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 in 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 complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely parallelled 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 British 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 connexions 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 the 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 connexion 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. The foregoing declaration was, by order of congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members: New Hampshire. Josiah Bartlett, Connecticut. Roger Sherman, JOHN HANCOCK. Samuel Huntingdon, William Floyd, New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Robert Morris, Delaware Cesar Rodney, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll, of Virginia. South Carolina. IN CONGRESS, MAY 8, 1778. AN ADDRESS OF THE CONGRESS, TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Friends and Countrymen, THREE years have now passed away, since the commencement of the present war. A war without parallel in the annals of mankind. It hath displayed a spectacle. the most solemn that can possibly be exhibited. On one side, we behold fraud and violence labouring in the service of despotism; on the other, virtue and fortitude supporting and establishing the rights of human nature. You cannot but remember how reluctantly we were dragged into this arduous contest; and how repeatedly, with the earnestness of humble intreaty, we supplicated a redress of our grievances from him who ought to have been the father of his people. In vain did we implore his protection: in vain appeal to the justice, the generosity, of Englishmen; of men, who had been the guardians, the assertors, and vindicators of liberty through a succession of ages: Men, who, with their swords, had established the firm barrier of freedom, and ce mented it with the blood of heroes. Every effort was vain: for, even whilst we were prostrated at the foot of the throne, that fatal blow was struck, which hath separated us forever. Thus spurned, contemned and insulted; thus driven by our enemies into measures, which our souls abhorred, we made a solemn appeal to the tribunal of unerring wisdom and justice. To that Almighty Ruler of Princes, whose kingdom is over all. We were then quite defenceless. Without arms, without ammunition, without clothing, without ships, without money, without officers skilled in war; with no other reliance but the bravery of our people and the justice of our cause. We had to contend with a nation great in arts and in arms, whose fleets covered the ocean, whose banners had waved in triumph through every quarter of the globe. However unequal this contest, our weakness was still farther increased by the enemies which America had nourished in her bosom. Thus exposed, on the one hand, to external force and internal divisions; on the other to be compelled to drink of the bitter cup of slavery, and to go sorrowing all our lives long; in this sad alternative, we chose the former. To this alternative we were reduced by men, who, had they been animated by one spark of generosity, would have disdained to take such mean advantage of our situation; or, had they paid the least regard to the rules of justice, would have considered with abhorrence a proposition to injure those who had faithfully fought their battles, and industriously contributed to rear the edifice of their glory. But, however great the injustice of our foes in commencing this war, it is by no means equal to that cruelty with which they have conducted it. The course of their armies is marked by rapine and devastation. Thousands, without distinction of age or sex, have been driven from their peaceful abodes, to encounter the rigours of inclement seasons; and the face of heaven hath been insulted by the wanton conflagration of defenceless towns. Their victories have been followed by the cool murder of men, no longer able to resist; and those who escaped from the first act of carnage have been exposed, by cold, hunger and nakedness, to wear out a miserable existence in the tedious hours of confinement, or to become the destroyers of their countrymen, of their friends, perhaps, dreadful idea! of their parents or children. Nor was this the outrageous barbarity of an individual, but a system of deliberate malice, stamped with the concurrence of the British legislature, and sanctioned with all the formalities of law. Nay, determined to dissolve the closest bonds of society, they have stimulated servants to slay their masters in the peaceful hour of domestic security. And, as if all this were insufficient to slake their thirst of blood, the blood of brothers, of unoffending brothers, they have excited the Indians against us; and a general, who calls himself a christian, a follower of the merciful Jesus, hath dared to proclaim to all the world, his intention of letting loose against us whole hosts of savages, whose rule of warfare is promiscuous carnage; who rejoice to murder the infant smiling in its mother's arms; to inflict on their prisoners the most excruciating torments, and exbibit scenes of horror from which nature recoils. Were it possible, they would have added to this terrible system: for they have offered the inhabitants of these states to be exported by their merchants to the sickly, baneful climes of India, there to perish: an offer not accepted of, merely from the impracticability of carrying it into execution. Notwithstanding these great provocations, we have treated such of them as fell into our hands, with tenderness, and studiously endeavoured to alleviate the afflictions of their captivity. This conduct we have pursued so far, as to be by them stigmatized with cowardice, and by our friends with folly. But our dependance was not upon man. It was upon Him, who hath commanded us to love our enemies and to render good for evil. And what can be more wonderful than the manner of our deliverance? How often have we been reduced to distress, and yet been raised up? When the means to prosecute the war have been wanting to us, have not our foes themselves been rendered instrumental in providing them? This hath been done in such a variety of instances, so peculiarly marked almost by the direct interposition of Providence, that not to feel and acknowledge his protection, would be the height of impious ingratitude. At length that God of battles, in whom was our trust, hath conducted us through the paths of danger and distress, to the thresholds of security. It hath now become morally certain, that, if we have courage to persevere, we shall establish our liberties and independence. The haughty prince who spurned us from his feet with contumely and disdain; and the parliament which proscribed us, now descend to offer terms of accommodation. Whilst in the full career of victory, they pulled off the mask, and avowed their intended despotism. But having lavished in vain the blood and treasure of their subjects, in pursuit of this execrable purpose, they now endeavour to ensnare us with the insidious offers of peace. They would seduce you into a dependance which, necessarily, inevitably leads to the most humiliating slavery. And do they believe that you will accept these fatal terms? Because you have suffered the distresses of war, do they suppose that you will basely lick the dust before the feet of your destroyers? Can there be an American so lost to the feelings which adorn |