| LITERARY
GENIUS
On
June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, read
aloud a resolution to Congress:
Resolved,
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 connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. / That
it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual
measures for forming foreign Alliances. / That a plan
of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the
respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation. |
Lee’s Resolution, as it came to be known, was not initially
supported by all of the colonies, but eventually formed the
crux of the subsequent Declaration. Congress postponed consideration
of Lee’s Resolution, and on June 11 appointed a committee
of five delegates to draft a declaration of independence.
The committee consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
In a letter to James Madison, Jefferson confided that the
committee “unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake
the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported
it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin
and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections…” Congress
reconvened on July 1 after a three week recess. The following
day, all but one of the colonies (New York did not vote) adopted
the Lee Resolution, prompting John Adams to proclaim in a
letter to his wife: “The Second Day of July, 1776, will
be the most memorable...in the History of America.”
He was, of course, mistaken; Congress officially adopted the
Declaration two days later, after making several modifications
to Jefferson’s draft. The handwritten manuscript was
sent to John Dunlap, official printer to Congress, who made
between 150 and 200 copies. The 25 copies still known to exist
today are known as the “Dunlap broadsides.”
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
by Thomas Jefferson, et. al.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America
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. ------- We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable 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 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 shewn, 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 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 a ccommodation of large districts of People, unless
those People
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