Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1826-07-04

gislatures.
He has affected to render the military indie
pendent Of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us
TO 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 mock-trial, from pu'
nishment 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 con-
sent:
For depriving us, in many cases, Of the be-
ne6,s 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 charging
its boundaries, so as to render it at once an ex-
ample and fit instrument for introducing the
same absolute rule into these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our
most valuable laws, and altering, fundamental
", the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and de-
claring themselves invested with power to le-
gisla,e for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by de-
claring us out of his protection, and wagiug
war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
coasts, burnt our townssand 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 perhdy,
scarcely paraleled in the most barbarous ages,
and totally unworthy the head Of a civilized
nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, TAX
en- captive on the high seas, to bear arms a.
eainst their country, to become the execution
ers of their friends and brethren, or 10 fall
themselves by their hands
He has excited domestic instructions a.
monest us, and has endeavored 10 bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless In
dian savages, whose known rule of warfare is
an undistinguished destruction Of all ages, SEX
30, end conditions.
In every stage of these expressions we have
.petitioned for redress in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions have been answered only
by repeated injury. A prince, whose charac'
ter is thus marked by every act which may de-
fine tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler OF free
people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to
our British brethren. We have warned them,
from time to time, of attempts by their legis-
lature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction
ever US. We have reminded them OF the cir
cumstances Of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native JUS
tice and magnanimity, and we have conJuied
them by the ties of our common kindred to
disavow these usur2ations, which would inevi-
tably interrupt our connexions and correspond
ence They too have been deaf to the voice OF
Justice and of consanguinity. We mus, there
fore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounc-
es 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 rec,itude Of our intentions,
do, in the name and by the authority OF the
good people of these colonies, solemnly pub
lish and declare, that these united colonies are,
and of right ought to be, free and independent
states, that they are absolved from all alleGi-
ance 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 aud 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 firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,
,,I our bonor