Unknown to Unknown, xx-xx-1827


Summary: Austin's toast on promulgation of State constitution.


Extract from remarks delivered by Col Austin after reading the constitution of the state of Q. and T. at the time of its promulgation in Austin Colony

You have heard fellow citizens of the Constitution of Quahuila and Texas which has just been read, and I think you must have discover'd in it abundant manifestations of the liberal and enlightend principles on which our adopted Government is founded. The rights of the people are guarded with the utmost precaution,—the security of persons and property solemnly guaranteed—the different branches of the Government divided—the responsibility of public agents is direct—the tryal by jury—recognized and the foreign emigrants legally settled in the State are placed on an equal footing with all others in the exercise of the elective franchise and admitted to all the rights of citizenship with the exception of eligibility to certain offices of the State. The constitution is liberal and Republican and its just and enlightened administration must insure the rapid advancement and permanent prosperity of the State. Should experiance discover evils or embarassments in its details or operations a competent remedy is provided. The power of Amendment rests with the people and the mode is not more difficult than the importance of the subject requires.— Indeed when we take into view the state of bondage and intellectual night from which the Mexicans have so recently emancipated themselves, the entire difference of the federal republican System which they have adoptd from all their former experience and the variety and conflicting prejudices and opinions that were to be reconciled, there is complete astonishment and admiration at the steadiness and rapidity of advancement in political Science and the perfection of their Constitutional Organization—

Fellow Citizens we have great and abundant cause for thankfulness and gratitude, first to the great Author of All good, and Secondly to the Government that has so munificently received us.—- We emi- grated to this country when it was a wilderness, by our labors we have Settled and improved it— plenty now rewards our industry— the charms of refined society, like the budding rose, is beginning to shed their genial influence around us and the wild characteristics of nature are rapidly disappearing before the March of enterprise and civilization— we inhabit a country unparalelled for the Salubrity of its climate, and the value and variety of its resources—, harmony and union and content now universally reign, and this day presents us in the State Constitution with a Sacred guarantee of the blessings we enjoy,— let us duly appreciate them, duly prize the bounty of our Government and sacredly observe the obligations we have this day entered into Let us continue true to the honest motives which induced our emigration true to the pure principles of patriotism and gratitude; and we shall live respected by the good of all nations retain the confidence of our adopted Gvt. and Secure our permanent prosperity and happiness.

[Endorsed:] copy of Toa[s]ts and remarks of Col. A at the publication of the State Constitution July 27 [May 29], 1827, at S. F. de A.