As today we celebrate our ‘independence’
as a nation and as Hillsdale College invites us to all read the
fundamental document that birthed us as a nation founded upon the principles of
individual freedom and liberty, I am posting the text of the document
juxtaposed with hyperlinks to the circumstances we as a nation find ourselves
in. This is not a partisan hit-job, as
you will see links to Daily Kos and other sites of … well … less conservative
content. Nor is this confined to our
present administration. It is simply a
reminder of how far we as a country have allowed ourselves to be lulled to
sleep by indoctrination of our schools, our reality TV, and our government ‘benefits’. It has been beyond time to wake up for some
time now. This is an issue that transcends
political parties. Our legislatures that
WE THE PEOPLE send to Washington to represent our interests have been willing
or silent enablers of the abuses documented in the hyperlinks below. It is high time we hold THEM accountable
through the legislative process afforded to us by this document and our
Constitution.
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 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 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.
o
For Quartering large bodies of armed
troops among us:
o
For transporting us beyond Seas to be
tried for pretended offences
o
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:
o
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.
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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration
appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
Column 4
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
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
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