This
time we bring out the Declaration of Independence
as the main text of our Editorial. This is done
with a great admiration for the document without
which human history would have been incomplete.
We do not comment on it except that the signatories
were only thirteen states while the number of
the United States has increased by reason of addition,
confiscation, annexation, purchase and invasion;
we do not know whether these ways are really in
harmony with the spirit of the Declaration; also
that the earlier people of the American continent
are brought to naught by the fore runners, by
the contemporaries as also by the descendents
of the drafters of this declaration; and also
that the acts of the US today in world politics
is not in union with the spirit of the Declaration.
It is upto the readers to make comments.
We publish the Declaration with all reverence
due to it; a humanist, democrat, egalitarian cannot
but admire and revere the great document of human
liberties. It is written with a subtle analysis
of human nature and powerful upholding of popular
sovereignty. We are forced to admire the foresight
and farsightedness of the drafters of this document,
the foremost among them being Thomas Jefferson.
It has often been said that Thomas Jefferson upheld
liberty and always stood for human rights, while
Alexander Hamilton upheld order and always stood
for duties. Both are inherent in the draft.
We wish our readers to comment on this old, great
document of human liberties in the present context.
Declaration of Independence
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.
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