and that a confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together. On the following day (June 8th) this proposal was taken into consideration. It was opposed by Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson, and Wilson, and was supported by J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, Jefferson, and others. Against the resolution it was argued that the people of the middle colonies-Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and New York—were not yet ripe for dissolving the connexion with Great Britain, and that the ferment excited by the resolution of Congress to suppress the exercise of all powers derived from the Crown, proved that the colonists had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country; but that they were fast ripening, and in a short time would join the general voice of America, and declare for independence. That if any of the colonies were unwilling so to declare, other colonies could not declare it for them; that a rupture among the colonies themselves would weaken them more than any assistance from foreign powers could give them strength. That France and Spain had reason to be jealous of a rising state which would certainly one day strip them of all their foreign possessions. That at all events no long time would elapse before the disposition of the French Court would be ascertained from the American agent sent to Paris for that purpose. These reasons, directed against the time and not the right or the policy of a separation from Great Britain, prevailed so far, that it was resolved to postpone the final decision till the 1st of July. But in the meantime a committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, was appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence.* The

"Memoirs of Thomas Jefferson," London, 1829.

Declaration, drawn up by Jefferson, was laid on the table on the 28th of June. On the 1st of July the resolution of the delegates of Virginia was again proposed, and carried by nine colonies against two. Pennsylvania and South Carolina were the two which voted against it; Delaware was divided: the delegates from New York were for it themselves, but their instructions being a twelvemonth old, they did not think themselves authorized to concur in the vote. As this document is one of extreme importance, I copy from the "Memoirs of Thomas Jefferson" the original draft of the Declaration, as reported by the committee, with the amendments made by Congress :*

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled.

"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 (inherent and) inalienable rights; that among these certain are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,

*The parts struck out by Congress are printed in italics, and enclosed in parentheses; those inserted by them are placed in the margin or in a concurrent column.

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, when 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 shown 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 (begun at a distinguished period, and) pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under an 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 (expunge) their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of (unremitting) injuries and usurpations (among all having which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have) in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world (for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood).

alter

repeated

"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 (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 mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion 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.

by

"He has (suffered) the administration of justice (totally obstructed 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 selfassumed power), 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 standing armies (and ships of war), without the consent of our legislatures. "He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

in many

cases

"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 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 ( ) 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 (States); 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 governus out of his ment here (withdrawing his governors and declaring us out and waging of his allegiance and protection).

colonies

by declaring

protection,

war with us

scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

and and

"He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, already begun with circumstances of cruelty ( ) 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

excited do- to fall themselves by their hands.

mestic insurrection

among us, and has

"He has (

) endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages,