On the 12th of July, a committee of one from each State reported on the terms of confederation, and the powers of Congress; but differences of opinion, and the pressure of military affairs prevented action on it. On the 9th of September, 1776, The name "United Colonies of America' was discarded for that of "United States of America." Georgia had appointed delegates on the 4th of July, so that there were "Thirteen United States." On Saturday, November 15, 1777, " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union of the United States of America" were agreed to in Congress, and sent to the States for approval. Eight of the State Legislatures had ratified these articles on the 9th of July, 1778; one ratified July 21st; one July 24th; one November 26th, of this year; one February 22d, 1779; and the last, March 1, 1781. This document was little more than a digest of the powers before assumed by Congress, and tacitly acknowledged by the States from the commencement of the war. This, now legal, bond had existed before as a free, though unspoken, submis sion to the dictates of prudence and patriotism. CHAPTER VI. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. This immortal state paper-" the general effusion of the soul of the country" at the imperiled state of liberty, and of the rights of Englishmen-was given to the world on the 4th of July, 1776. The war of the Revolution had been raging more than a year, and many of the leading minds of the country had been actuated by the hope that their wrongs would be redressed, and the mother country and her colonies reconciled. The course of events had convinced them, however, that there would be no redress, and that no reconciliation was possible other than that based on a slavish surrender of rights and privileges dear to free men. And hence a more decided course was approved by the people, and finally adopted by their delegates in Congress, on the 2d day of July, 1776. This resolution changed the old thirteen British colonies into free and independent States. And now it remained to set forth the reason for this act, together with the principles that should govern this new people. By this declaration the new Republic, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth, reality, and unchangableness of freedom and virtue. And the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiled from childhood when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue. (175) THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 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 inalienable 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 a 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 shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right them 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 aws 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 dissolution, 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 danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 sub stance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislature. 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 depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 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 powers of our government: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases what soever. 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 work of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barberous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. |