* Originally in: CROSSFIRE

Just a reminder of the reason for the season.

I'm off for the local tea party.

- - -  JimH.



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 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.

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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