How many of the grievances listed fit in with our world today? Can you relate to any of them? I think it is about time to declare our independence from our own Government. We can do it at the ballot box. But only if we care enough.
(Chickenmom)
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 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fascinating Facts about the Declaration of Independence
There is something written on the back of the Declaration of Independence,
but it isn't a secret map or code. Instead, there are a few handwritten
words that say, "Original Declaration of Independence/ dated 4th July
1776". No one knows who wrote this, but it was probably added as a label
when the document was rolled up for storage many years ago.
Once the Declaration of Independence had been written and signed,
printer John Dunlap was asked to make about 200 copies to be distributed
throughout the colonies. Today, the “Dunlap Broadsides” are extremely
rare and valuable. In 1989, someone discovered a previously unknown
Dunlap Broadside. It was sold for over $8 million in 2000. There are
only 26 known surviving Dunlap Broadsides today.
Although Thomas Jefferson is often called the “author” of the
Declaration of Independence, he wasn’t the only person who contributed
important ideas. Jefferson was a member of a five-person committee
appointed by the Continental Congress to write the Declaration. The
committee included Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert
Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
Robert Livingston, one of the members of the committee who wrote the
Declaration of Independence, never signed it. He believed that it was
too soon to declare independence and therefore refused to sign.
One of the most widely held misconceptions about the Declaration of
Independence is that it was signed on July 4, 1776. In fact,
independence was formally declared on July 2, 1776, a date that John
Adams believed would be “the most memorable epocha in the history of
America.” On July 4, 1776, Congress approved the final text of the
Declaration. It wasn’t signed until August 2, 1776.
After Jefferson wrote his first draft of the Declaration, the other
members of the Declaration committee and the Continental Congress made
86 changes to Jefferson’s draft, including shortening the overall length
by more than a fourth.
When writing the first draft of the Declaration, Jefferson primarily
drew upon two sources: his own draft of a preamble to the Virginia
Constitution and George Mason’s draft of Virginia’s Declaration of
Rights.
Jefferson was quite unhappy about some of the edits made to his original
draft of the Declaration of Independence. He had originally included
language condemning the British promotion of the slave trade (even
though Jefferson himself was a slave owner). This criticism of the slave
trade was removed in spite of Jefferson’s objections.
On December 13, 1952, the Declaration of Independence (along with the
Constitution and Bill of Rights) was formally delivered to the National
Archives in Washington, D.C., where it has remained since then.
The two youngest signers of the Declaration of Independence were both
from South Carolina. Thomas Lynch, Jr. and Edward Rutledge of South
Carolina were both born in 1749 and were only 26 when they signed the
Declaration. Most of the other signers were in their 40s and 50s.
Philosopher John Locke’s ideas were an important influence on the
Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson restated Locke’s contract
theory of government when he wrote in the Declaration that governments
derived “their just Powers from the consent of the people.”
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th
anniversary of the vote to approve the Declaration of Independence.
Some of the most famous lines in the Declaration of Independence were
inspired by Virginia’s Declaration of Rights by George Mason. Mason
said: “all men are born equally free and independent.” Jefferson's
Declaration of Independence said: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal." Mason listed man's
“natural Rights” as “Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of
acquiring and possessing Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness
and Safety.” Jefferson listed man's "inalienable rights" as "Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Nine of the signers of the Declaration died before the American Revolution ended in 1783.
In the summer of 1776, when the Declaration was signed, the population
of the nation is estimated to have been about 2.5 million. (Today the
population of the U.S. is more than 300 million.)
The oldest signer of the Declaration was Benjamin Franklin, who was born
in 1706 and was therefore already 70 at the time of the Declaration.
Franklin went on to help negotiate the Treaty of Alliance with France in
1778 and the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War in
1783.
The only signer of the Declaration of Independence to survive beyond the
50th anniversary of the signing was Charles Carroll of Maryland.
Carroll died in 1832 when he was 95 years old.
The copy of the Declaration of Independence that is housed at the
National Archives is not the draft that was approved by the Continental
Congress on July 4, 1776. Instead it is a formal copy that the
Continental Congress hired someone to make for them after the text was
approved. This formal copy was probably made by Timothy Matlack, an
assistant to the Secretary of Congress. This copy was signed on August
2, 1776.
No one who signed the Declaration of Independence was born in the United
States of America. The United States didn't exist until after the
Declaration was signed! However, all but eight of the signers were born
in colonies that would become the United States.
The first public reading of the Declaration took place on July 8, 1776,
in Philadelphia. A fictional story written in the 1840s suggested that
the bell now known as the Liberty Bell was rung that day to bring the
people together. However, historians now doubt that this happened. The
steeple that housed the bell was in very bad condition at the time and
the bell was probably unusable.
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