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.
People have lost sight of the nature and purpose of the Constitution and how it relates to the Declaration.
The Declaration is an aspirational statement of intent: “this is the nation we want”.
The Constitution is the framework of how to get there. It established bounds and mechanisms for running the Federated Republic and evolving it into the aspirational nation of the Declaration.
That is *why* the national holiday celebrates the Declaration and not the Constitution. It is supposed to guide us and provide direction so we bring it up yearly as a reminder of where we want to be. (And why we put up with the IdiotPoliticians™ and their fumblings. 🙂 )
At the time it was crafted, the Constitution was understood to be a political compromise and a work in progress which is why it includes mechanisms for amendment to incorporate future compromises. Where problems have risen and continue to arise is when people, particularly presidents, local legislators, and occasionally the courts, overstep their bounds and usurp powers that don’t belong to them but rather to the Congress, the states, or the people.
When the bounds and mechanisms are respected and allowed to balance out, the Republic works, warts and all. Otherwise, dysfunction rules.
Basic civics: The first casualty of the absolutist Culture War.
Also, We were celebrating the Declaration for a decade before the Constitution was written. The Constitution was the second attempt to make a workable framework
Nobody has claimed that it is perfect, but if you want to modify it, there is a correct mechanism to do so (which we have used 27 times). Change things properly and you don’t have to worry about the next election or Supreme Court appointment undoing your changes.
But I want my pony NOW, Daddy!
Criticizing a document that was extremely radical and truly progressive at the time it was written is idiotic.
Honor the people who took great risks, who fought, bled, and died to make things somewhat better than they were before. That means the Founders. It also means the Union soldiers. It also means the Suffragettes. It also means those who marched behind Martin Luther King.
Things are not perfect today. They will not be perfect tomorrow. All we can do is not lose the ground that we have gained, and work to make them better tomorrow.
As to people writing the Declaration today – all too many will be too lazy to do so; they’ll just copy The Communist Manifesto to usher in the return of tyranny.
It might look like the occupy wall street manifesto:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/17/occupy-wall-street-the-draft-manifesto/
And we all saw the traction that got. It might have had something to do with it being all about money rather than personal liberty. No Jeffersons of Hamiltons in that crowd. Just Huey Longs.
—-
We have come up with the following list of things that can be done right now to rejuvenate democracy and economic justice in our country:
• Halt foreclosures for the unemployed, sick and elderly
• Increase funding to public services by taxing the richest 1 percent
• Forgive all student loan debt
• Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act in order to control speculation
• Work with the other G20 nations to implement a 1% “Robin Hood” tax on all financial transactions and currency trades
• Ban high-frequency ‘flash’ trading and bring sanity to the markets
• Break up the “too big to fail” banks that threaten our future
• Arrest the financial fraudsters responsible for the 2008 meltdown and bring them to justice
• Ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence corporate money has on our elected representatives in Washington.
I sometimes wonder how the few people in charge today would write a constitution, a bill of rights, what amendments they would pass for Constitution for the usa.
Possibly no chance of leaving massive numbers of people out today, or an entire gender, and that part about nature which seemed to have in many a mind in power had something to do with thinking one was meant to rule over bought and sold kidnapped families, and take land.
I dont know, but writing and reading histories, makes some of the writings we were taught to praise without question when we were in school, well, lol, a little questionable now.
Please, spare us the attacks on the founding at least during the celebration of one of the greatest contributions to human rights in the history of the world.
You might just as well attack Shakespeare for not using modern plot arcs, or Descartes for not already comprehending Calculus.
The sentiments and philosophy behind the Declaration were literally revolutionary. Have a little respect for actual accomplishment and progress in human affairs.
Shakespeare wrote plays, not the founding document that would determine the governmental structure and the rights of its citizens for the then indefinite future.
It is historically inaccurate to state that either the Declaration or Constitution were great contributions to human rights when black people and women were deprived of fundamental rights.
I disagree with you, Peter, on one point. The Declaration and Constitution were great contributions to human rights. They were also critically flawed because they didn’t go far enough.
A step in the right direction is still a good step.
But I disagree fundamentally with Thomas. The idea that we should pretend that we can never do better, or that we should never reflect on our established government because this amounts to nothing but disrespect seems absurd on the face of it.
The Constitution was treason against the United States itself. They were supposed to be amending the Articles of Confederation. The only reason it wasn’t treason was because the Constitution was ratified.
In fact, the Constitution at the time was also considered deeply flawed and insufficient. It was only ratified because of the promise that amendments–the Bill of Rights– were going to be immediately written and voted on (and even that took nearly 27 months).
Those amendments greatly improved the original. And the next 17 (minus the 18th, in my opinion) have continued to support both ideas: the Constitution was gravely lacking, and we can continue to improve it without throwing it all out, even though the founding document of this country (the Articles of Confederation) was so flawed that we literally had to throw it out and start over.
There’s plenty of room in this country’s history for self-reflection and improvement. The idea that calls for such are anti-American are, well… anti-American. (That both ideas are protected by the Constitution is completely American, although I admit to enjoying the irony that they’re only protected because of an amendment two years later.)
Nice strawman you have there. Nothing in what I posted can be reasonably construed as “pretending we can never do better”. Rather, the middle paragraph contains the exact opposite sentiment, rejecting the OP’s statements because he’s criticizing people for not already anticipating later knowledge which stood on the shoulders of their own work he’s criticizing!
The philosophy in the Declaration of government serving the purpose of protecting pre-existing individual rights, of equality under the law rather than an aristocracy, of government requiring the consent of the governed, those formed the foundation of a revolution not only in the former British colonies, but around the world to this day.
I’d cheerfully argue there isn’t a more significant single event representing improvements in political knowledge for the human race than that day they signed away their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
In your reply, I was rebutting the statement “Have a little respect for actual accomplishment and progress in human affairs.”
The Constitution was considered flawed and inadequate when it was ratified. The first thing states did was ratify it on the condition that it was immediately amended. Which it was, which is why the first ten amendments were ratified simultaneously.
While I don’t recall anyone caring about women’s suffrage, the idea of slavery was deeply troubling to many and was a controversy from the outset, even before the Three-Fifths Compromise was added.
USAF’s speculation was not hypothetical or anachronistic. It was an actual question the framers were actually asking at the time, and it is an interesting thought experiment to reflect on the values that were enshrined at the time and how the document might be different if it were written today.
To say that this can only be done out of disrespect–when it was actually the process under which the Constitution was ratified–does not hold up under scrutiny.
Oh look, yet another person who doesn’t get how utterly miserable the state of human rights was during the 1770s, worldwide.
The idea that rights were something governments acknowledged rather than granted was huge, and formed the foundation for everything that came after.
Spot on.
Sorry we don’t agree Thomas Sewell . You wrote “Have a little respect for actual accomplishment and progress in human affairs.”
And, I do have ‘little ‘respect’ for those who harmed others Thomas Sewell.
Very little respect.
As for Shakespeare, your equivocation is baffling, but that’s ok. I admire his work far more than the ‘gentlemen’ who took lives not theirs to take, stole land not theirs to steal, and ‘savagizing’ in their minds, persons trying to defend their lands and families.
Nope, in those times, there were profound human beings who were good and decent and not ingrown, not thieves and rapacious in ‘owning’ other human beings, tearing apart families of “their” ‘slaves,’ importing the worst of wanna-be royalty values to the Americas —
which were already occupied. It was an invasion and their desire for nation making of their own which left most others out, was less a breaking away from Old George, than having many other motives, one being ownership of human beings, endless land, sending others to war for the ‘rich man’s ‘ interests, being waited upon hand and foot.
Nope, no respect for those who did not respect others, especially innocent others.
Grow up.
No, seriously, grow up, read some history, and figure out that, warts and all, the men who led the American War of Independence had more of the virtues you want and fewer of the vices you despise than any other elite in the world at the time.
Thank you for these pieces of our past. The letters bring these people and history to life in a way that just reading about them does not.
You’re welcome, Celine.