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 our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence. He has incited treasonable insurrection 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 opprobium 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 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 attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of at our states. tempts by their legislature to extend a jurisdiction over these We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that 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. 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 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 independant states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independant 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. The following extract is interesting as showing the influence of the "Proposed Instructions on contemporary opinion: Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the elected, was prevented by indisposition from attending. But he forwarded by express, for the consideration of its members, a series of resolutions. I distinctly recollect the applause bestowed on the most of them, when they were read to a large company at the house of Peyton Randolph, to whom they were addressed. Of all the approbation was not equal. From the celebrated letters of the Pennsylvanian Farmer (John Dickinson) we had been instructed to bow to the external taxation of parliament, as resulting from our migration, and a necessary dependence on the mother country. But this composition of Mr. Jefferson shook this conceded principle, although it had been confirmed by a still more celebrated pamphlet of Daniel Dulaney of Maryland, and cited by Lord Chatham as a text-book of American rights. The young ascended with Mr. Jefferson to the source of those rights, the old required time for consideration before they could tread this lofty ground, which, if it had not been abandoned, at least had not been fully occupied throughout America. From what cause it happened that the resolutions were not printed by order of the Convention does not appear; but as they were not adopted, several of the author's admirers subscribed for their publication. When the time of writing is remembered, a range of inquiry not then very frequent, and marching far beyond the politics of the day, will surely be allowed them.-[Edmund Randolph in MS. History of Virginia, quoted in Ford's "Jefferson," vol. I., p. 422, and reprinted here by permission of G. P. Putnam & Sons.] Wisps of Wit and Wisdom; or, Knowledge in a Nutshell. By Albert P. Southwick. 12mo. Cloth. xxiv + 289 pp. Price, $1.00. Contains much valuable information on obscure historical, legendary and literary subjects whose signification and derivation are often sought for by readers. It also explains the origin of many popular words and phrases of every-day use whose source and meaning cannot readily be found. William Ewart Gladstone: His Life and Times. By Lewis Apjohn. 12mo. Cloth. 351 pp. With photographic portrait and several illustrations. Price, $1.00. New Border Tales. By Sir George Douglas. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top. x+284 pages and 7 illustrations. Price, $1.50. A collection of charming stories of the Border Country, all impregnated with the atmosphere and sentiment of the historic Border-land. The Stormy Petrel. By John Bowles. 12mo. 349 pp. Cloth. Price, $1.00; paper covers, price, 50 cents. The scene of this story is laid in "Bloody Kansas," and many incidents are related in connection with the efforts to populate the State in accordance with the theory of squatter sovereignty.' Inspector General, The. A Russian Comedy. Translated from the Russian of N. V. Gogol, by A. A. Sykes, B. A. 12mo. Cloth. xix+185 pp. With portrait. Price, $1.25. "The greatest work of the Russian writer, Gogol. English readers will enjoy it."-Providence Journal. Every-Day Help Series. Popular aids for daily duties. HOW TO WRITE. HOW TO DEBATE. HOW TO BEHAVE. 16mo. Wilson's Tales of the Border and of Scotland. Historical, The Centenary Life of John Wesley. By Edith C. Kenyon. 12mo. Cloth. viii+404 pp. 58 illustrations. Price, $1.00. Stanley and Africa. By the Author of "Life of General Gordon." 12mo. Cloth, gilt. viii+433 pp. and 31 full-page illustrations. Price, $1.00. For Lust of Gold: A Romance. By Aaron Watson. 12mo. Cloth. viii+312 pages and 6 illustrations. Price, $1.50. A narrative of the adventures of Francis Boulmer, Anthony Goddard and certain others, in their search for the golden city of Manoa. From Australia and Japan. Comprising: Felix Holt, SecundusThe Wooing of Webster-A Yoshiwara Episode-The Bear Hunt of Fuji-Sau-A Tosa Monogatari of Modern Times-Faustus Junior, Ph. D.-Fred Wilson's Fate. 12mo. Cloth. 290 pp. and 12 illustrations. Price, $1.50. A collection of stories by a new writer which abound in out-of-the-way adventure, and invade regions as yet little traversed by fiction. Published Bi-Monthly. Annual Subscription, 60 Cents. American History Leaflets COLONIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL. EDITED BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART AND EDWARD CHANNING, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. NO 12. NOVEMBER, 1893. ORDINANCES OF SECESSION AND OTHER DOCUMENTS. 1860-1861. NEW YORK A. LOVELL & COMPANY 1893 Entered at the New York Post Office as second class matter. |