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Copyright 1875 by Asher & Adams.

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"AMERICAN PROGRESS" Illustrated:, in the growth of our Republic, from Thirteen Atlantic States in 1776, until a Continent is spanned by Thirty Eight States and Eleven Territories in 1876.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

A RESOLUTION of the Congress of the United Colonies was passed June 11, 1776, appointing a committee of five to draft a Declaration-consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston.

THURSDAY, July 4, 1776.

Agreeable to the order of the day, Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider the Declaration, President John Hancock of Mass., in the chair. The Secretary, Benj. Harrison of Va., reported that the committee had agreed upon a Declaration; which was read and adopted as follows:

WHEN, in the course of human everts, 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 for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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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 estab lished 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 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 con strains them to alter their former system of govern

ment. 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 whole

some 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 right 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 danger of invasion from without and convulзions 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 harrass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing arinies, 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 unac knowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation,-

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