Posted on 06/29/2003 3:08:19 PM PDT by ex-snook
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
hen 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 refuted 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 harass 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 benefit 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 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 British 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
FREEPERS:
Direct this to the Supreme Court and I'd sign.
"... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ..."
"... appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world ..."
"... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence ..."
Alas, if this were sent to the Supreme Court they would strike it down as being unconstitutional.
Missed this part, did we?
We no longer have the equal balance intended by our founders. The SC has assumed the role of the King unchallenged by the Legislature. It is time to override the SC with Constitutional amendments to preserve the balance. If the whole exercise is just legislature cop-out of political decisions then we are doomed.
Yep. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."
Certainly not. But could you just imagine a society where anyone's particular notion of pursuit to happiness goes unchecked?
I imagine, from what I've read, that Charles Manson & his group were of jovial disposition while on their savage murder spree.
Missed this part did you?
Or did you read it as "...the Right of the Court to alter or abolish it..."?
If only you'd been there to save Madison from all that time he wasted writing a Bill of Rights to limit the feds powers.
And you missed this part:
He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Our representatives have the power to put a stop to all this nonsense immediately and effectively-the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over matters on appeal, other than as Congress allows, as this case makes clear.
Get Congress to do its job.
You're right, it was founded by wise, tolerant men who were humble before God and obeyed His laws.
Please don't pretend that you know anything about my country's history.
Background:
The Second Continental Congress was remarkable for several things, not the least of which was selecting George Washington as the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, being created to fight the British Army assembled at Boston. You will recall that the Boston Massacre and events at Lexington, Concord and Breeds Hill (next to Bunker Hill) had only recently stirred up the fighting in the northeastern colonies. Once the business of creating an army was taken care of, it was deemed necessary to inform the world of the reasons why the colonies had taken up arms. The first attempt at drafting such a declaration was by Thomas Jefferson, but was ruled far too militant. A second attempt was made by Colonel John Dickinson, known for earlier pamphlets in which he called himself "The Farmer."
The final result was apparently a combination of both writers. Stange that Dickinson should create such a document; he was under considerable pressure from his wife and mother, both Tory sympathizers, and he was no great fan of the New England representatives to Congress. An incident related in A New Age Now Begins by Page Smith, marks him as an even more unlikely choice for the writer of such a declaration: "Dickinson once more had his way when Congress approved still another petition to the King. Dickinson was delighted when it passed and rose to express his pleasure. There was only one word to which he objected, since it might possible offend His Majesty, and that was the word "Congress."
Whereupon Benjamin Harrison of Virginia promptly rose and, inclining his head to John Hancock, declared, "There is but one word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word "Congress."
Following is the complete text of that document published almost exactly a year before the Declaration of Independence:
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms - July 6, 1775
Or did you read it as "...the Right of the Court to alter or abolish it..."?
That highlights the issue. Have the Courts become a super-legislature preempting matters from voter's decision? A more powerful King George has emerged in robes.
I agree with the principle, Jim, but come on. It would be easier, as Algore so stupidly put it, to get a leopard to change it's stripes, than to get Congress to actually do it's assigned job of protecting the Constitution. We the People are gonna have to step up and do our civil duty, but that's not gonna be so easy, either. Things are gonna have to get really bad to wake this nation up, bro.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
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