The Declaration of Independence

My fabulous readers, as many of our fellow Americans
are eager to celebrate our nation's birthday this year
by reading the Declaration of Independence, the
document drawn up by our founding fathers that
announced the dawning of our blessed, beloved
United States of America, your patriotic Peasant
thought it would be a grand idea to print the text of this
hallowed manuscript for us all to read, to study, and to
remind ourselves of what our great country stands for
and our need to protect it from our wayward
current government. Here it is:


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 the powers
of the earth, the separate but 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 shall not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experiences hath shewn, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are insuf-
ferable, 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 submit-
ted 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
until 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 for their exercise, the
State remaining in the meantime 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 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 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 neighboring
province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and
enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once a 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 Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already
begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely para-
lleled 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 among 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 Opressions 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 that 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 voice of justice and 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, and 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 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 Perry
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:

Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Woolcott

New Hampshire:

Matthew Thornton



There it is. The document that signaled the birth
of our great and grand country, the United States
of America. The Declaration of Independence.
Reprinted here on this humble blog for your
Independence Day reading pleasure, my beloved
readers.

We'll get together again after the Big Day.
God bless you all, and God bless America.


MEM