CON GRES S, July 4, 1776. A DECLARATION By the UNITED W IN GENERAL REN in the Courfe of human Event accomes neceflary for one Prople to difalve the Political ads which have connecked them with another, sad to allups among the Powery of the Earth, the feperme and equal Station to stoch the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind I requires that they Maquid declare the Causes which impel sheim the leperation. We hold these Truths to be felf-evident, that all Men are created equr, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among theft are Life, Liberty, and the Purfuit of Happ -That to fecure thefe Rights, Governments are inftituted amung Alen, deriving their jaft Powers from the Cult of the Governed, that henever any Form of Form of Government becomes deftructive of these Ends. For quartering large Bodies of armed Troops among wo For imposing Taxes on us without our Co For depriving us, in msng Cafes, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury I or abolishing the free fyllem of English Laws in a neighbouring Province it is the Right of the People to alter or 15 obatifla it, and to instute matting fundon by our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Law, and new Corginment, laying its foundation on fach Principles, and organizing Tymany one, thrie Staum. To prove this, let Faĉit be Jubausted-to • condut World. He has ref-fed his Allen ɔ Laws, the most wholefoont and necelary for the public Cond the Forms of our Governments with Power 10 legiflere for us in all Cafes whrifaset. and waging War againfl us. He has plundered our Scar, raged our Cart Ferer our Town, and plat the Works of Death, Defolation and Tyranny, already begun in Hem at thit Tint, transporing Torge Armurs of foreign Mafcenaries to care. Cucumfieners of Cruelty and Perfly Carcely paralleled in the four harde cove Ages, and totally unworthy the ticad of a chard Nimon He has contrained our fellow Crizens taken Captive on the high Seas to best Arma agama their Country, to become the Exculaner, of the Friends and has endes-oveza dreabrea, or to fall thesetves by thear Hank He h known Rule of Warfare, le en undising bid Dufruction, of all Sears and Condi Age. mot humble forms: Out repeated Pentions have been anfwered celp to In every Stage of thefe Oppreffions we have priced for Redres, in the repeated Injury. A Prince, whof. Character is the marked by city ha We It has forbidden bu Cremers to pafi Laws of immediate and preff-way deene a Tyrant, is wht to be th. Ruler of a fice komple bat warned in from Time in Time of Aurepay by thor ledes, to He by the Tirs of our commun Kindred to drow thele L'lurpatiunt, lica caled to their native Juffice and Magnanimity, and we have conjund the te has called together Legifiatowe Bodies at Maces unufual, uncomfor-ould inevitably szuper Conftions and Corpondence. They, 100 We mu have been deaf to the Voice of Juftice and of Confanguinity. therefore, acquince in the Neceffay which denunces our Separation, and and dusur trom the Depolitory of their public Records, for the fore Parnic fatiguing them into Compihance with bis Mcafures. lisa Adund Reprefentative Llousea repeareilly, for opponing with holdahem, as we hold the rea of Mankind, Eremies in Wer, in Peace.) manly Firmach his lovelions on the Rights of the People. We, therefore, the Reprefentaurs of the UNITED STATES OF be elected, whereby the Leg-lative Powers, incapable of Aonitulation, AMERICA, in CENTRAL CONGRESS affembled, appealing to the ing is then to the people at large for their extrcile, the State remain Supreme Judge of the World for the Refrade of our Intentione, do in the have returned Dst, and Coffvulfions within. me expofed to all the Dangers of lavation from with. Nam and by the Authority of the good People of thefe Colonies, folemnly Publish and Declare, Thai thefe United Colonics are, and of Right eight He has endeavoured top to prevent the population of chefe States; for that Porpole to be FATA AND INDEPENDENT STATES, that they are abfolved from otrofing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners, sefuling to par orbors all Allegiance to the Brith Crown, and that all pohtical Connetion here Love Migacions hither, and railing the Conditions of no- and that as FALE AND INDEPENDENT STATEL, they have full Pow to them and the State of Great Bris, and ought to be really didiert, Laws for elabiding Judiciary Powers His bas kops among us, in Them of Peace, Sunding Armin, without the Ho ba silated to reader the Military indupundent of and foperior the cwid Power. He has combined with others to fubjoin foreign to not Caption, and unscknow banged by Darlene; gred his Allen AMERICA Boston, Printed by JOHN GILL and POWARS and WILLIS, in Queengrass. BROADSIDE OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. On January 2, 1824, a letter from John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, was read in the House of Representatives, stating that a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, as executed August 2, 1776, had been made by his direction, and two hundred copies struck off. A joint resolution was afterward passed providing for their distribution to various public institutions and to each of the surviving signers of the original document. These were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The engraver was William I. Stone, of Washington. The ink of the August 2, 1776, parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence showing signs of fading, in February, 1894, it was taken from the frame where it had hung many years in the State Department, Washington, placed between sheets of glass and sealed in hermetically, to be kept in a narrow drawer which slides in a steel vault, under heavy double doors locked by a combination, within a cabinet of the State Department. The original "copy" as to text and signatures has almost faded away (1903), practically no more than a large sheet of parchment. Part of the large words "Declaration of Independence" are decipherable, but not a signature visible to the naked eye. Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration, with insertions in the handwriting of Franklin and John Adams, is still exposed to public view; the ink has not faded. The bell in the steeple of the State House, that rang out the announcement of the adoption of the "Declaration," by a peculiar coincidence bore the inscription, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." The Declaration was the composition of Thomas Jefferson, being written at his lodging house (Mrs. Clymer's), S. W. corner of Seventh and High streets, Philadelphia. A Supplemental Declaration. In the year 1826, after all save one of the band of patriots whose signatures are borne on the Declaration of Independence had descended to the tomb, and the venerable Carroll alone remained among the living, the government of the city of New York deputed a committee to wait on the illustrious survivor and obtain from him, for deposit in the public hall of the city, a copy of the Declaration of 1776, graced and authenticated anew with his sign manual. The aged patriot yielded to the request, and affixed with his own hand, to a copy of that instrument, the grateful, solemn, and pious supplemental declaration which follows: "Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which through Jesus Christ our Lord, he has conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation, and on myself in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy to live to the age of eighty-nine years, and to survive the fiftieth year of American Independence, and certify by my present signature my approbation of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the Fourth of July, 1776, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer; I do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to remotest posterity and extended to the whole family of man. CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton. August 2, 1826. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. June 11, 1776. Committee appointed "to prepare and properly digest a form of confederation to be entered into by the several States." Committee: John Dickenson, Chairman; Josiah Bartlett, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, R. R. Livingston, Thos. McKean, Thos. Stone, Thos. Nelson, Jr., E. Rutledge, Button Gwinnett (one delegate from each State). July 12, 1776. Presentation of a draft of Articles of Confederation in the handwriting of Dickenson, based on Franklin's plan of confederation, as proposed to Congress, August 21, 1775. August 20, 1776. Report laid aside. April 8, 1777. "Articles" taken up for reconsideration. Meanwhile several States had adopted constitutions for their respective government, and Congress acknowledged as the practical supreme head in all matters appertaining to war, public finances, etc., it having emitted bills of credit, or paper money, appointed foreign ministers, and opened negotiations with foreign governments. November 15, 1777. The "Articles of Confederation," as hereinafter noted, laid before Congress and adopted. A copy to be sent to the speakers of the various State Legislatures to be laid before them for their action; accompanied by a communication in case of approval to instruct the delegates to vote for a ratification, which act should be final and conclusive. Action of States was slow, the Articles not seeming to accord with the sentiments of the people, as they were manifestly at variance with the Declaration of Independence; the latter based upon declared right, while the Articles were founded on asserted power. System of representation objectionable, because whatever the difference in population each State entitled to the same voice in Congress; also the limits of the several States, and the unadjusted control or possession of the crown lands. June 22, 1778. Objection of the States to the Articles considered by Congress. June 26, 1778. Form of ratification adopted, to be signed by such delegates as so instructed by their legislatures. July 9, 1778. Delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina signed. The action of New York conditioned that all the other States should ratify. July 21, 1778. Delegates of North Carolina signed. July 24, 1778. Delegates of Georgia signed. November 26, 1778. Delegates of New Jersey signed. May 5, 1779. Delegates of Delaware signed. March 1, 1781. Delegates of Maryland signed. Maryland was slow to ratify, owing to the conflicting claims of the Union and of the separate States to the crown land, the claim of the States to the unsettled and unappropriated lands finally being ceded to the benefit of the whole Union, Maryland empowered her delegates to sign. Maryland's claim to the full meaning of a Confederation originated the Territorial System, resulting in a distinct government for the "Northwestern Territory," with a local Legislature of its own. (See Cessions of Western Land," in Index.) Four years and four months after the Articles were adopted by Congress, they became the organic law of the Union. March 2, 1781. Congress assembled under the new powers of "The Articles of Confederation." |