The Declaration Of Independence: The American document and it's history.
By Corcceigh Green
As this is the July/August issue of The Independent American, some space in the issue must be devoted to America's founding document of sovereignty. Far too many Americans these days are totally ignorant of it's content and history. As America spirals down the toilet of tyranny, this document must be brought forward to educate otherwise ignorant Americans as to why our forefathers found it necessary to form a separate government from English monarchistic tyranny and what lines governments are not to cross in imposing such tyrannies. If those lines are crossed, this document states that it is the right and duty of the people to abolish such government and to set up new foundations in the interest of freedom.
Our War for Independence did not begin on July 4, 1776, the date of proclamation of The Declaration Of Independence. For more than a decade, American colonists had been protesting the violation of the natural rights of man by the English crown. These protests were continually abrogated by then king George III. Redresses were met with similar abuses.
American colonists soon realized that England would treat them in the same manner as other lands and people under it's oppressive rule and began forming Committees of Safety. Militias had existed since the founding of the various colonies to defend the colony or to fight enemies of the then existing government. With the increasing abuses of the English government, coupled by the fact that the militias were made up of the body of the people being abused, the majority of existing militias sided with the Committees of Safety, with a few tory militias forming in favor of English oppression.
Tensions increased as colonists thwarted attempts at unfair taxation and the English government thought it prudent to disarm the colonial militias.
The first shots of the War for Independence were fired on April 19, 1775 when a detachment of English marines were dispatched to the towns of Concord and Lexington for the purpose of confiscating muskets, cannons, gunpowder and ball. A small contingency of militiamen mustered out on Concord green to block the English advance. Upon meeting the militia formation, the English marines formed lines for a bayonet charge and began an advance toward the militia formation.
Concord Bridge. A site of one of the earliest battles in The War For Independence.
As the English were advancing, a shot was heard from an unknown direction prompting the English to fire upon the militia formation. The militiamen were scattered, but reinforcing militia formations which advanced upon the area all throughout the day and under the direction of William Heath and his notion of a continuous field of fire, The English marine detachment was checked in it's advance and chased back to Boston, where they were sieged until English reinforcements were able to relieve them.
The War had been raging since that first engagement without the notion of many fighting it that a new nation whose founding principals would be based upon freedom and liberty should emerge. Many in the militias and Congress believed that England could be forced to respect the natural rights of man, but another notion began to take hold on the conflict. As English atrocities became more brutal, more of the American colonists began to realize that a separation between the former colonies and England would be necessary to preserve their freedoms.
It was on January 10, 1776 that Thomas Paine's work, Common Sense was published urging Independence from England. This movement began to swell within the colonies, which were already fighting a bloody war against a brutal English government and it's mercenaries. With Independence gaining great favor, on March 23, 1776, Congress declared all English naval vessels lawful prize, (or lawful targets for capture or military action), and on April 6, 1776, declared American ports open to all vessels with the exception of English vessels. This was an act of absolute sovereignty and Congress knew what it was now fighting for.
On June 10, 1776, Congress appointed a committee of five to draw up a Declaration Of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston were selected for the committee. The task of composition was assigned to Thomas Jefferson. Congress would make some changes, but these changes were in the form of omission and the language of the Declaration would remain uniquely Jefferson's.
The Declaration Of Independence was reported to Congress on June 28, 1776. On July 1, 1776 debate began on resolutions and amendments to the document. One delegate from Delaware traveled 80 miles in one day by coach to vote yea on the Declaration to ensure Delaware's approval. On July 3, 1776, The Declaration of Independence was taken up and passed in Congress as amended and the Declaration proclaimed to the world on July 4, 1776. The New York State legislature ratified the Declaration on July 9, 1776, giving their formal adherence to the document on July 15, 1776. Pennsylvania recorded it's formal vote on July 20, 1776 formally adhering to the document.
On July 19, 1776, Congress passed a resolution that The Declaration Of Independence be engrossed on parchment. It was August 2, 1776 when the formal signing of the document by members of Congress took place.
The history of The Declaration Of Independence cannot be separated from America's War For Independence or from England's history of atrocities. The brief history above should merely wet the appetite of Independent Americans to learn more of their history and founding principals. Below is the text of The Declaration Of Independence. Once again, Americans should know and study this founding document and declare it's principals as still relevant.
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.
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 meantime 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 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 complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and 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 the 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.