for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within.*

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 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.T

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

* This was the case in regard to the Assemblies of New York and Massachusetts, which were dissolved by royal authority, and not permitted to re-assemble for several months, the States in the meantime being in great peril of" invasion from without, and convulsions within."

The king dreaded the increasing power of the colonies, as well as the advance of democratic ideas in them. The German immigration was especially checked by obstacles and discouragements. By the Act of 1774, Massachusetts was deprived of its own judiciary, the judges being appointed by the king.

§ The salaries of the judges were paid under the royal authority, from moneys obtained from the people.

The passage of the Stamp Act, and the other similar acts, gave rise to the appointment of swarms of tax-collectors, etc.

The armies employed in the French and Indian War were continued in the colonies after the treaty of 1763.

** Thus General Gage, a military commander, was made governor of Massachusetts; and the military were employed to enforce the Boston Port Bill.

The Board of Trade was created to act independently of colonial legislation, and almost absolute power was conferred on the king.

#Large forces were levied and sent over by vote of the English Parliament, to control the inhabi

tants.

any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;*

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;f
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit 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 neighboring 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 powers of our governments;**

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.tt

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.§§

* In 1768, some mariners were tried in Annapolis, Md., for the murder of two citizens, and in the face of clear proof of their guilt were acquitted. Similar instances occurred in other places.

+ Such had been the result of the Navigation Acts. The British navy was also employed to break

up the colonial trade with the French and Spanish West Indies.

Such as the Stamp duties, the tax on paper, painters' colors, tea, etc.

§ In trials for violations of the revenue laws, under the Commissioners of Customs, the accused were not allowed the benefit of a jury.

Persons charged with riot, resistance to the magistrates, might, by a law passed in 1774, be transported to Great Britain or other places, for trial.

The law of 1774 (referred to on p. 162), abolished the popular legislature in Canada, and appointed royal officers to make laws for the province, except to raise taxes. This gave the British a firm hold of Canada, and enabled them to use it to advantage against the colonies during the Revolution: hence the efforts of Congress to gain possession of that province in 1775.

Other officers

**This was done in the case of the judiciary of Massachusetts, already referred to. besides judges were made dependent on the crown, in opposition to the chartered rights of the people. + After the dissolution of the colonial legislatures, before mentioned, several of the governors presumed to legislate arbitrarily for the colonies, giving to their proclamations the force of laws.

# The king, in 1775, declared the colonies in open rebellion; and he sanctioned the acts of the governors in employing Indian warfare against them. He also employed German mercenaries to war against them. In these acts he abdicated the proper functions of government, and placed the colonies beyond the pale of his protection.

§§ These acts were performed by the naval commanders. Charlestown was burned by the British fleet.

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and 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.t

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored 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.t

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 attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made 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 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

* This is covered. in a general way, in the article already referred to.

The crews of American ships captured by the British, were, by Act of Parliament, treated not

as prisoners of war, but as slaves, and were impressed into the king's service.

Dunmore, in Virginia, endeavored to excite the slaves to rise against their masters. The Indians were, under instructions from the British ministry, instigated by several of the colonial gover nors to attack the colonists. Dreadful massacres were the consequence.

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 the 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.

The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members:

JOHN HANCOCK.

Thomas Stone,

Charles Carroll, of Carrollton

Virginia.
George Wythe,
Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr.,
Francis Lightfoot Lee,
Carter Braxton.

North Carolina.
William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes,
John Penn.

South Carolina.
Edward Rutledge,

Thomas Heyward, Jr.,

Thomas Lynch, Jr.,
Arthur Middleton.

Georgia.
Button Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall,
George Walton.

Debate in Congress on the Declaration.

H. S. Randall.

1. "THE Great Charter" did not pass that body without encountering a fiery ordeal. The steadiness and force of the resistance it encountered, Mr. Jefferson afterwards compared to "the ceaseless action of gravity weighing upon us by night and by day." He did not attempt to say a word for it himself, thinking "it a duty to be on that occasion a passive auditor of the opinions of others, more impartial judges than he could be of its merits or demerits."

2. But this passiveness does not appear to have entirely embraced his feelings. Several passages in his writings show that he felt with natural sensibility the sharp attack on both the matter and form of his intellectual progeny'. In one of these he says: "During the debate I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, and he observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms of some of its parts; and it was on that occasion that, by way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thompson, the hatter, and his new sign."

3. But the calm pulse kept pretty good time! The pocket account-book, the meteorological' table, etc., all show that the usual precise routine of matters was neither overlooked nor disturbed during the three days of the galling debate. John Adams was the great champion of the Declaration on the floor, indulging in none of the milk-and-honey criticisms of his Pickering letter (about the "personality" of George III., a

The following is the incident, as related by Franklin: "When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words: John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,' with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to, thought the word hatter tautologous, because followed by the words 'makes hats,' which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word 'makes' might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words for ready money' were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, ‘John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells hats!' says his next friend; 'why, nobody will expect you to give them away; what then is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and hats' followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John Thompson,' with the figure of a hat subjoined."