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PREMONITION

TO TEACHERS AND PARENTS;

BUT

MORE PARTICULARLY TO MOTHERS.

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1. And, to you, my fair countrywomen, the pride, the delight of this nation—decked with all those native charms and cultivated graces, which can adorn the female character, whose moral influence, mild and unassuming, pervades every department of private and social life, to you, is assigned a most important, a most pleasing task. In the revered characters of wives, of mothers, the earliest guardians and instructers of those who will form the future citizens of this republic,' upon your conduct depends their future usefulness to their country, her glory, or her shame.

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2. It is yours to elicit and direct the first dawnings of that reason upon the due regulation of which depend their present, their eternal happiness. Instil into their infant minds the sacred principles of religion, and the great moral lessons it in culcates next to their duty to their God, instruct them in their duties to their country Show to them, the intimate, the ne cessary connexion between those sacred relations, as their reason and judgment expand; read to them the Declaration of American Independence; let its golden truths, its sacred principles be deeply impressed upon their minds; direct them to the farewell address of Washington,' and bid them regard its precepts as the injunctions of a dying parent to his children, to be indelibly engraved upon their memories.

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3. Let the examples of Franklin and Laurens, of Jefferson and Adams, of Green and Warren, of Kosciusco and La Fayette, and the host of worthies, whose names illumine the pages of our history, be ever held up to them for imitation. Tel them of their patriotic zeal, and firmness in the senate; of their heroic valour, and undaunted fortitude in the field; and for a consummation of all that can dignify the hero, the patriot, the statesman, the sage and the Christian-name to them WASHINGTON.

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4. From the glare and brilliancy of his public life, lead them to his retirement-show whither this venerable patriot, voluntarily retiring from the ardent gaze and plaudits of an admiring world-having applied his best years to the service of his country, he devoted the residue of his days to his friends, to his family, and to his God. In his character let them see the rare combination of the noblest, the most elevated attributes of the hero and the magistrate, with the industry, the economy, the exact regularity, and all the social virtues of the obedient, the useful citizen-To close the impressive lesson, point them to the glorious consummation of his character, in his pious resignation, and his death.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

The Unanimous Declaration of the Congress of the Thirteen United States of America, passed July 4, 1776.*

1. 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

2. We hold these truths to be self-evident :-that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable ights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deiving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Fight of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new goernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its

DEAR SIR,

* "Philadelphia, July 5, 1776.

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America, nd greater, perhaps, never was or will be decided among men. A resolution was passed, ithout one dissenting Colony, that these United States are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."

"The day is passed. The 4th of July, 1776, will be a memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival; it ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by soemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shows, ames, sports, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from his time forward forever! You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I m well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost to maintain this declara ion, and support and defend these States; yet, through all the gloom, I can see a ray of ight and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means; and that pos erity will triumph, although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not JOHN ADAMS.

Yours, &c.

powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their sa ty and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments lor established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and ad cordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishin the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuse and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design t 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 futur security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; an such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former sys tems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct ob ject, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. T prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

3. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessay for the public good.

4. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pres ing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his assent shoul 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.

5. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom fortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

6. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

7. 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.

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8. 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 migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

9. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his asent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

10. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

11. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarm

of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

12. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

13. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superiou to, the civil power.

14. 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 :

15. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

16. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment, for any urders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States: 17. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: 18. For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

19. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: 20. For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences:

21. 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:

22. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments:

23. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves inrested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

24. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

25. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

26. 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 paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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 brown, and that all political connexion between them and the stato 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, cor 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 fortunes, and our sacred honour.

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JOHN

New-Jersey.
Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart,
Abraham Clark.

Pennsylvania.
Robert Morris,
Benjamin Rush,
Benjamin Franklin,
John Morton,
George Clymer,
James Smith,

George Taylor,
James Wilson,
George Ross.

Delaware.
Cesar Rodney,
George Read,
Thomas M'Kean.

Maryland.
Samuel Chase,

William faca,

HANCOCK, President.
Thomas Stone,

C. Carroll, of Carrollton.

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ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION..

Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, passed in Congress, July 8, 1778, between the states of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, NewJersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolira, South-Carolina, and Georgia.

ARTICLE 1.

1. The style of this confederacy shall be, "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."

ARTICLE 2.

1. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.

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