109. Officers of the Senate .. 110. Standing committees of the Senate... 111. Members of the House of Representatives.. 112. Directory of the House of Representatives 113. Officers of the House of Representatives... 114. Standing committees of the House of Representatives.... 622 115. Reporters and correspondents 116. Hotels and boarding houses. 1 1 WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all powers from the consent of the governed; that, laying its foundation on such principles, and perience 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 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 tvranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: He has refused his assent to law's 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 He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. measures. 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 danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration et justice. by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiiary 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 hitler swarmıs of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined, with others, to subject us to it 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 aniong 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 trail by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its bounderies, so as to render it at once an example and tit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamently, the powers 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 11s out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun, with cir. (-uumstances of cruelty and perfidly scarcely paral ) |