On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress receives and votes on the draft Declaration of Independence, produced over the last 17 days by the “Committee of Five” who were tasked to explain clearly and completely the rationale for the thirteen English colonies’ formal and irrevocable break with the mother country. The committee consisted of John Adams (MA), Benjamin Franklin (PA), Thomas Jefferson (VA), Robert Livingston (NY), and Roger Sherman(CT). Jefferson, as we all know, provided the bulk of the draft, including the stirring preamble and the intellectual underpinnings describing a free people creating a self-governing society. The vote on this day was 12 in favor and one abstention (NY- the government of which was nominally opposed to independence, but allowed for its delegation to abstain pending lack of instructions from Albany). The political maneuvering and deal-making had been going on since early June when Virginian Richard Henry “Light Horse” Lee submitted the first- very terse– resolution of independence, from which the Committee of Five based much of their work. The Congress spent the next two days modifying the text of the Declaration, including removing a significant section on the British imposition of slavery, which bothered Jefferson greatly. The final version was approved and sent to the printers on the 4th. John Adams believed that July 2nd would be a day celebrated throughout history as our national birthday; he was mistaken. Below is the text of the great document:
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 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 Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish 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 effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, 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 a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a 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 a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; 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 relinquish 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 depository 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 a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed 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 a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a 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 a mock Trial, from punishment 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 Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits 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 neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, 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, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering 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 our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He 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.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances 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 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 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 publish and declare, That these United Colonies 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, 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 a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
This following was posted today on the website of the 2/12 Infantry Regiment which I was a member of in Viet Nam in 1969.
It sort of sums up where we have gotten to since the beginning:
On July 4, 1776, The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress and Independence Day became a federal holiday in 1870
We celebrate the birthday of the United States with lots of parades, contests, concerts, fireworks and flying of the American flag.
According to the International Business Time more than 150 million hotdogs will be eaten on July 4.
That’s enough Hot Dogs to stretch from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles five times.
We will also eat 700,000,000 pounds of chicken and spend $200 million on fireworks.
Happy birthday America!
All that is great, but the country I grew up in doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
The flag that once flew over our nation’s capital and the one that still flutters softly in the breeze on my property does not look the same as the flag you see in this picture in this article.
Instead of the flag being bright and bold as it waves and flutters in a stiff summer breeze, now looks worn, discolored and tired.
We used to be a nation that was governed by our Constitution and everyone says we live by the rule of law.
Instead we rule by emotion and are exposed to a complicit media corps that is failing miserably at its job.
Instead of seeking truth and justice and being a watchdog for the citizens of this country, it has become politicized and the weapon for advancing social justice, the erosion of our democracy, and the creation of a country with open borders.
Like the Roman Empire, we’re descending into the abyss, having lost our way in understanding the guarantees our founding fathers laid out for us.
The truth is an inconvenience for the establishment.
The only thing that matters today is holding on to power.
The citizen is just an afterthought and someone who is just getting in the way.
Hardly anyone knows what to do anymore when the national anthem is played.
We don’t face the flag, take off our hats, place our hand over our heart, and stand at attention or salute if we are military.
No, how can we possibly be doing that when we have our cell phones in our hands texting?
Paying homage to our nation and its flag during the playing of the anthem is the only thing that matters at that moment in time.
The rhetoric on display when you turn on your TV today is enough to make any sane man want to go live in a cave.
Everyone has an agenda and everyone has an opinion and very few people really speak the truth and certainly facts simply can’t get in the way of that conversation.
Why if it did, the ratings would go down.
I keep hoping that we will come to our senses and Congress will grow up and start acting like Statesmen and adults instead of the hypocrites they have gotten to be so good at.
For those of us who have worn the uniform, we seem to see our country through an entirely different lens.
Being a patriot and a veteran means we bleed red, white and blue.
I pray that our politicians will put their “big boy pants” on real soon before we look anymore like Europe and start fixing what’s broke for America’s sake and not for the blue or red party they owe their elected seat to.
Happy 4th of July everyone.
May it be one free of protests and discontent and instead be a robust celebration of our freedom and rights granted under the Constitution and those liberties we’re desperately trying to protect.
Except the Declaration of Independence did nothing to end tyranny, because there will always be tyrants, as this recent post of mine in a local community newsletter makes clear, to wit:
“ON TYRANNY”
On July 4, 1776, the people who were to become known to history as the original citizens of the United States of America did something unprecedented in the history of the world – they called out the King of England as a tyrant to the candid world.
In that July 4th Address to the candid world known to history as the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers stated as follows with respect to tyranny, to wit:
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 a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
End quotes
And today, the history of the present King of Poestenkill, Dominic Jacangelo, is once again a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over this Town.
In the Town of Poestenkill, we, the people are once again faced with the despotism of a tyrant, this one named King Dominic, the first of his name, who has refused his Assent to OUR Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good, which once again brings us back to these words from the Declaration of Independence, to wit: A Prince like Dominic Jacangelo whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people, because of his depraved indifference to human life and his callous disregard for the established rights and health and well-being of the citizens of the Town of Poestenkill.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul R. Plante