Posted 1:00pm, Sunday, July 4, 2004
The
Declaration of Independence
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.
Read
the Declaration and you will be inpsired by the words of our forefathers.
And if you're anything like me, you will vote John
Kerry for President 2004.
©2004 Ron
Lim unless noted |
