TEXAN WAR FOE. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1824. 329 



by the military ; and, at last, the whole republic, save the pertina- 

 cious North Americans, yielded to the armed power of the resolute 

 oppressor. 



The alarmed settlers gathered together as quickly as they could 

 and resolved to stand by their federative rights under the charter 

 whose guaranties allured them into Mexico. Meetings were held in 

 all the settlements, and a union was formed by means of correspond- 

 ence. Arms were next resorted to and the Texans were victorious 

 at Gonzales, Goliad, Bejar, Conception, Lepantitlan, San Patricio 

 and San Antonio. In November they met in consultation, and in an 

 able, resolute and dignified paper, declared that they had only taken 

 up arms in defence of the constitution of 1824 ; that their object was 

 to continue loyal to the confederacy if laws were made for the guar- 

 dianship of their political rights, and that they offered their lives and 

 arms in aid of other members of the republic who would rightfully 

 rise against the military despotism. 



But the othei states, in which there was no infusion of North 

 Americans or Europeans, refused to second this hardy handful of 

 pioneers. Mexico will not do justice, in any of her commentaries 

 on the Texan war, to the motives of the colonists. Charging 

 them with an original and long meditated design to rob the repub- 

 lic of one of its most valuable provinces, she forgets entirely or 

 glosses over, the military acts of Santa Anna's invading army, in 

 March, 1836, at the Alamo and Goliad, which converted resistance 

 into revenge. After those disgraceful scenes of carnage peace 

 was no longer possible. Santa Anna imagined, no doubt, that he 

 would terrify the settlers into submission if he could not drive them 

 from the soil. But he mistook both their fortitude and their force; 

 and, after the fierce encounter at San Jacinto, on the 21st of April, 

 1836, with Houston and his army, the power of Mexico over the 

 insurgent state was effectually and forever broken. 



After Santa Anna had been taken prisoner by the Texans, in 

 this fatal encounter, and was released and sent home through the 

 United States in order to fulfil his promise to secure the recogni- 

 tion of Texan independence, the colonists diligently began the 

 work of creating for themselves a distinct nationality, for they 

 failed in all their early attempts to incorporate themselves with the 

 United States during the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. 

 These presidents were scrupulous and faithful guardians of national 

 honor, while they respected the Mexican right of reconquest. 

 Their natural sympathies were of course yielded to Texas, but 

 their executive duties, the faith of treaties, and the sanctions of 



