The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1862-07-03
NUMBER II.

For transporting us beyond seas to
be tried for pretended offences -
For abolishing the free system of
English laws in neighboring province
establishing therein an arbitrary gov
ernment, 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, abol-
ishIng our most valuable laws, and al
tering. fundamentally, the forms of our
governments;
For suspending our own legislatures.
and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for US in all casea
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 de-
stroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large
armies of foreign mercenaries 10 COM
plete the works of death, desolation,
and tyranny, already begun with cir.
cumstances of cruelty and perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbar-
Gus ages, and totally unworthy the head
of civilized natien.
He has constrained our feIlow-citi-
zens, taken captive on the high seas, to-
bear arms against their country, to be-
come the executioners of their friends
and brethren, or to fall themselves by
their hands.
He has excited domestic incurred.
tions among us, and has endeavored to
bring on the inhabitants of our from
tiers the merciless Indian savages.
whose known rule of warfare is an un-.
distinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these expressions.
we have petitioned for redress in the
mosthumble terms. Our repeated peti-
tions have been answered only by re-
peated injury. A prince, whose char.
acter is thus marked by every act which
may define tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler of free people.
Nor have we been wanting in atten.
tions to our British brethren. We
have warned them, from time TO time.
of attempts, by their Legislature, to ex-
tend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction
over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here. We have ap-
pealed to their native justice and mag
nanimity, and we have conjurcd 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 de-
nounces our separation, and hold them
as we hold the rest of mankind, enc.
mics in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of
the United States of America, in gen.
eral Congress assembled, appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the World for
the rectitude of our intention, do, in
the name, and by the authority of the
good people of these colonies, solemnly.
publish aud declare that these united
colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent states that they
are dissolved from all allegiance to tha
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 in.
dependent 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 for.
tunes, and our sacred honor.