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The Declaration of Independence
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm ^ | 1776-07-04

Posted on 03/10/2009 9:40:49 AM PDT by rabscuttle385

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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, — 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 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 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. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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 and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation 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 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 endeavoured 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.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

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 imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

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, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 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 insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured 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.

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 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 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



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; Philosophy; US: Connecticut; US: Delaware; US: Georgia; US: Maryland; US: Massachusetts; US: New Hampshire; US: New Jersey; US: New York; US: North Carolina; US: Pennsylvania; US: Rhode Island; US: South Carolina; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: 17760704; declaration; government; independence; lp; lping; realconservatives; resolute; thedeclaration
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To: Loud Mime

Haven’t you heard? Obama views it as being an out dated document and doesn’t apply to him.


21 posted on 03/10/2009 1:10:15 PM PDT by RC2
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To: cvq3842
"How many present-day politicians can say the same?"

Oh, they can say it. They just can't do it.

22 posted on 03/10/2009 1:12:17 PM PDT by YHAOS
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To: RC2

There are several versions of the “Declaration of Dependence” around the Internet.

If he views the Declaration as out of date, he will view the Constitution as out of date as well.


23 posted on 03/10/2009 1:15:24 PM PDT by Loud Mime (The IRS collectes $1 trillion in taxes each year. Why not forgive all taxes for a year? Stimulus!)
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To: rabscuttle385; Loud Mime
"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
--Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.
24 posted on 03/10/2009 2:41:25 PM PDT by MamaTexan (A REPUBLIC....if you can keep it!)
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To: MamaTexan

Great Addition!!!!


25 posted on 03/10/2009 5:33:20 PM PDT by Loud Mime (The IRS collectes $1 trillion in taxes each year. Why not forgive all taxes for a year? Stimulus!)
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To: Theophilus

Thank you. I needed to hear that again.


26 posted on 03/10/2009 5:40:30 PM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: Theophilus

When the Hebrew slaves rebelled against their Egyptian rulers, were they committing sin?


27 posted on 03/10/2009 6:48:01 PM PDT by fzx12345 (Please use your tax refund to support life.)
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To: The Sons of Liberty
"If I met any of those brave men in the great beyond, I would be ashamed to tell them what has happened to America. "

Yep! They most certainly enjoyed more freedom & liberty than we do today. Had they been around any time between 1910 - 1939 they would have excised the slide into tyranny right then with another revolution.

28 posted on 03/10/2009 7:48:20 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: fzx12345
When the Hebrew slaves rebelled against their Egyptian rulers, were they committing sin?

The Hebrews were liberated not by rebellion but by a higher Authority!

Deuteronomy 26:8

And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders:

Psalm 2

 1Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

 2The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

 3Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

 4He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.

 5Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

 6Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

 7I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

 8Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

 9Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

 10Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

 11Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

 12Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

 

John 19:10-11

Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

Acts 8

20 And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king's chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king's country.
21 And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them.
22 And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.
23 And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.
30 posted on 03/10/2009 9:12:25 PM PDT by Theophilus (The people who were going to buy your home got aborted 30 years ago.)
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To: goodnesswins
To: rabscuttle385 On April 15th millions of people should send a copy to the Whitehouse....

With this phrase highlighted and underlined:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

31 posted on 03/11/2009 1:04:01 PM PDT by Turret Gunner A20 (“In politics , stupidity is no handicap.” Napoleon)
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To: Turret Gunner A20
Yes!!!!.....we need to declare ourselves FREE AGAIN....

from the Declaration of Independence as you cited......that's what I mean...."He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

32 posted on 03/11/2009 1:40:54 PM PDT by goodnesswins (Conservative and fighting for freedom and liberty....whether you like it or not.)
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