176 years ago, early on the morning of March 2,1836, 52 men braved the bitter cold in the small village of Washington-on-the Brazos, in East Texas to form a new nation. The building had no glass in the windows, and these delegates wore buckskin and homespun. Compared to the gathering in Philadelphia 60 years before that launched the United States, this was a poor and improvised affair. But the men who on that day declared the Independence of Texas knew with every fiber of their being what the price of liberty was. That spirit still guides the Lone Star State today. In the words of Sam Houston, true now as they were the day they were spoken, “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.”

Today, I am thankful these 52 brave men!  I am also thankful for the other Texans who have made this state the great state it is today.