He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly and continually, 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 meantime, exposed to the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these States, refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made our 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, by a self-assumed power, and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people, and to eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace stand He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people. Not altered. Not altered. 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 new officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace stand ing armies and ships of war, without the consenting armies, without the consent of our legislatures. 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 constitutions, 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, 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 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 an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states; for taking away our charfor taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and alter Not altered. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, 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, 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 an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies for taking away our charters, abolishing our most CH. XIV.] DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ing 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, withdraw 413 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 de ing his governors, and declaring us out of his al- | claring us out of his protection, and waging war legiance and protection. 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 complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, 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 endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of the frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence. He has excited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property. He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty, of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one against us. Not altered. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, destruction and tyranny already begun. with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. Not altered. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of the frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. Struck out. Struck out. people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another. 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 injuries. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad and so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of freedom. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time, of attempts by their legislature, to extend a jurisdiction over these our states. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here; no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension; these were effected at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain; that in constituting, indeed, our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king; thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity with them; but that submission to their Parliament was no part of our Constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited; and we appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, as well as to the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt our connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time, too, they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends. We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Not altered. 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 attention 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 connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 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 CH. XIV.] DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness and to glory, is open to us, too. We will tread it apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain, and all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain; and finally, we do assert, and declare these colonies to be free and independent states, 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, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 415 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 the 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 words expunged from the original draft are distinguished by italics, as are the words that were introduced by Congress. The names of the members who subscribed the Declaration of Independence were as follows, viz: II-EXTRACT FROM JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ORATION ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1831. The dependence, then, of the colonies upon Great Britain, at the time when the British Parliament declared its own right to make laws for them in all cases whatsoever, and undertook to give effect to this declaration by taxation, was a dependence of parchments and of proclamations, unsanctioned by the laws of nature, disavowed by the dictates of reason. To this condition, however, the colonies submitted as long as they were suffered to enjoy the rights of Englishmen. The attempt to tax them by a body in which they had and could have no representative, was in direct violation of those rights. The acts of Parliament were encountered by remonstrance, deprecated by petition, and resisted by force. Ten years of controversy, and more than one of civil war, preceded the declaration, "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." The union of the colonies had preceded this declaration and even the commencement of the war. The declaration was joint, that the United Colonies were free and independent states, but not that any of them was a free and independent state, separate from the rest. In the Constitution of In the Constitution of this Commonwealth (Massachusetts) it is declared, that the body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; that it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws, for the common good. The body politic of the United States was formed by the voluntary association of the people of the United Colonies. The Declaration of Independence was a social compact, by which the whole people covenanted with each citizen of the United Colonies, and each citizen with the whole people, that the United Colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. To this compact, union was as vital as freedom or independence. From the hour of that declaration, no one of the States whose people were parties to it, could, without violation of that primitive compact, secede or separate from the rest. Each was pledged to all, and all were pledged to each by a concert of souls, without limitation of time, in the presence of Almighty God, and proclaimed to all mankind. The colonies were not declared sovereign states. The term sovereign is not even to be found in the Declaration; and far, very far was it from the contemplation of those who composed, or of those who adopted it, to constitute either the aggregate community, or any one of its members, with absolute, uncontrollable or despotic power. They are united, free and independent States. Each of these properties is equally essential to their existWithout union the covenant contains no pledge of freedom or independence; without freedom, none of independence or union; without independence, none of union or freedom. ence. In the history of the world, this was the first example of a self-constituted nation proclaiming to the rest of mankind the principles upon which it was associated, and deriving those principles from the laws of nature. It has sometimes been objected to the paper, that it deals too much in abstractions. But this was its characteristic excellence; for upon those abstractions hinged the justice of the cause. Without them, our revolution would have been but a successful rebellion. Right, truth, justice, are all abstractions. The Divinity that stirs within the soul of man is abstraction. The Creator of the universe is a spirit, and all spiritual nature is abstraction. Happy would it be, could we answer with equal confidence another objection, not to the Declaration, but to the consistency of the people by whom it was proclaimed! Thrice happy, could the appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for rectitude of intention, and with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence for support, have been accompanied with an appeal equally bold to our own social institutions to illustrate the selfevident truths which we declared! The Declaration of Independence was not a declaration of liberty newly acquired, nor was it a form of government. The people of the colonies were already free, and their forms of government were various. They were all colonies of a monarchy. The king of Great Britain was their common sovereign. Their internal administrations presented great varieties of form. The proprietary governments were hereditary monarchies in miniature. New York and Virginia were feudal |