 First Flag of the Republic, designed by Lorenzo de Zavala The first Constitutional Convention had begun its work by declaring Texas' independence from Mexico, writing a new constitution and electing the first leaders. A committee of five delegates, all signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was selected and their choice for a design for a new flag was approved by the entire convention on May 11th, 1836. The design was a blue field with a white star of five points central, with the letters T E X A S between the star points. The elegant design was the work of Lorenzo de Zavala, the most accomplished statesman among the delegates. Interestingly, Zavala, a native of Spain, had served as Mexico's Secretary of the Treasury, Minister to Paris and as President of the Constitutent Congress in 1824 before siding with the Texans. Selecting a flag for the new republic had been on the minds of the delegates and the people of Texas for some time. Four months earlier, before his capture and execution by the Mexicans after the battle of Coleto, Colonel Fannin had written: "Give us a flag to fight under, as unlike theirs as possible. We need one and have nothing [here] to make it of, and hope the Convention will furnish one in time to hoist it in defiance of Santa Anna." After the revolution, another flag known as David G. Burnet's flag, was adopted on Dec 10, 1836, as the national standard, "the conformation of which shall be an azure ground with a large golden star central."
 Second Flag of the Republic Finally, a new national standard was worked out and approved by Mirabeau B. Lamar and was adopted by Third Congress of the Republic on January 25, 1839. This flag consisted of a blue perpendicular stripe of the width of one-third of the whole length of the flag with a white star of five points in the center thereof, and two horizontal stripes of equal breadth, the upper stripe white, the lower red, of the length of two-thirds of the whole flag. This is the Lone Star Flag, which later became the state flag. It is generally accepted that the Texas flag's colors represent the same virtues as they do in the United States flag: Red means courage; white, purity and liberty; and blue, loyalty.
 Third Flag of the Republic At a celebration of the Festival of St. John the Baptist in 1844 at Portland, Maine, R:W: George K. Teulon, a member of the Grand Lodge of Texas, in reply to a toast complimentary to the Masons of the Republic, observed "Texas is emphatically a Masonic country. All of our presidents and vice-presidents, and four fifths of our state officers, were and are Masons; our national emblem, the Lone Star, was chosen from among the emblems selected by Freemasonry, to illustrate the moral virtues - it is a five-pointed star, and alludes to the five points of fellowship."
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