Alexandria gazette & advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1822-1824, 1824-07-03

Iee, py refusing ais assent 20 Id" ioA Sssao
fishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his villa
lone, for the tenure Of their Offices, and the
mount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected multitude of new offices.
our people and eat out their substance.
He has Kept among us, IN time of peace,
standing armies, without the consent of our
Legislatures.
He has affected to render the military indie
pendendent of, andsuperior to. the civil power.
He has combined with others, to subject us
to jurisdictions, foreign to our Constitution.
and unacknowledgedb by our laws giving his
assent to theiracts Of pretended legislation
For quartering large bodies of armed troops
among U.S.
For protecting them, by 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 ofthe
world
For imposing taxes on US without our con-
sent:--
For depriying us in many cases, of the bene.
fits oftriai by jury
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried
for pretended -offences:-
For abolishing the free system of English
law in neighboring province, establishing
therein an arbitrary government, and enlarg-
ing It's 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, a6olishlng
our most valuable laws, and altering fundamen-
tally the forms of our governments
For suspendng our own Legislatures. and
declaring themselves invested with power, to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by de-
claring us out of his protection, and waging
war against us.
He has plunde:ed our seas, ravsged 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 be-
gun, with circumstances of cruelty and peril
dy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous
ages. and totally unworthy the head Of civil
VIZ ed nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens, ta-
ken captive on the high seas, to bear arms a.
gainst their country, to become the execution.
srs of their friends and brethren, or to fall them
selves by their hands.
He has excited domestic instructions a,
mongst US, and has endeavored to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless In
dian savages, whose kown rule of warfare IS
an undistinguished destruction of all ages, SEX
es, and conditions.
In every stage of these expressions, we have
pettioned for redress, in the most humble
terms: our petitions have been answered only
by repeated injury. A prince whose character
is thus marked, by every act, which may de-
fine s'tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of free
people
British brethen. We have warned them,
from time to time, of attempts made by their
legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurls
diction ever us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and set
tlement here. We have appealed to their ma
tive Justice and magnanimity, and we have
coniured them by the ties of our common kim
dred, to disavow these usurpatioas, 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-ene-
mics in war in peace, friends.
WE, therefore, the Representatives of the
United States of America, in General Con-
gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme
Judge OF the world, for the rectitude OF our
intentions, Do, in the name and by the autho-
rity of the good People of these colonies, so.
lemuly publish and declare, that these United
Colonies are, and ofright 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 to-
tally dissolved and that, as free and ,ndepen-
dent states, they have full power to levy war;