The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1876-07-06

For suspending our own legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for rs 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 de-
stroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large
armies of foreign mercenaIies, to COM
plete the works of death, desolation, and
tyranny, already begun, with circum-
stances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely
| paralleled in the most barbarous ages,
and totally unworthy the head of civil
| lied nation.
lie 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.
Ea has excited domestic insurrections
among us, and has endeavored to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
merciless Indian savages, whose known
rule of warfare is an undistinguis he'd
destruction of all ages, sexes, and con-
ditions.
In every stage of these expressions,
we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms. Our repeated pc
titions have been answered only by re-
peated injury. A prince whose charac-
ter is thus marked by every act which
may define tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler Of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in atten-
| tions to our British brethren. We have
warned them, from time to time, OF at
tempts by their Legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We
| have reminded them of the circumstan-
ees 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 COM
mon kindred, to disavow these usurpa-
tions, which would inevitably interrupt
our connection 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 man
kind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore. the representatives of
the United States of America, in gener-
al congress assembled, appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world, for the
rectitude of our intentions, do, in the
name of the authority of the good peo-
pie 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 alb
solved 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 dis
solved and that, as free and indepen-
nent 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
on the protection of Divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred
/ honI.r. JOHN HANCOCK.
NcaO Hampshire. James Smith,
| Josiah Bartlett, George Taylor,
William Whipple, James Wilson,
Matthew Thornton. George Ross.
Massachusetts Bay Delaao0re.
Samuel Adams, Cesar Rodney,
John Adams, George Read
Robert L. Paine, Thomas NJ 'Kean.
Elbridge Gerry. Atnrylapd.
Rhode Island, dc. Samuel Chase,
Stephen Hopkins, William Paca,
William Ellcry. Thomas Stone,
Connecticut Charles Carroll.
Roger Sherman, Virginia.
Sam1. Huntington, George Wythe,
William Williams, Richard Henry Lee,
Oliver Wolcott. Thomas Jefferson,
| NelO York. benjamin Harrison,
William Floyd, Thomas Nelson, jr.
Philip Livingston, Francis l.. Lee,
Francis Lewis, Carter Braxton,
Lewis Morris. NORTH Carolina.
NeaO Jersey. William Hooper,
Richard Stockton, Joseph Hewes,
John Witherspoon, John Penn.
Francis Hopkinson, South Carolina.
John Hart, Edward Rutledge,
Abraham Clark. Thos. Hayward, jr.
Pennsylvania. Thomas Lynch, Ir.,
Robert Morris, Arthur Middleton.
Benjamin Rush, Georgia.
Benjamin Franklin, Button Gwinnett,
John Morton, Lyman Hall,
George Clymer, George Walton.