A declaration of the causes which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union.
From the Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861

Texas was formally admitted into the Confederated Union with its own constitution. Texas was received as a commonwealth, while maintaining the institution of negro slavery. The people intended this relationship to continue to exist.

The controlling majority of the Federal Government has excluded the citizens of the Southern States from the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean. The Federal Government is trying to destroy the institutions of Texas and her sister slave-holding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States, outlaws have ignored federal laws, started wars with Southern citizens, and violently stolen their possessions as the property of the Northern States.

For years the Federal Government has failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border and against the murderous attacks of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico. Nonetheless, Texans have patiently carried on in the hope that a sense of justice and humanity would bring change.

The non-slave-holding States have formed themselves into a large party, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to the Southern States, and their humanitarian and patriarchal system of African slavery. They have proclaimed the degrading doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color. This doctrine contradicts nature, stands in opposition to the experience of mankind, and violates the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy. For years this abolition organization has been actively spreading hatred between the States.

They have proclaimed the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union. They have disregarded their oaths and trampled on our rights. They have encouraged lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture. They have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens. They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and to distribute arms and poison to our slaves. They have made the slave-holding States poorer by unequal legislation, thereby enriching themselves.

The governments of the various States and the confederacy were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity. The African race had no part in their establishment, and they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race.

Source: Declaration of Causes
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