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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
July 4, 1776 | Thomas Jefferson

Posted on 07/04/2008 1:51:11 AM PDT by Jim Robinson

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 Legislatures, 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 & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of 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 attentions 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.

-- John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1776; 17760704; declaration; founders; foundingfathers; fourthofjuly; godblessamerica; godsgravesglyphs; independence; independenceday; july4th; onenationundergod; sacredhonor; sovereignty; thedeclaration; weholdthesetruths
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To: Jim Robinson
illegal aliens, drug runners, child rapists and captured enemy combatants

Dang! The things you see when ya ain't got your 12 gauge.

121 posted on 07/04/2008 1:26:11 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: bigheadfred
There are 11 retarded liberal Socialist States in the Union to blame.

They are trying to ruin the rest of the country. The Founding Fathers would throw up if they saw this crap.

Photobucket

122 posted on 07/04/2008 1:31:09 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Eric Blair 2084
Only 11? What about the other 49? /sarc
123 posted on 07/04/2008 1:36:01 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: bigheadfred

I knew Barack was a FReeper :-)


124 posted on 07/04/2008 1:39:12 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

SSHHHH! Obamamama might hear and I don’t want ‘things’ to get any uglier!


125 posted on 07/04/2008 1:52:05 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

Mental State
Psychotic State
Emotional State
Drunken State
State of Matrimony (DON’T GO THERE!!!)
State of Bliss (GO THERE NOW!!)
State of Denial
Delusional State
State of Confusion
Abnormal State
State Of Insanity

Are these any of the 11?

(Perchance I stoppeth before I get zotted upon for Stating things in an untopical (yes, it comes as a cream) way)


126 posted on 07/04/2008 2:11:38 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: Jim Robinson
Pennsylvania:
James Wilson

Proud descendant of Judge Wilson, who also signed the Constitution and was appointed as one of the first SCOTUS justices.

127 posted on 07/04/2008 2:13:46 PM PDT by anymouse
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To: Jim Robinson

Jim, God bless you for all that you do to make this country a better place for my daughters and my grandchildren. You are every bit as much a patriot as our founding fathers.

May you have a blessed July 4th and may God bless our troops.


128 posted on 07/04/2008 2:19:13 PM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: bigheadfred

I was thinking CA, NY, NJ, CT, MA, VT, MD, WA, OR, DE, ME.

But you can substitute your list and we can play a matching game.

I’ll start....

MA -————— State of Insanity


129 posted on 07/04/2008 2:47:25 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Professional Engineer

Thanks for the flag-o-gram. Beautiful. Happy 4th!


130 posted on 07/04/2008 2:52:12 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (The FReeper Foxhole. America's history, America's soul.)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

CT——————State of Matrimony (Don’t go there)


131 posted on 07/04/2008 2:58:16 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: bigheadfred

Yet the religious right spends a lot of time trying to deny homosexuals the right to equal misery and a lifetime of nagging and loss of half their money.


132 posted on 07/04/2008 3:03:30 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

CA———————Abnormal State

Eric=practical=sensible

Bighead=practical=joke

HEEYYY! We could be twins!!!!

Just remember Eric: ‘The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.’


133 posted on 07/04/2008 3:21:31 PM PDT by bigheadfred (FREE EVAN VELA, freeevanvela.com)
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To: ExTexasRedhead; Jim Robinson

May I add a Ditto to your comment? May God Bless our great Republic, the United States of America!
May God bless our founder, Jim Robinson with renewed health and faithful FReepers to keep Free Republic up and running every minute of the day and night 24/7 365 days a year!


134 posted on 07/04/2008 3:45:12 PM PDT by tajgirvan ( Please Pray for Steve Godbold, Christian Missionary Kidnapped in Africa 10/11/07)
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To: bigheadfred

“The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.”

I hope you are right. So far those words have been ridiculously accurate. I am blessed.


135 posted on 07/04/2008 4:16:08 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Jim Robinson
Thank you, Jim. God bless.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

136 posted on 07/04/2008 4:39:23 PM PDT by cpforlife.org (A Catholic Respect Life Curriculum is available FREE at KnightsForLife.org)
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To: Jim Robinson

BTTT!


137 posted on 07/04/2008 5:09:26 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: jan in Colorado

Thanks Jan!

A very happy 4th to you and your family!


138 posted on 07/04/2008 6:11:32 PM PDT by USF (I see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade)
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To: Jim Robinson; Vision; definitelynotaliberal; Mother Mary; FoxInSocks; 300magnum; NonValueAdded; ...

Jim, I’m adding the founders’ quotes ping list to this wonderful posting.

Happy Independence Day!!!


139 posted on 07/04/2008 6:17:16 PM PDT by Loud Mime (Free the Refineries! - H.R. 2279 Must Become Law!)
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To: 21twelve

Thanks for providing us with this post. I’ve sent it to my personal list. God bless America!


140 posted on 07/04/2008 6:36:11 PM PDT by Paperdoll ( on the cutting edge)
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