being caught and a company of 32 men from Gonzales got in two nights ago, and Colonel Bonham got in today by coming between the powder house and the enemy's upper encampment....Let the convention go on and make a declaration of independence, and we will then understand, and the world will understand, what we are fighting for. If independence is not declared, I shall lay down my arms, and so will the men under my command. But under the flag of independence, we are ready to peril our lives a hundred times a day, and to drive away the monster who is fighting us under a blood-red flag, threatening to murder all prisoners and make Texas a waste desert. I shall have to fight the enemy on his own terms, yet I am ready to do it, and if my countrymen do not rally to my relief, I am determined to perish in the defense of this place, and my bones shall reproach my country for her neglect. With 500 men more, I will drive Sesma beyond the Rio Grande, and I will visit vengeance on the enemy fighting against us. Let the government declare them public enemies, otherwise she is acting a suicidal part. I shall treat them as such, unless I have superior orders to the contrary.

My respects to all friends, confusion to all enemies. God Bless you.

To David Ayers
March 3, 1836

Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune; but if the country be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country.

The letter to David Ayers is the last known letter written by Travis before the fall of the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836.

William Barret Travis died at his post on the cannon platform at the northeast corner of the fortress.

He was 26 years old.

Texas Independence Day!

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 everready 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, untill 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 therfor 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.

Richard Ellis, President of the Convention and Delegate from Red River.
Charles B. Stewart
Tho. Barnett
John S. D. Byrom
Francis Ruis
J. Antonio Navarro
Jesse B. Badgett
Wm D. Lacy
William Menifee
Jn. Fisher
Matthew Caldwell
William Motley
Lorenzo de Zavala
Stephen H. Everett
George W. Smyth
Elijah Stapp
Claiborne West
Wm. B. Scates
M. B. Menard
A. B. Hardin
J. W. Burton
Thos. J. Gazley
R. M. Coleman
Sterling C. Robertson
James Collinsworth
Edwin Waller
Asa Brigham
Geo. C. Childress
Bailey Hardeman
Rob. Potter
Thomas Jefferson Rusk
Chas. S. Taylor
John S. Roberts
Robert Hamilton
Collin McKinney
Albert H. Latimer
James Power
Sam Houston
David Thomas
Edwd. Conrad
Martin Palmer
Edwin O. Legrand
Stephen W. Blount
Jms. Gaines
Wm. Clark, Jr.
Sydney O. Pennington
Wm. Carrol Crawford
Jno. Turner
Benj. Briggs Goodrich
G. W. Barnett
James G. Swisher
Jesse Grimes
S. Rhoads Fisher
John W. Moore
John W. Bower
Saml. A. Maverick (from Bejar)
Sam P. Carson
A. Briscoe
J. B. Woods
H. S. Kimble, Secretary