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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 09:30 AM Jul 2018

The Declaration of Independence



JULY 04, 2018

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 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 substance.

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 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 Legislature, 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.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/04/the-declaration-independence/G0aPXKpee3C6S7679hX0WI/story.html
9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Declaration of Independence (Original Post) DonViejo Jul 2018 OP
Facebook algorithm flags part of Declaration of Independence as "hate speech"... PoliticAverse Jul 2018 #1
I'm getting verklempt(sp)... Crutchez_CuiBono Jul 2018 #2
"He has waged cruel war against Nature itself, Aristus Jul 2018 #3
CLEARLY these guys Crutchez_CuiBono Jul 2018 #4
According to Thomas Jefferson, GulfCoast66 Jul 2018 #7
True... Aristus Jul 2018 #8
Supported by slave owners. Dink Singer Jul 2018 #9
I thought it was interesting when NPR read it last year mitch96 Jul 2018 #5
Rare US Independence Declaration Found in UK archive... PoliticAverse Jul 2018 #6

Crutchez_CuiBono

(7,725 posts)
2. I'm getting verklempt(sp)...
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 09:48 AM
Jul 2018

The irony of it. Almost a self-fulfilling formula for when enough is enough. We have a similar set of complaints and circumstances. It's easy to see the need for the clarification on their part, before embarking on a painful, and treacherous endeavor. They knew it was going to be big, and it was a mission statement that has rung through the years to Our ears now. Certainly, similar sentiment can be seen by the clear majority of Americans. One man orchestrated all of this...the fish rots from the head first.

Aristus

(66,075 posts)
3. "He has waged cruel war against Nature itself,
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 09:50 AM
Jul 2018

in the persons of a distant people who never offended him; captivating them and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, hoping to keep open a market where men are bought and sold..."

- Deleted from the final draft because it offended slave owners. Our very first apathetic nod to political expediency, achieved on the backs of suffering people.

Crutchez_CuiBono

(7,725 posts)
4. CLEARLY these guys
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 09:55 AM
Jul 2018

were serious about everything they said. Took their time writing it, and involved the words w such emphasis and care, that it's unmistakable they knew how important it will be. Maybe we need a NEW Constitutional Congress-type situation, to write up a new vision? One made up of people...not politicians.

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)
7. According to Thomas Jefferson,
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 11:25 AM
Jul 2018

The clause was struck at the insistence of Slave owners in Carolina and Georgia as well as men having financial interest in the Slave trade from New England.

Slavery was truly America’s original Sin.

Dink Singer

(1 post)
9. Supported by slave owners.
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 01:38 PM
Jul 2018

This is a common misunderstanding of slavery. Slave owners were in the business of raising and selling slaves. By 1860 the market value of slaves was 48.3% of the total wealth of the slave states. They did not want newly enslaved Africans imported because it reduced the value of the slaves they were raising. (The Atlantic slave trade only brought in young adults ready to work -- and breed.) In colonial times the legislatures of several states including Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia, and Delaware had enacted laws either prohibiting the importation of slaves or imposing tariffs on importation at rates that were prohibitive. As Jefferson complained in his draft, King George III had "prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." The King did this in part because the sale of slaves on the African Coast was a Royal monopoly.

Jefferson in his later years claimed it was South Carolina and Georgia that had wanted the clause removed and that those states had never attempted to restrain the trade, but the fact is they had. South Carolina had imposed a prohibitive tariff first in 1740 that remained in effect until 1745 and then again in 1764 remaining in effect until 1769. All of the future states, except Georgia which was not represented, had at the First Continental Congress pledged “We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next [1775]; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.”

mitch96

(13,816 posts)
5. I thought it was interesting when NPR read it last year
Wed Jul 4, 2018, 09:55 AM
Jul 2018

that the tRumpers thought it was some left wing propaganda against tRump...

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,

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.

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 endeavoured to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners,

m

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