Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/434

 policy as well as justice, demanded that the war should no longer be a contest between subjects and their acknowledged sovereign, and it was of the first consequence, that the position assumed by our fathers, on this memorable occasion, should have all the moral force arising from the fact that they now stood before the world as a free and in dependent people, resolved to peril their lives and their all in defence of the liberties which were their birth-right and their inalienable possession However dark the prospect was before them then; and, in view of all the circumstances, however uncertain the issue might have appeared; we, their children, cannot doubt that the Declaration of Independence was rightly and necessarily made, and we can—as every honest lover of his country does—bless that it was made when, and as, it was.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Jefferson has preserved a copy of the original draft, as reported by the Committee, with the amendments made to it by Congress, which has been published in his correspondence. The following is extracted from that work.