Texas illegally, and therefore had no legal rights in the governance of Mexico. The declaration clarifies that the men were accustomed to the laws and privileges of the United States, and were unfamiliar with the language, religion, and traditions of the nation that they were rebelling against. The declaration officially established the Republic of Texas, although it was not officially recognized at that time by any government other than itself. The Mexican Republic still claimed the land and considered the delegates to be invaders, and the United States didn't recognize it since that would be an act of war against Mexico. Among others, the declaration mentions the following reasons for the separation: The 1824 Constitution of Mexico establishing a federal republic had been overturned and changed into a centralist military dictatorship by Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. (From Mexico's viewpoint, lawful elections of 1835 seated many conservative politicians who intended to strengthen Mexico's republic government and defend their nation from an invasion of illegal American immigrants. They amended the 1824 constitution by passing the Seven Laws.) The Mexican government had invited settlers to Texas and promised them constitutional liberty and republican government, but then reneged on these guarantees. (It did not mention that many settlers, including the author and majority of signatories, were factually uninvited, illegal trespassers.) Texas was in union with the Mexican state of Coahuila as Coahuila y Tejas, with the capital in distant Saltillo. Thus the affairs of Texas were decided at a great distance from the province and in the Spanish language, which the immigrants called "an unknown tongue." Political rights to which the settlers had previously been accustomed in the United States, such as the right to keep and bear arms and the right to trial by jury, were denied. No system of public education had been established. Attempts by the Mexican government to enforce import tariffs were called "piratical attacks" by "foreign desperadoes." The settlers were not allowed freedom of religion. All legal settlers were required to convert to Catholicism. Based upon the United States Declaration of Independence, the Texas Declaration also contains many memorable expressions of American political principles: "the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen." "our arms ... are essential to our defense, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments."