July
4th is a holiday in the United States, a day on which we
remember an act of treason against the British Royal Crown in the
person of King George III. Between August 2nd, 1776 and
January 22nd, 1777, 56 men representing the 13 American
colonies signed a document that meant prison or even execution if the
War for Independence, then underway for more than a year, went badly
for the Americans.
Most
Americans are familiar with the beginning and the end of the
Declaration of Independence. Those paragraphs contain the most
soaring statements and the one phrase we know by heart: life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. But most of us are unfamiliar with the
center of the document, the part that spells out why these
representatives of the colonies felt it necessary to break ties with
Great Britain.
With
this in mind, I present the Declaration of Independence in its
entirety. The wording is stilted in places and some 21st
century English teachers would cringe at the comma placement, but
keep in mind that this document was written, revised, parsed, and
debated over because the men who wrote it and signed it knew that it
would either serve as a bold statement by a new nation with greatness
in its future or as a last cry of indictment against a tyranny that
crushed a weak group of colonies before the world could hear their
cries for government of, by, and for the people.
And
so we begin:
“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 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.
Pennsylvania:Robert
Morris, Benjamin
Rush, Benjamin
Franklin, John
Morton, George
Clymer, James
Smith, George
Taylor, James
Wilson, George
Ross
1 comment:
interesting historical moment both in terms of political intent, but also the expression of a desire to end tyranny. I think this second motive, the pursuit of liberty is at the core to the celebration of July 4th and hence the timing. But for an alternate history perspective please see Mr Jefferson's Letter in which the Founding Fathers are merely a group of libertarian political scientists expressing a philosophical viewpoint.
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