Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/61

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, . A document proclaiming the independence of the thirteen English colonies in America, and finally agreed upon by the Continental Congress, July 4, 1776. Early in 1776 several delegates in Congress were directed by their constituencies to vote for independence. Such a vote would be, in some particulars, no more than a recognition of the existing state of affairs, for already there existed in several provinces a complete independence of England so far as the administrative system was concerned. As a result of advice given by the Continental Congress, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Carolina had early established commonwealth organizations entirely regardless of any connection with England. This organization of commonwealth governments on a permanent basis was strongly urged by John Adams, largely as a result of whose work the Continental Congress passed the resolutions of May 10 and 15, 1776, recommending to all of the colonies the formation of independent governments. This action was generally indorsed; and gradually the various States placed themselves on record as favoring the step which had now indeed become virtually inevitable—the declaration of their absolute independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress 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.” This motion was seconded by John Adams, but action thereon was deferred until July 1, and the resolution was passed on the following day. Two committees were appointed (on June 10), one to prepare a declaration, and the other to draw up a plan of confederation. On the declaration committee were Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston. They reported June 28, but action was delayed for several days. When the declaration finally came up for consideration, it was passed unanimously on July 4, by the delegates of twelve colonies, those representing New York not voting, since they had not as yet been authorized to support the movement for independence. On July 9, however, a New York convention formally pledged that State to support the Declaration. The document was engrossed on parchment in accordance with a resolution passed by Congress on July 19, and on August 2 was signed by the fifty-three members then present. Subsequently Matthew Thornton, Elbridge Gerry, and Thomas McKean also affixed their signatures. The Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and but very slightly changed from his copy. The document itself was assigned for safekeeping to the Department of State upon the organization of the National Government; was deposited in the Patent Office in 1841, when that office was a bureau in the Department of State; was returned to the Department of State in 1877; and in 1894, owing to the rapid fading of the text and the deterioration of the parchment, was withdrawn from exhibition and was carefully put away out of the light and air. A facsimile was made in 1823, by order of John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, for the original signers and their families, and it is from a copy

struck from the copper plate then made that the reproduction here given was obtained.

The text of the Declaration is as follows:

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 a 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 shown, 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