On July 2nd, the Continental Congress composed of delegates from the 13 British colonies on the Atlantic coast voted to pass a resolution to declare independence. A committee led by Thomas Jefferson had already been drafting the document for weeks, and most of the colonies had individually voted to authorize their delegates to secede from empire.
The document deserves to be read in its entirety, especially because the complaints it makes can often be applied to our governments today. The American left is up in arms against Donald Trump, but blind to their own complicity in tyranny. The American right raged against Democrat overreach, but ignores their own party's abuse and overreach. Examine matters through the lens of liberty, not partisanship, and we might make progress again.
It was was written by hand on a sheet of parchment with few paragraph breaks, odd spellings, after editing by committee, and with what to our modern eyes is unconventional spelling. 250 years is a long time for language evolution. I am reproducing it here with a few annotations of my own, but you can see the National Archives scan and transcript of the original here.
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.
The introduction above is a statement of purpose describing the intent of the document.
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.鈥擳hat to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,鈥擳hat 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.
This preamble is a statement of the philosophical grounds for complaints against, and separation from, English authority. The colonists had objected for years that their rights as Englishmen were being systematically violated by Parliament and the Crown. This was based on the general understanding of how matters should stand between a ruler and subject based on Magna Carta, the English Civil War, and the enlightenment era philosophy of the day.
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 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 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 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 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.
The section above is commonly called the Indictment, and briefly lists a summary of complaints which can be explored in greater depth by reading accounts from the era. These are also disturbingly similar to complaints people have against Washington, D.C. today.
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.
This declaration did not appear from nowhere. Conflict had been simmering since the French and Indian War, sometimes considered the colonial front of the Seven Years War in Europe. Petitions had been passed back and forth across theAtlantic for years, with colonists claiming violations of their rights while the English government claimed supreme authority to do what it pleased.
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.
The final denunciation follows from the philosophy, complaints, and lack of redress detailed previously.
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.
A repeat of the ideas from the introduction and preamble concludes the Declaration of Independence.
The final draft was approved on July 4th, 1776, which established the date for Independence Day in the United States of America. Some delegates signed it that day, but others did not until August 2nd, or perhaps later. Broadsides were printed and distributed as early as July 5th and 6th. Transatlantic delays meant copies did not reach England until much later, but British newspapers printed copies of the declaration by mid-August.
I should note here that war had already been waged for over a year. The battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in early 1775. British military actions to seize arms and ammunition sparked all of those simmering resentments into open conflict, and colonial governors and military officials refused to back down from the resistance of citizen militias. The Continental Congress was formally stating what the common people in the colonies had already decided and acted upon.
Today, the fashionable belief is often to condemn the founders. They were imperfect people, but society advances slowly. For example, Jefferson had wanted to condemn Britain for introducing slavery to the colonies as one of his charges against the King. southern interests wanted to maintain slavery, and northerners in shipping had profited by transporting slaves, so this contentious issue was dropped. For all his personal faults on the matter, he was at least approaching abolition by degrees. Other founders chose manumission to avoid the obvious contradiction. We also know many colonial women were incredibly influential behind the scenes despite legal hurdles for their gender and the debates over who could have a vote. What similar blind spots do we have today when we assume we have achieved such great advances?
The Declaration was a step in the process of independence. The War for Independence ended with 13 new nations in a new confederacy with new challenges to face. Independence from British rule is one of the most widespread holidays in the world as that empire continued to crumble. Nonetheless, we still have authoritarian overlords seeking to rule us without our consent, and the deeper war for freedom continues. Hopefully we can wage it with words and reason, not bullets and bombs, but keep your powder dry just in case.
Image credit: Wikimedia
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