Tra: Hopkinson Thor stone FAC-SIMILE OF THE SIGNATURES TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE ternal commerce, but denied its right to That the exercise of legislative power in tax them in any way, without their con- several colonies by a council appointed sent, for raising an internal or external during pleasure by the crown was unconrevenue.) 5. That they were entitled to stitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the common law of England, and more the freedom of American legislation. The especially the great privilege of being report of the committee designated the tried by their peers of the vicinage ac- various acts of Parliament which were cording to the course of law; 6. That they infringements and violations of the rights were entitled to the benefit of English of the colonists, and declared that the restatutes at the time of the emigration of peal of them was essentially necessary in their ancestors; 7. That they were en- order to restore harmony between Great titled to all the immunities and privi- Britain and the American colonies. The leges conferred upon them by royal char- acts enumerated were eleven in number ters or secured to them by provincial laws; —namely, Sugar act, stamp act, two quar8. That they had a right peaceably to as- tering acts, tea act, act suspending the semble, state their grievances, and peti- New York legislature, two acts for the tion the King without interference of trial in Great Britain of offences commitministers; 9. That the keeping of a stand- ted in America, Boston Port bill, the act ing army in any colony, without the con- for regulating [subverting] the governsent of the legislature, was unlawful; 10. ment of Massachusetts, and the Quebec act. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE action was essential. McKean, one of the two representatives of Delaware present, burning with a desire to have the vote of his colony recorded in the affirmative, sent an express after the third delegate, Cæsar Rodney. He was 80 miles from Philadelphia. Ten minutes after receiving McKean's message Rodney was in the saddle, and, riding all night, he reached the floor of Congress (July 4) just in time to secure the vote of Delaware in favor of independence. All three of the delegates from Delaware voted for the declaration. The vote of Pennsylvania was also secured, a majority of its seven delegates being in favor of the measure; and on the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the unanimous vote of the thirteen colonies. Declaration of Independence. It was ish armament, under the brothers Howe, very important to have Lee's resolution at Sandy Hook. Immediate and united for independence, offered June 7, 1776, prefaced by a preamble that should clearly declare the causes which impelled the representatives of the people to adopt it. To avoid loss of time, a committee was appointed (June 11) to prepare such declaration. The committee was composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Mr. Lee having been called home before the appointment of the committee, Mr. Jefferson was put in his place. He was requested by the committee, after discussing the topics, to make a draft of a declaration of independence. It was discussed in committee, amended very slightly, and finally reported. Debates upon it were long and animated. There was some opposition to voting for independence at all, and it was considerably amended. It was evident from the beginning that a majority of the colonies would vote for independence (the vote in Congress was by colonies), but it was important that the vote should be unanimous. On Thursday, July 4, 1776, agreeable to the order of the day, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole to consider the declaration, President John Hancock in the chair. The secretary, Benjamin Harrison, reported that the committee had agreed upon a declaration, which was read and adopted as follows: The declaration was warmly debated on the day (July 2) when the resolution was passed, and also on the 3d. Meanwhile When, in the course of human events, news came of the arrival of a large Brit- 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 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 HOUSE IN WHICH JEFFERSON WROTE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 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 formal system 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. laws of nature and of nature's God en- He has refused his assent to laws the title them, a decent respect for the opin- most wholesome and necessary for the ions of mankind requires that they should public good. 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 inalienable 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 a 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 He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations 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 He has made judges dependent on his elected; whereby the legislative powers, will alone for the tenure of their offices incapable of annihilation, have returned and the amount and payment of their to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose 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 time of peace, |