The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1862-07-03
DECLA LARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE.
JULY 4th, I776.

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THRrEE,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED
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 natures God
entitled them, decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that the Y
should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self evi
dent: that all men are created equal
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights; tha,
among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness; that, to secnre
these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed that,
whenever any form of government be-
comes destructive to these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or abol-
ish 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 eff
feet their safety and happiness. Pru-
dence, indeed, will dictate that govern
ments long established should not be
changed for ight and transient causes
and, accordingly, all experience hath
shown 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 long train of abuses and
usurpation, pursuing invariably the
same object, evinces 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. 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 candid
world -
He has refused his assent to laws the
most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
lie has forbidden his governors to
pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his assent should be OBJ
tanned; 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
relinqnish 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 repository 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 long time after
such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected; whereby the legislative pow
ers, incapable of anniliation, have re-
turned to the people at large for their
exercise-the state remaining, in the
meantime, exposed to all the dangers
of invasion from without and convul
sions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the
population of these estates-forth that pur-
pose obstructing the laws of neutraliza.
tion of foreigners, refusing to pass,
others to encourage their migration
hither, and raising the conditions of
new appropriations of lands.
i He has obstructed the administra-
ton of Justice, by refusing his assent
to laws for establishing judiciary pow
ers.
He has made judges dependent on
his will alone for the tenure of their
offices and the amount and payment of
tlelr salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new
offices, and sent hither swarms of off.
GERS to harrass our people and eat out
their substance.
! He has kept among US, in times oi
peace, standing armies, without the
consent Of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the mill.
tary independent of, and superior to
the civil power.
Ee has combined with others to sub.
ject 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 punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the in
habitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all
parts of the world
For imposing taxes on US without oul
consent;
i For depriving us, in many cases, Of
the benefits of trial by Jury;