Declaration of Independence

[Mike.357]

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen 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 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 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 benefit 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 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 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.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock, 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 York:

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

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

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

North Carolina:

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

[Il Duce]

great read. thanks for posting

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Something everyone should read from time to time, especially on the 4th. Good job, Mike!

[waynesan]

Too bad so many people never get around to reading our founding documents or contemplating what they mean.

[Guest db99wj]

I hope kids today still read this document. Most adults need to reread this document.

[Guest drv2fst]

Change King of Great Britain to BHObama and we have many of the same complaints today. Except instead of restricting immigration he ignores illegal immigration.

Edited July 4, 2010 by drv2fst

[Mike.357]

you ****ing people need to be ashamed of yourselves.

At this moment there are 77 views and 5 comments.

5 ****ing comments, are you kidding me????????

Bunch of front runners around here IMHO.

How many of you have ever even read it? How many of you that clicked on this even took the time to read what I posted.

No wonder the country is so ****ed up!

[timcalhoun]

I read it to the family every 4th of July. I Started doing it 5 years ago and will continue unltil I keel over.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Even if you're joking, Mike, you're right.

Kids in school probably don't unless it is a private school.

I doubt the public schools teach much real American History,

unless it is just revisionist blabbing. Should be a required

course for every American. When you don't learn where you

came from, you have no clue where you're heading.

Edited July 3, 2010 by 6.8 AR

[Guest db99wj]

I read it again right before my initial post. My 5th grader has not read it in private school yet. She will by the end of this weekend.

[mcurrier]

Change King of Great Britain to SHObama and we have many of the same complaints today. Except instead of restricting immigration he ignores illegal immigration.

Krusty the Clown: Hey yutz. Guns aren't toys - - they're for family protection, hunting dangerous and delicious animals, and keeping the king of England out your face.

[vontar]

Krusty the Clown: Hey yutz. Guns aren't toys - - they're for family protection, hunting dangerous and delicious animals, and keeping the king of England out your face.

Yes Mike, Read,

I am so dam sorry I did not post yesterday when I first read it.

[Raoul]

you ****ing people need to be ashamed of yourselves.

At this moment there are 77 views and 5 comments.

5 ****ing comments, are you kidding me????????

Bunch of front runners around here IMHO.

How many of you have ever even read it? How many of you that clicked on this even took the time to read what I posted.

No wonder the country is so ****ed up!

Yes indeed. We're so busy being anesthetised by TV and the internet, and wallowing around watching Nascar and football and eating crappy food and getting fatter and fatter that we just don't have enough brain power left to pay attention. All history tends to be revisionist history and we never seem to learn from it. If we did would we even BE in Afghanistan?

This bears repeating:

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.

[midtennchip]

you ****ing people need to be ashamed of yourselves.

At this moment there are 77 views and 5 comments.

5 ****ing comments, are you kidding me????????

Bunch of front runners around here IMHO.

How many of you have ever even read it? How many of you that clicked on this even took the time to read what I posted.

No wonder the country is so ****ed up!

I wasn't going to post, but I guess I felt compelled. Not only have I read it many times, I have a framed copy in both my home office and at the firm.

[Rightwinger]

Didn't post during my first read through as it's a very familiar document to me. However, the additional entries have alerted me that I did not read this to my boys this year. We did discuss the Constitution during Healthcare and can now discuss this during freedom weekend.

Thanks for the scolding Mike.

[Mike.357]

thanks everyone, I did not mean to sound like an ass. But I take my liberty seriously.

I suppose if even one person read the OP and a light went off I succeeded in my goal.

God Bless America

( while at Norris today we were wrapping up our day of Guns of Freedom. There was a clean cut young man with another younger guy who appeared to be his brother. Somehow we made mention of CAS being at basic training. I was pretty sure the clean cut young man was a soldier and I was right. He later made mention of being a Bravo 11 ( don't know what that is exactly.) Anyway we all spoke for ten minutes or so. Made me real proud that people like this guy were off in Iraq and Afghanistan watching our backs. if initial impressions mean much this guy impressed the hell out of me. I thanked him for his service and shook his hand. Made me proud to be an American. Big kuddos to all of you who have our back in service to our country. In spite of how F'd up this place seems now we are all better for what you do.)

[Will Carry]

I clicked on the signers of the declaration. They sure died young back then. Thanks for posting, it's good to read that document again.

[Mr. Brooks]

He later made mention of being a Bravo 11 ( don't know what that is exactly.

11 Bravo = Infantry

[Mike.357]

thanks for clearing that up JaG. I had is backwards.

Thanks for your service too! Dunno where would be without people like you all.

[Mr. Brooks]

thanks for clearing that up JaG. I had is backwards.

Thanks for your service too! Dunno where would be without people like you all.

No problem mike. And trust me when I say, it really is my honor to do what I do.

And thank you for posting this, you reminded me I need to get a framed copy for my house.

[midtennchip]

thanks everyone, I did not mean to sound like an ass. But I take my liberty seriously.

I suppose if even one person read the OP and a light went off I succeeded in my goal.

God Bless America

Not a problem! I think you are probably preaching to the choir here, but I am all for people who are passionate about the original ideals of this country. Not sure how many of you are watching much of the History Channel this weekend, but the stories of the men who led the revolution are very inspiring. I think I'll start watching my John Adams DVDs again (probably for the 4th time). I wish there was a similar book and movie about George Washington. One of the VERY FEW politicians who CHOSE to walk away from power when many people were all but making him a king. WOW! I don't think you can ever discount the effect of that example (particularly as the first President).

[Guest drv2fst]

On the way into work Friday morning NPR read it on the radio. It was amazing. It seemed so much more alive hearing it aloud.

[midtennchip]

On the way into work Friday morning NPR read it on the radio. It was amazing. It seemed so much more alive hearing it aloud.

I really like this rendition from the movie John Adams.

YouTube - John Adams - Declaration of Independence

[Guest Jamie]

There's a movie coming on today at 1:30p central on Turner Classic Movies that I make a habit of trying to catch every 4th of July... It's kind of silly, I guess, and funny as hell in spots. And although it probably doesn't get thing dead right, it's still pretty educational.

1776

Yeah, it's a musical, but I still think everybody in the U.S. ought'a see it at least once. And yeah, I get pissed if I miss it or it isn't shown. :D

J.

[Guest Jamie]

I really like this rendition from the movie John Adams.

YouTube - John Adams - Declaration of Independence

Speaking of Mr. Adams....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HD1x_kZRQQ

Enjoy.

J.