SUMMARY:
A. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
united States of America...
B. ... that all men are created equal,
... Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
C. ... by abolishing
the [governmental] forms to which they are accustomed.
D.
... it is their right, it is their duty ...
E.
and to provide new Guards for their future security.
F.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies...
A. We, therefore, ... solemnly publish
and declare.
B. That these United Colonies are, and of Right
ought to be Free and Independent States...
C. ... all political
connection ... be totally dissolved;
D.
... they have full Power ... to do all other Acts and Things
which Independent States may of right do.
E.
... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,
F.
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes,
and our sacred Honor.
DETAIL:
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
--
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
A. Declaration.
a. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America,
a. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
a. for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another,
b. and to assume among the powers of the earth,
b. the separate and equal station to which
b. the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them,
a. decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
a. that they should declare the causes
a. which impel them to the separation.
B. All Men are Created Equal,
... Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
a. We hold these truths to be self-evident,
b. that all men are created equal,
b. that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
b. that among these are Life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of Happiness.
c. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men,
d. deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed.
c. That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends,
d. it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
e.
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form,
f.
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
C. Abolishing the [Governmental] Forms.
a. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
b. that Governments long established should not be
changed
c. for light and transient causes;
a. and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
b. that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable,
c. than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.
D. Their Right, Their Duty.
a. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
a. pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design
b. to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
c. it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such Government,
E. Their Future Secuity.
a. and to provide new Guards
b. for their future security.
F. Patient Sufferance.
a. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;
b. and such is now the necessity which
constrains them
c. to alter their former Systems of
Government.
[List
of Grievances]
A. Publish and Declare.
a. We, therefore,
a. the Representatives of the United States of America,
a. in General Congress, Assembled,
b. appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions,
a. do, in the Name,
a. and by the authority of
a. the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare.
B. Free and Independent States.
a. That these United Colonies are,
b. and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
States;
c. that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown,
C. Political Connection ... Totally Dissolved.
a. and that all political connection between
them and the State of Great Britain is
b. and ought to be
c. totally dissolved;
D. May of Right Do.
a. and that as Free and Independent States,
b. they have full Power
c. to levy War, conclude Peace,
d. contract
Alliances, establish Commerce,
e.
and to do all other Acts and Things
f.
which Independent States may of right do.
E. Protection of Divine Providence.
a. And for the support of this Declaration,
b. with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence,
F. Lives ... Fortunes ... sacred Honor
a. we mutually pledge to each other our
Lives,
b. our Fortunes,
c. and our sacred Honor.
[List
of Names]
(For additional information on the A thru F pattern, see Davidic
Chiasmus and Parallelisms.)
List of Grievances
The history of the present King of Great Britain
[George III] 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 meantime 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 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 unacknowledged by our laws; giving
his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- 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 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.
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 British
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.
List of Names
The signers of the Declaration represented the new States
as follows:
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John
Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington,
William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis
Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin
Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James
Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, 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
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