4 A
❘
FRIDAY EDITION
❘ JULY 3, 2015
RYAN CRONK , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
Siuslaw News
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
DEAR READERS:
Office closed
Opinion
Declaration of Independence
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
T
he Siuslaw News office is closed today
in observance of the holiday. Have a
safe and happy Fourth of July. —Editor
I N R EMEMBRANCE
AND
C ELEBRATION
OF
O UR F IRST I NDEPENDENCE D AY
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 dis-
solve the political bands which have con-
nected 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 organiz-
ing 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 caus-
es; 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 dis-
tricts of people, unless those people
would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a
right inestimable to them and formi-
dable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative
bodies at places unusual, uncomfort-
able, and distant from the depository
of their public Records, for the sole
purpose of fatiguing them into com-
pliance 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 oth-
ers 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 with-
in.
He has endeavoured to prevent the
population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refus-
ing 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 unacknowl-
edged 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, abol-
ishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of
our Governments:
For
suspending
our
own
Legislatures, and declaring them-
selves invested with power to legis-
late 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, desola-
tion and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most bar-
barous 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 insurrec-
tions amongst us, and has endeav-
oured to bring on the inhabitants of
our frontiers, the merciless Indian
Savages, whose known rule of war-
fare, is an undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We
have Petitioned for Redress in the most hum-
ble 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 legisla-
ture to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction
over us. We have reminded them of the cir-
cumstances 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 correspon-
dence. 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.
L ETTERS TO THE
E DITOR P OLICY
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Write to:
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USPS# 497-660 Copyright 2015 © Siuslaw News
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Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us