The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1908-07-02
THOUGHTS FOR
THE FOURTH OF July.
CONTINUED from page one. }

tanned. apd when SO suspended he has
utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws
for the accommodation of large dis
tricts of people, unless those people
would relinQuish the right of represen-
tation in the Legislature, a right ines
Unable to them and formidable to ty-
rants only.
He has called together legislative
bodies at places unusual, uncomfort-
able and distant from the depository
of their public records, for the sole pur-
pose 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 dissoiutions, to cause others to be
elected, whereby the legislative powers,
incapable of humiliation, have return
ercise. 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 States, for that
purpose obstructing the laws for natur-
alization of foreigners, refusing to pass
OlneTS 10 encourage tHeir HiiSIdtois'
hither, and raising the conditions of
new appropriations of lands.
He has INSTRUCTED the administration
of justice by refusing his assent to laws
for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on
his will alone for the tenure of their
offices and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
He has erected multitude of new
It, L. Nf sNttt-
GERS to harass our people and eat out
their substance.
He has kept among us in times OF
peace standing armies without the con-
sent of our Legislature.
He has affected to render the mill
tary independent of and superior to
the civil power
He has combined with others 10 sub
ject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
Constitution and unacknowledt;ed by
our laws, giving his assent a. their
acts of pretended legislation;
For quartering large bodies of armed
troops among us;
For protecting them by a 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;
Il VI ihiPossiii5 eshAto oii 10
our consent;
For depriving us in many cases of
the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyord seas to
be tried for pretended offenses;
For aboIishing the free system of
English laws IN a neighboring Prov
ince, establishing therein an arbitrary
Government, and enlarging its bound
aries so as to render it at once an ex-
,plo inc at introduce
ing 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 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
cur coasts, burnt our towns and de-
stroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large
armies of foreign mercenaries TO COM
plete the works of death, desolation
and tyranny already begun with cir
cumstances of cruelty and perhdy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbar-
Gus ages and totally unworthy the head
of a civilized Nation.
He has constrained our fellow-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 insurrec-
tions amongst us, and has endeavored
to bring on the inhabitants of our from
tiers the merciless Indian savages.
whose known rule Of warfare is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes and conditions.
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 char
acter is thus marked by every act
which. may define a tyrant. IS unfit to
be the ruler Of free people.
Nor have we been wanting in atten-
lions to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of at
tempts by their,. Legislature to extend
an unwarrantablc jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the cir
cumstaHces of our emigration and set
Element here We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity,
and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred TO disavow
these usurpations. which would inevita-
bly, interrupt our connections and cor
respoadence. They. too. have been
deaf to the voice of justice and OF con-
sanguinity We must therefore acqui-
esce in the necessity, which denounces
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 rectitude of our intentions, do, in
the name and by authority of the good
people of these Colonies, solemnly pub
lsh and declare that these United Col
onies are, and of right 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
totally dissolved, and that as free and
independent States they have full
power to levy war, conclude peace, con-
tract 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 a firm reliance on the protection
of Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our for
tunes and our sacred honor.
SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION.
Some Weeks After the Adoption.
If tn