among the great body of the people. They felt that the period for reconciliation had gone by; the blood of American citizens had been shed on the plains of Lexington and Concord, and on the heights of Bunker Hill, and nothing was now left but a resort to arms, and an assumption of their rights as an independent nation.

On Friday, June seventh, 1776, in conformity with the instructions given them by the Convention, the Virginia delegates in Congress moved, "that the Congress should 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; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a confederation be formed to bind the colonists more closely together." A proposition like this, fraught as it was with the most momentous consequences, was not to be adopted hastily. It was very fully discussed on the Saturday and Monday following, when the further consideration of it was postponed to the first day of July, and a committee of five were appointed in the mean time to draft a Declaration of Independence. This committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of the committee, was desired by his colleagues to prepare the draft.

Here let us pause for a moment, and consider the causes, which, operating for a series of years, had at last led, or rather compelled, the colonists, to sever the ties which had so long bound them to England.

The measures which Great Britain had adopted towards her American colonies, had ever been most arbitrary and unjust. These colonies had grown up entirely without her aid or fostering care. Separated by the wide Atlantic from every civilized nation, unassisted by the troops or the money of England, they had struggled successfully against all the dangers and disadvantages of their situation. With a savage foe continually hovering on their borders, and whose incursions were every where marked by the blood of their wives and children, and the ashes of their dwellings, the settlers had still subdued the forests, cultivated the soil, built up flourishing towns over every part of the Atlantic States, and sent forth their ships to every part of the commercial world. When the parent saw her colonies thus rapidly increasing in wealth and power, and that, so far from being a burden and a drawback, they could be made a source of a great and continually growing revenue, it was then that she thought of protection. From that moment it became the fixed and determined policy of the British government to make America, in every thing, contribute to the wealth, the importance, and the glory of England; and every measure tended to this end, no matter how injurious in its effects to the colonies. One of the first encroachments upon their rights was, by denying them the exercise of free trade with all parts of the world. In order to make them a source of profit, Great Britain was to be the depot of all their most valuable exports, which were afterwards to be shipped to other countries by the British merchant for his own benefit. All the most necessary articles for home consumption were to be purchased

of the British manufacturers, at such prices as they, fearing no competition from abroad, might choose to deinand; and, to enhance this profit, the colonies were not only forbidden to purchase of any other nation than England, but even to manufacture themselves. Or if this privilege was in any case granted them, they were prohibited from advancing beyond the first stages, and were only allowed to prepare the material for the hands of the British workman; and the Governors of the different provinces were directed, under severe penalties, to abate the manufactories and mills of certain sorts as common nuisances. But Great Britain did not content herself with barely regulating the commerce of her colonies, she soon interfered with their domestic affairs, and made manifest her determination to reduce them to a state of absolute dependence and subjection. It is not our intention here to particularize all the various encroachments upon American liberties; such detail would far exceed the narrow compass of this work. Let the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Boston Port Bill, bear witness to those invasions. But the descendants of those men who had dared all the hardships of an inhospitable shore, and an unexplored wilderness, were not to be tamely enslaved; they were not the men to sit quietly by, and see their rights and liberties, as Englishmen, as men, one by one taken from them, without raising a voice or an arm in their defence. They believed, that although the Atlantic rolled between, they were still entitled to the same rights and the same privileges as British subjects in the old world, and they determined to contend for those rights. When the course of oppression began, they petitioned; those petitions were but the occasion of new injuries. They remonstrated respectfully, but firmly; those remonstrances were disregarded, insult was added to oppression, and every opportunity was taken to irritate and exasperate them. In vain did Burke raise his voice against this mad policy of the Ministry; in vain did Chatham warn them of the disastrous consequences. Led on by a blind fate, they heeded not, they stopped not, till America, stript of every resource, and driven to desperation, could only appeal to arms. The moment when that appeal was to be made, so full of interest, so big with the destinies of a world, had now arrived. The step which was now to be taken, could never be retraced; the declaration now to be made could never be recalled; once made, there could be no hope of reconciliation but in absolute submission. The Rubicon was before them. On the one side was slavery; on the otherclouds and darkness.

What must have been the feelings of that man-what the emotions which swelled his breast-who was charged with the preparation of that Declaration, which, while it made known the wrongs of America, was also to publish her to the world, free, sovereign, and independent? For himself he had not a thought; a cold, calculating prudence, in vain warned him how great was the risk, how few the chances of success; in vain told him of his country pillaged by foreign troops, and deluged in the blood of its own citizens; in vain pointed to the gibbet, the rebel's doom. What though the loss of all things, and the death of a traitor were before him-it was his country demanded the sacrifice, and it was cheerfully made. Through all the darkness of the present, he saw the brightness of the

future; he saw, in imagination, his country the abode of a free and happy people, and he was content; his hand trembled not, as he wrote, America, Free and Independent.

Living as we now do in a free land, far removed from all the troubles and vicissitudes of war, in the full enjoyment of liberties, which seem as necessary to our existence as the air we breathe, we can hardly conceive of the thoughts which must have crowded on the mind of Jefferson, while penning the Declaration of Independence. A man of weaker mind, or ess firmness and decision of character, would have been overwhelmed, ⚫ and have shrunk in dismay from the task. But Jefferson did not disappoint the high expectations which had been formed of him. He went to his task with the full assurance that his cause was the cause of liberty; and he rose from it confirmed in the resolution, to die, if necessary, in its defence. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most remarkable papers ever written; and did no other effort of the mind of its author exist, that alone would be sufficient to stamp his name with immortality. The Declaration, as drafted by Mr. Jefferson, was by him submitted to his colleagues, and, after a few unimportant alterations made by them, was reported by the committee, and read on Friday, the twenty-eighth of June. The original motion made by the Virginia delegation, namely, that Congress should declare the colonies free, sovereign, and independent, having been disposed of in the affirmative, on Tuesday, the second of July, by a vote of all the States except New-York, (whose members did not consider themselves authorized by their instructions to vote on this question,) Congress proceeded to a consideration of the Declaration, which, after being debated during the greater parts of the second, third, and fourth of July, and after some passages which were thought objectionable had been stricken out, and some other alterations made, was finally agreed to by the House, and signed on the evening of the fourth by all the members present, except Mr. Dickinson.

The Declaration of Independence is so intimately connected with the name of Thomas Jefferson, that any sketch of his life would seem imperfect without it. We therefore present it as originally reported by him, together with the alterations of Congress.

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in [General] Congress assembled.*

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.

The parts struck out by Congress are printed in italics, and enclosed in brackets; und the parts added are placed in the margin, or in a concurrent column.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with [inherent and] inalienable 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 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 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 [begun at a distinguished period and] 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 [expunge] their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain, is a history of [unremitting] injuries and usurpations, [among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have] in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, [for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.]

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 legis lature, 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 representatives houses repeatedly [and

certain

alter repeated

all having

obstructed

by

continually] for opposing with manly firmness, his inva sions 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 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 migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has [suffered] the administration of justice, [totally to cease in some of these states,] refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made [our] judges dependant 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, [by a selfassumed power] and sent hither swarms of new officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies [and ships of war] 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 constitutions, 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 with in many cases out our consent; for depriving us [ ] 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 neighboring province; establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instru ment for introducing the same absolute rule into these [states:] 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.

colonies

He has abdicated government here, [withdrawing his gov ernors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection.] war against us

T