July 4, 2008

History Department

Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor

Other people are doing this, and I think it's a good idea. Read at least a little of it:

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.

Leave a comment


Important note: Due to a flood of spam, I've set the comment filter to mercilessly delete comments that mention the names of certain high-end designer fashion items. So don't mention anything like that if you want your comment to survive.


About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Mark Draughn published on July 4, 2008 10:15 AM.

The Relative Importance of DUI and National Security was the previous entry in this blog.

Last Night's Fireworks is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Find us on Facebook

Unless you request otherwise, we will assume all messages are for publication and attribution.

Red links are Not Safe For Work NSFW.

Mark

About Mark

PGP key

Visit Mark on MySpace

Ken

About Ken

Gary

About Gary

Joel

Article Syndication

Libertarian-ish

Hit & Run
Cataloguing every inch of our daily slide down the slippery slope towards a more totalitarian state.
Virgina Postrel
Author, columnist, and famous kidney doner.
The Agitator
Radley Balko, libertarian at large.
Nobody's Business
A blog about negative liberty.
Ravings of a Feral Genius
The one, the only, Jennifer.
Honest Courtesan
Notes from a retired call girl.

Bloggy Goodness

Duly Noted
Yet another Lindsay Beyerstein blog.
InstaPundit
Law professor, author, columnist, music engineer, the founding father of the blogosphere.
StrategyPage
News and commentary on all things military.
Last One Speaks
A complicated woman with simple tastes.
Ethics Alarms
Jack Marshall at large.

War on Drugs

StoptheDrugWar.org
Taking the drug war debate to the blogosphere
DrugWar Rant
More reasons every week for hating the War on Drugs.
DUI Blog
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and patrolled by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The D'Alliance
The Drug Policy Alliance blog.
Vigil for Lost Promise
A counterweight to the DEA's exploitive site.

Blawgs

a Public Defender
Rants, explanations, and complaints from a public defender.
Simple Justice
Rants, explanations, and complaints from a private lawyer.
Defending People
The art and science of criminal defense trial lawyering
Probable Cause
The legal blog with the really low standard of review.
Unwashed Advocate
Former Military Underdog
Indefensible
David Feige, creator of Raising the Bar and former public defender.
Koehler Law Blog
Don't be fooled by how pretty it is
Not Guilty
A lawyer in search of a clue.
Norm Pattis
Norm will fight for you!
The Legal Satyricon
Entertainment and First Amendment Law
Gamso - For the Defense
An Ohio criminal defense lawyer
Criminal Defense
It's like a criminal defense blog, but from Florida
ECILCrime
East Central Illinois criminal defense.
Underdog Blog
Criminal defense, politics, and God only knows what else.
CrimLaw
A big, goofy, ballcap-wearing prosecutor who even likes dogs. [review]
Blonde Justice
Funny stories about criminal defense.
Crime & Federalism
Legal analysis and bitching. [review]
Seeking Justice
Tom McKenna, Virginia prosecutor on a mission from God.
The Volokh Conspiracy
Smart legal experts.
D.A. Confidential
Making prosecutors seem just like normal lawyers
Crime and Consequences Blog
Because we're just not punishing people enough
Graham Lawyer Blog
Interesting writing about the law.
New York Personal Injury Law Blog
Better than you'd think from the SEO-friendly name
West Virginia Criminal Law Blog
Also better than you'd think from the SEO-friendly name
South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog
And one more that's better than you'd think from the SEO-friendly name

Geek Stuff

Schneier on Security
Smart thinking about computers and other security problems.
The Daily WTF
Crazy stories about bad things inside computer software and how they got there.
xkcd
Extremely geeky comics.
Google Blogoscoped
Smart writing about search engine technology.
The Altruist
Agony Unleashed in EVE Online.

Economics

Steven Landsburg
The Armchair Economist
Greg Mankiw's Blog
Aurhor of the most popular macroeconomics textbook
Marginal Revolution
Everything happens in the margins
Megan McArdle
Business and economics

Photography

Strobist
How to light everything in the world with speedlights
iN-PUBLiC.com
Very cool modern street photography.
Digital Photography Review
Detailed reviews of digital cameras and vicious forum debates too.
Ken Rockwell
Strong opinions about photography.
Dan Heller
Photographs and the business of photography.
Bert P. Krages II
Photography and the law.

Chicagoland

Leslie's Omnibus
I have no idea what this blog is about.
Marathon Pundit
John Ruberry runs, drives, and blogs.

Media

Eric Zorn
Possibly the Chicago Tribune's first blogger.
Miss Manners
A marvelous writer and deeper than you think.
Roger Ebert's Journal
A great writer and a useful film critic.

Resources

WolframAlpha
Data + Computation = Fun Knowledge.
Institute for Justice
A merry band of libertarian litigators.
EFF: Bloggers
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's page for bloggers.
CIA World Factbook
A brief summary about every nation.
Wikipedia
The mostly-useful encyclopedia of everything.
Current Impact Risks
It has to happen some day.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Peter McWilliams
Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do

Web Rings

Credits

Copyright  ©  2002-2011 Mark Draughn. All rights reserved.

Site developed by
Draughn Software Corporation

Powered by Movable Type 4.261
Version 4.261

Downtown Host

Social networking tags courtesy of the Sociotags for Movable Type plugin by Ole Wolf.

Chicago lakefront image by Ken Gibson.

Admin

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional

Valid CSS

ICRA

Statistics

Claim Your Avvo Profile