Key-Notes of American Liberty. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ our country during critical periods of our political life. It is a book of our country as a whole; all must read it with emotions of gratitude and pride at the grandeur and stability of our institutions as exemplified by the eloquent words of the statesmen and leading spirits of the great Republic.

      First in its pages, appropriately, will be found the "Declaration of Independence," the great corner stone of American liberty; and as a fitting close, one of our most distinguished historians has furnished a "History of the Flag,"—the Flag of the Union, the sacred emblem around which are clustered the memories of the thousands of heroes who have struggled to sustain it untarnished against both foreign and domestic foes. To the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, and Washington's Farewell Address—truly "Key Notes to American Liberty"—have been added many important proclamations and congressional acts of a later day, namely: President Jackson's famous Nullification Proclamation to South Carolina, The Monroe Doctrine, Dred Scott Decision, Neutrality laws, with numerous documents, state papers and statistical matter growing out of the late Rebellion; all of which will be read with new and ever increasing interest. And as long as our Republic endures, these pages will be cherished as the representative of all that is great and good in our country; and will prove incentives to our children to follow in the footsteps of the patriots by whose genius and valor our institutions have been cherished and preserved, and liberty, like water made to run throughout the land free to all.

      Key-Notes of American Liberty.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

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      In Congress, July 4, 1776.

      By the Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled.

A DECLARATION.

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      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 for 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 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 to abolish it, and to institute a 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, 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 system 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 right 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 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 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 harass 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 law in a neighboring 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 government:

      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, burned our towns, and destroyed СКАЧАТЬ