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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (July 2, 2020)
Opinion 4A Thursday, July 2, 2020 The Observer OUR VIEW Declaration of Independence stands the test of time t was 244 years ago, in 1776, that 13 British colonies in North America declared their independence. In recent years many of the men who became known as the Founding Fathers have come under disrepute because their personal lives fell short of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That should not render those ideals hollow. Some have suggested that because the country has failed to live up to the declaration’s ideals, it is somehow illegiti- mate. We think not. Saints and sinners, citi- zens and countries — all are flawed, all redeemable. While the declaration is not a legal document, such as the United States Constitution, it stands the test of time, its ideas just as relevant today as in 1776. We print it here in its orig- inal language. You be the judge. • • • In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declara- tion 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 opin- ions 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 Cre- ator with certain unalien- able 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 con- sent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Gov- ernment becomes destruc- tive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Govern- ment, laying its founda- I tion 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 dic- tate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and tran- sient causes; and accord- ingly 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 accus- tomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- tions, 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 pro- vide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffer- ance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The his- tory of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usur- pations, 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 whole- some and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless sus- pended in their opera- tion 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 accom- modation 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 deposi- tory of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compli- ance with his measures. He has dissolved Rep- resentative Houses repeat- edly, for opposing with manly firmness his inva- sions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolu- tions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legis- lative 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 pur- pose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of For- eigners; 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 Judi- ciary 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 multi- tude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Offi- cers to harass 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 unac- knowledged 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 pun- ishment 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 Prov- ince, 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 Gov- ernment 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 trans- porting large Armies of for- eign Mercenaries to com- pleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circum- stances of Cruelty & per- fidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Cap- tive 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 merci- less Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruc- tion of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Peti- tioned 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 British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their leg- islature to extend an unwar- rantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and mag- nanimity, and we have con- jured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and corre- spondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of jus- tice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acqui- esce in the necessity, which denounces our Separa- tion, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Rep- resentatives of the united States of America, in Gen- eral Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our inten- tions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colo- nies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Inde- pendent States; that they are Absolved from all Alle- giance to the British Crown, and that all political con- nection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dis- solved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Com- merce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the sup- port of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Provi- dence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
