Derek Broes Announces New Initiative For Military Troops Joining The Revolution Family
Derek Broes Announces New Initiative For Military Troops Joining The Revolution Family
Derek Broes Announces New Initiative For Military Troops Joining The Revolution Family
On this day we thought we would also like to include the text and a picture of
the declaration of independence. Enjoy and have a safe and joyful 4th in
celebrating our nations Independence.
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 certain unalienable 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,
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn
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, 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 former Systems 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.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
...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 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 from without, and 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, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations
of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made 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, and sent hither swarms of Officers to
harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of
our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
Power.
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 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 plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the
lives of our people.
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 insurrections amongst 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 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.
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 between 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.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham
Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton ###