solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which 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: 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 & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has neglected utterly 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, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants only: He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, un. comfortable, & 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 & continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people: When dissolved, he has refused for a long space of time 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 from without & convulsions within: He has endeavored 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; & rais ing the conditions of new appropriations of lands: He has suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these colonies, 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 amount of their salaries: He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power, & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people & eat out their substance: He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies & ships of war: He has affected to render the military independent of & superior to the civil power: He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and acknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a mocktrial from punishment for any murders 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 benefit of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; for taking away our char ters, & altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, for suspending our own legislatures & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever: He has abdicated government here, withdrawing his governors, & declaring us out of his allegiance and protection: He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns & destroyed the lives of our people: He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death desolation & tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation: 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, & conditions of existence: He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property: He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their trans portation 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 legisla tive attempt to prohibit or 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 upon 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. 66 In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms"; our repeated petitions "have been answered 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 scarce believe that the hardiness of one man adventured within the short * * * 1 over a people fostered & compass of twelve years only fixed in principles of liberty. Nor have we been wanting in attentions 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 & settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expence of our own blood & 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 & magnanimity, as well as to the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt our correspondence & connec tion. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice & 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 to power. At this very time they too are permitting their chief magistrate to send over soldiers not only of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & deluge us * * * 1 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 to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free & a great people together; but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so since they will have it: the road to glory and happiness is open to us too; we will climb it separately, and acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our everlasting adieu. We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do in the name & by authority of the good people of these states reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the king of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted be tween us & 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 shall hereafter have power to levy war conclude peace, contract alliances, estab 'These blanks are where erasures have rendered Jefferson's words illegible. lish commerce, & 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. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.' Art. 1. The style of this confederacy shall be, ‘The United States of America." Art. 2. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. Art. 3. The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. Art. 4. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship, and intercourse among the people of the different states in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any state to any other state, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also, that no imposition, duties, or restriction, shall be laid on the property of the United States or either of them. If any person guilty of or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor, in any state, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the governor or executive power of the state from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the state having jurisdiction of his offence. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these states to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other state. Art. 5. For the more convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed 1Some unimportant words and phrases are omitted. in such manner as the legislature of each state shall direct to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each state to recall its delegates or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year. No state shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emoluments of any kind. Each state shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the states, and while they act as members of the committee of the states. In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each state shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress; and the mem bers of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from and attendance on Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. Art. 6. No state, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty, with any king, prince, or state; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility. No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever, between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into and how long it shall continue. No state shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties entered into by the United States in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or state, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts of France and Spain. No vessel-of-war shall be kept up in time of peace by any state, except such number only as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled for the defence of such state or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any state in time of peace, except such number only as in the judgment of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison |