Be sure to check out my old friend Pessimist's anti-Texas screed over at The Left Coaster. It's got everything on it, beginning with this anchovy:
Texas owes the United States for just about everything. Ever since American emigres helped to foment a rebellion against the Mexican government of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, other American citizens have regularly come to the aid of Texas without so much as a demand for a quid pro quo. During this 1836 rebellion, American volunteers, many from Tennessee (including former US Congressman Davy Crockett) went to Texas to aid the Texian rebels with little more than the expectation that they would get to fight a little bit. Their efforts helped to create the Republic of Texas, not that they get much of the credit compared to 'real' Texans.I admit I'm not the student of my own beloved state's history that I should be, but I can't think of a single one of our Founding Fathers who wasn't a non-native. Can you?
This notion that we Texans somehow hold others' non-native status against them is simple horseshit. Stephen F. Austin was a Virginian (and his daddy Moses was from Connecticut). Houston was also a Virginian. Crockett was an eastern Tennessean; Travis was a South Carolinian and Burleson was a North Carolinian; Bowie was a Kentuckian; Fannin and Lamar were Georgians; de Zavala was from the Yucatan; and Deaf Smith was a New Yorker, for Christ's sake!
And just what the hell is a Californio ---as I presume Pessimist is--- doing complaining about encroaching on Mexico's territory, anyway? Didn't we Americans fight for California, too?
My great-great-great-grandfather Robert Allison Davis (1819-47) ---a boatbuilder and a fine Christian gentleman from Ohio--- lies in an unmarked grave in Mexico City. He died so that I might live in this great Lone Star State and claim my American birthright. The following is from his last letter to my great-great-great-grandmother:
"As regards my feelings, I know that I would love to be at home where I could have your company and see my little boy. But it was my desire to serve my country that influenced me to come. Therefore I have the fortitude to bear with my feelings."