History
According to the passages, why would Benjamin Lundy reject William Travis's notionthat the Texan rebels are fighting for liberty?"A blood-red banner waves from the church of Bejar, and in the camp above us, intoken that the war is one of vengeance against rebels; they have declared us such,and demanded that we should surrender at discretion, or that this garrison should beput to the sword. Their threats have had no influence on me, or my men, but to makeall fight with desperation, and that high souled courage which characterizes thepatriot, who is willing to die in defence of his country's liberty and his own honor." -William TravisBut the prime cause and the real objects of this war are not distinctly understood bya large portion of the honest, disinterested, and well-meaning citizens of the UnitedStates. ... [M]any of them have been deceived and misled by the misrepresentationsof those concerned in it, and especially by hireling writers for the newspaper press.They have been induced to believe that the inhabitants of Texas were engaged in alegitimate contest for the maintenance of the sacred principles of Liberty, and thenatural, inalienable Rights of Man: whereas .... the immediate cause and the leadingobject of this contest originated in a settled design, among the slaveholders of thiscountry (with land speculators and slave-traders), to wrest the large and valuableterritory of Texas from the Mexican Republic, in order to re-establish the SYSTEMOF SLAVERY; to open a vast and profitable SLAVE-MARKET therein; and, ultimately,to annex it to the United States...."-Benjamin Lundy