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, burned 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 scarcely paralleled 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 insurrection among us, and 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. 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 injury. 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 our 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 the voice of justice and of 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, 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 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 be tween 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 foregoing Declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members: John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut Roger Sherman New York William Floyd Pennsylvania Robert Morris Delaware Maryland Samuel Chase Charles Carroll, of Virginia George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton North Carolina William Hooper Joseph Hewes South Carolina Georgia Button Gwinnett Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several assemblies, conventions, and committees, or councils of safety, and to the several commanding officers of the continental troops; that it be proclaimed in each of the United States, and at the head of the army. CHINA'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. "On this eighth day of the fourth month in the second year of the republic of China, the date fixed for the first opening of our permanent national assembly, the members of the senate and the house of representatives, having met in these halls to celebrate the event, now make this declaration of their sentiments. "The will of Heaven is manifested through the will of the authority of the state is not proclaimed now for the first time. 'The monarchy, so long corrupt, proved unworthy of the grave responsibilities intrusted to it by the will of the people, but with the introduction of popular government the representatives of the people must share the likes and dislikes of the people. They are to give expression to the desires and voice the will of the people; they hold the reins in behalf of the nation to govern with severity or leniency, parsimony or extravagance; they become the pivot upon which the prosperity of the state is made to turn. For the success or failure, safety or danger, adversity or good fortune, theirs is the merit or the blame. "Can we be otherwise than anxious? Yet through great tribulation the spring comes to prosperity, and our bad management and anxieties are a means to happiness. Now, therefore, we unite to form this assembly and presume to publish our aspirations. May ours be a just government. May our five races lay aside their prejudices. May rain and sunshine bring bounteous harvest and cause the husbandman to rejoice. May the scholar be happy in his home and the merchant conduct his trade in peace. May no duty of government be unfulfilled and no hidden wound go unredressed. Thus may the glory be spread abroad and these our words be echoed far and wide, that those in distant lands who hear may rejoice, our neighbors on every side give us praise, and may the new life of the old nation be lasting and unending. Who of us can dare to be neglectful of his duties!" NITTI SEES UNITED STATES OF EUROPE AS FUTURE IDEAL. "The United States of Europe, meaning sincere reconciliation and co-operation of the victors and vanquished for pacification of the whole continent, is the sudden tremendous ideal which flared out in Nitti's sensational speech in the Italian chamber of deputies. The Italian premier's courageous statesmanship, in a speech perfectly timed at the right psychological moment, has created a great sensation and has met with a startling reception. Today it can be confidently predicted that the late war will appear in history as the great European civil war, whence will come an European federation more or less molded on the American United States." IDEAL POSSIBLE. "Nitti's ideal, which a year ago would have met with furious denunciation, is today possible because, while the vanquished, completely crushed and powerless, are at the mercy of their victors, the victors themselves are dependent upon the vanquished because it is recognized that the European States can not individually revive, but only all together or none at all." "European solidarity is the sole fact dominating the European political situation. The attitude of the United States senate compelled Europe not to look for satisfaction to America, but to itself." As stated in my previous edition: The Twentieth Century will work, with its gigantic war, it is to be hoped, the permanent retirement of all imperial, ducal and highly titled families, who have ruled, misgoverned and destroyed mankind in the past. They should be superseded by written constitutions containing the supreme law of land, granting universal suffrage when established, and equal rights and protection to all citizens. These should take the place of imperial thrones, crowns, and the so-called divinely appointed sovereigns, who have used their power to dominate and absorb the wealth of their subjects. Nearly every nation of Europe is represented in the United States of America by a large body of their former subjects, amounting in some cases to hundreds of thousands, who are now loyal and prosperous citizens of this republic living harmoniously under a common constitution and general laws. This demonstrates the possibility of the inhabitants of the different states of Europe uniting and living satisfactorily and harmoniously under one constitutional representative republic like that of the United States of America and forming the United States of Europe. By a general election the people of these several states could jointly elect their representatives to a national congress or parliament and so construct a European congress with a republican constitution, each state to have its constitution and legislature, as well as governor. IRELAND'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. PROCLAIMED BY THE DAIL EIREANN, DUBLIN, JANUARY 21, 1919. (Translation.) "Whereas the Irish People is by right a free people; "And whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and, has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation; "And whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people; "And whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish people; "And whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete Independence in order to promote the common weal, to establish justice, to provide for future defense, to insure peace at home and good will with all nations and to constitute a National policy based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen; "And whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic; "Now, therefore, we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish people, in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish Nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this Declaration effective by every means at our command. "To ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance. "We solemnly declare foreign Government in Ireland to be an invasion of our National Right, which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English garrison; "We claim for our National Independence the recognition and support of every Free Nation of the world, and we proclaim that Independence to be after; condition precedent to international peace here "In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God, who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong |