The Foundation Of Liberty
July 4, 2011 by Bob Livingston
Last year, we reprinted the Declaration of Independence for Independence Day. It was well-received for a holiday issue, which traditionally sees fewer visitors than normal days. So we decided to reprint the Declaration again.
I was fascinated by some of the comments last year. More people than I anticipated recognized that our government today has taken on many of the characteristics of the British government that the Founders sought to “dissolve the political bands” of 235 years ago.
For instance, a case can be made that President Barack Obama and/or Congress have:
- “(R)efused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Obama’s Justice Department sued Arizona over that State’s immigration law.
- “(F)orbidden 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.” Obama’s Justice Department threatened Texas to halt passage of a Transportation Security Administration anti-groping law. States that have passed laws to guarantee the sale of firearms and ammunition within their borders and to halt the implementation of the Obamacare healthcare bill have been sued by the Obama Administration.
- “(O)bstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.” Obama’s Interior Secretary has refused to abide by a Louisiana judge’s ruling ordering the issuance of drilling permits to companies wishing to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
- “(E)rected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” Obama has appointed a growing number of czars (granted, he wasn’t the first to do it), the Department of Homeland Security — in addition to groping, irradiating and peeking beneath Americans’ clothes at airports — is now searching people at train stations, bus stations, shopping malls and sporting events, and vans with special X-ray technology are peering inside our vehicles and homes. The Obamacare bill provides for 10,000 more Internal Revenue Service agents to catch healthcare “cheats.”
- “(C)ombined 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.” The war in Libya was begun under the authority of the United Nations and without the assent of Congress. Obama insists the bombing in Libya is not a war.
- “(I)mposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Obamacare — opposed by a majority of Americans, according to polls — imposes billions of dollars of new taxes on individuals and businesses.
- “(P)lundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” The Obama Administration refused to let foreign ships help with the Gulf oil spill cleanup. The combined economic policies of George W. Bush, Obama, Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke and Congress have led to high unemployment, hyperinflation and a crash in the housing market. That has left thousands of people displaced, hungry and destitute, and mobs are now pillaging many of America’s cities.
- “(E)xcited 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.” First Bush 43 and now Obama have refused to protect America from an invasion of illegal aliens from across the U.S. border with Mexico. Many of them drive without licenses and insurance and hold jobs using fake Social Security numbers (and contribute to high unemployment among America’s youth and minority populations). And again, mobs of black youths are pillaging and terrorizing American cities.
With these truths in mind, let us now contemplate whether we are approaching the time where it is necessary to consider dissolving the political bands that have connected us, as we read what our wise Founders wrote so long ago.
Declaration of Independence
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:
| Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton |
North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina: |
Massachusetts: John Hancock
Virginia: |
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 |
New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark |
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Connecticut: New Hampshire: |
| (Source: archives.gov) | |||||
To learn more about the brave men who signed the Declaration and what became of them afterwards, download your free copy of They Signed For Us.
Happy Fourth,
Bob
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