A Declaration ... of the People's Plight ...
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" Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. ... |
Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new; its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers. What Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King in order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the mother country. " Source: The Charters of Freedom website. |
The Declaration of Independence:
A Transcription
(emphasis and line formatting added)
=========================
" IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America,
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 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 harrass 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 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 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 Brittish 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. "
=========================
The 56 signatures on the Declaration
appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
Column 4
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
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

======= [ End of the unanimous Declaration ] =======
History holds many Lessons ...
which are all too often forgotten,
in our modern way of life.
Our Freedoms, were not gained, however,
as easily, as we have given them up
in recent years ...
Those who do not learn the Lessons of History,
are destined to repeat its struggles ...
Find the Cost of Freedom -- (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
Hopefully those lessons will be taken to heart,
so that, we will not have to re-learn them, often ...
Comments
jamess
November 2, 2008 - 17:44
Permalink
Don't need no more lies
The Restless Consumer - Neil Young
The Restless Consumer Lyrics
http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/The-Restless-Consumer-lyrics-Neil-Young/EC326E23B030BA224825717700276447
The people have heard the news
The people have spoken
You may not like what they said
But they weren't jokin'
Way out on the desert sands
Lies a desperate lover
They call her the "Queen of Oil"
So much to discover
Don't need no ad machine
Telling me what I need
Don't need no Madison Avenue War
Don't need no more boxes I can see
Covered in flags but I can't see them on TV
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
The restless consumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for taste and grace
People from around the world
Need someone to listen
We're starving and dying from our disease
We need your medicine
How do you pay for war
And leave us dyin' ?
When you could do so much more
You're not even tryin'
Don't need no TV ad
Tellin' me how sick I am
Don't want to know how many people are like me
Don't need no dizziness
Don't need no nausea
Don't need no side effects like diarrhea or sexual death
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
The restless consumer lies
Asleep in her hotel
With such an appetite
For anything that sells
A hundred voices from a hundred lands
Need someone to listen
People are dying here and there
They don't see the world the way you do
There's no mission accomplished here
Just death to thousands
A hundred voices from a hundred lands
Cry out in unison
Don't need no terror squad
Don't want no damned Jihad
Blowin' themselves away in my hood
But we don't talk to them
So we don't learn from them
Hate don't negotiate with Good
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
The restless consumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for efficiency
And pace...
------
and another anthem from Neil Young
Back in the days of "Shock and Awe" ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWWcx3vUSww
Lest we never forget ...