We believe that the Declaration of Independence to be an inspired document. The Declaration of Independence was written before the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This sent the message to England that we were now independent from them. That because of the listed greavences we were going to became our own nation and rule ourselves. This document sent the message to the whole world that man had been given certain rights from God and that no one here on earth had the right to take these rights away. Most people have read this document maybe once in their life time. Now is the time to read it again and become familiar with it. Memorize some of the more touch- ing parts. See the link below for the complete text of the Declaration of Independence. As you read this I pray your heart will be touched by the spirit of the Founding Fathers. Also that you will see the parallels to our days. Our Fore Fathers sacrificed everything to give us the freedoms we have today. Let us do our part to preserve these rights, which is many cases we have lost. Maybe what is needed today is a modern Declaration of Independence.
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 harrass 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 benefits 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 Brittish 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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions
indicated:
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
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
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
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