Posted on 06/03/2009 2:11:10 PM PDT by xzins
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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John Hancock
Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall Geo. Walton
Wm. Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn Edward Rutledge Thos. Heyward, Junr. Thomas Lynch, Junr. Arthur Middleton
Samuel Chase Wm. Paca Thos. Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Th. Jefferson Benja. Harrison Thos. Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton
Robt. Morris Benjamin Rush Benja. Franklin John Morton Geo. Clymer Jas. Smith Geo. Taylor James Wilson Geo. Ross Caesar Rodney Geo. Read Tho. Mckean
Wm. Floyd Phil. Livingston Frans. Lewis Lewis Morris Richd. Stockton Jno. Witherspoon Fras. Hopkinson John Hart Abra. Clark
Josiah Bartlett Wm. Whipple Saml. Adams John Adams Robt. Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Step. Hopkins William Ellery Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington Wm. Williams Oliver Wolcott Matthew Thornton
These guys had some good ideas on the subject
Now quislings are destroying it before our very eyes.
Here's a MODERN DECLARATION
And as we search our own souls we discover the same sentiments beat strongly within us now in these times dangerous to our Republic.
It ws not so much the ideas (many of which had been around in some form or another since Greece and Rome), but rather the conviction and balls to put those ideas into action.
The issue at hand.
Pick a topic: abortion, forced homosexualization, desecration of marriage, gun seizure, eminent domain seizure, disenfranchisement, power elite replacing monarch, abusive, destructive taxation without representation, taxation to deny permanent ownership of property, ....
It makes one think what these men would have tolerated in this day.
bttt
Those rights were the previously mentioned unalienable rights and others not specified.
The Founders meant that the only legitimate powers of government involve protection of our God given, unalienable, Natural Law rights.
The Constitution itself codified this belief on the nature of legitimate government power.
Think about it. The powers granted by the States to the new federal government were consistent with Natural Law, the Law of our Creator.
How far we have fallen since our rejection of Natural Law and the embrace of Marx.
I expect we're goign to find out who's got what pretty soon, now.
That distant thunder some of us can hear rolling around in far-off hils is getting closer. It's war. War is coming. Here. Soon.
I think one of the issues is that the Signers of the Declaration of Independence were elected by their states. To do this correctly, there would need to be some sort of cohesive group.
The Constitution DOES allow for future Constitutional Conventions to be called by two-thirds of the states whether the federal government likes it or not.
What about when even representation has been usurped by a power elite with an undreamed of form of media, by rules tha ensure election in districts by the same or similar persons, by rules that make it impossible for others to be on ballots, etc?
Is that not usurpation that makes a system that is impossible to respond to the citizens?
That certainly is a problem, I’m just not sure what the legal solution is.
Either that or the burrito I had for lunch....;-)
what would a not-so-legal solution be?
Civil war.
More ... what would they DO about it?
That’s more of a southern rumble, isn’t it?
“but rather the conviction and balls to put those ideas into action.”
It’s the balls that’ll do it every time.
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